Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 1, No. 8 (1927-05)

The Phonograph Monthly Review 330 VSl EiJJ 1 ' —A-—"- 1 " 1 ~~ " * . Rusalka’s Motive from Dvorak’s opera “Rusalka” (pron. roo’ssalka, The Water Nymph). Antonin Dvorak By Dr. J. E. S. VO JAN Chicago H ANS SACHS sings in Wagner's “Master- singers of Nuremberg": “Thsn sang he (Walther von Stolzing) as Nature bade; and to his need the power was granted from her dower" (the original says it in a much better, lapidary style: “Nun sang er, wie er musst'; und wie er musst', so konnt' er's."). And in these words is the entire story of Antonin Dvorak. Al- though without any better education than a vil- lage school could give him, he gave to the world's music immortal symphonies, chamber music works and oratorios. America is indebted to him forever for the best symphony ever written in this country, the splendid symphony “From the New World." For the history of the modern Bohemian music Dvorak means the completion of Smetana's work: Smetana wrote monumental operas and symphonic poems, Dvorak wrote mon- umental symphonies, oratorios and chamber mu- sic works. Dvorak was born at Nelahozeves upon Vltava, a small village not far from Prague, on Septem- ber 8, 1841. His father Frank was the village butcher and innkeeper who after 13 years moved to Zlonice, a little town where Antonin found a good music teacher in the old schoolmaster An- tonin Liehmann who taught him elementary theory, violin, viola, piano and organ playing. He called his father's attention to the great talent of Antonin, but—the financial conditions of the innkeeper were so bad that he could not make any other decision than to make the son his successor. So Antonin became a butcher's apprentice for one year, until Liehmann's insistence and an uncle's promise of aid changed the situation. The father allowed Antonin to go to Prague, and in the fall of 1857 the 16-year old boy entered the organ- school in Prague. “The fate which gave the world a composer of music robbed Bohemia of a butcher," says H. E. Krehbiel. In Prague Dvorak kept himself alive by play- ing the viola in Komzak's private band which in 1862 became the nucleus of the Interim Theatre orchestra, the conductor of which Smetana be- came four years later. From 1862 Dvorak began to compos?, but he did not venture before the public until 1873, when he made his first bid for popularity by a patriotic cantata “Dedicove Bile Hory" (The Heirs of the White Mountain,—the name of the battlefield where Bohemia lost her independence in 1620). The same year Dvorak married his pupil Miss Anna Cermak (she sur- vived her husband and is still living in Prague) and became organist of St. Vojtech's church. In February, 1875, a brighter star appeared in the sky for the striving composer. He received 400 florins ($160 at that time) from the govern- mental fund for the encouragement of poor, tal- ented composers. The main thing, however, was the interest which his music had awakened in three members of the jury, composer Johannes Brahms, critic Dr. Eduard Hanslick and con- ductor of the Vienna Opera Johann Herbeck. Brahms recommended Dvorak's works to his pub- lisher Simrock in Berlin, and the first composi- tion published in 1877 by Simrock, “Slavonic Dances," took the public by storm. These piano- forte duets, full of glittering melody and rhythm, ravished Germany and England and in orchestral form found their way into the concert halls of Berlin, London and New York (here Theodore Thomas brought them forward in the winter of 1879-1880). Dvorak's name became known to the entire musical world. On March 10, 1883, the London Musical Society performed Dvorak's oratorio “Stabat Mater." The work created a veritable sensation, which was intensified by a repetition under the direc- tion of Dvorak himself three days later, and by a performance at the Worcester festival in 1884. Dvorak now became the idol of the English choral festivals. In 1885 he composed “Svatebni kosile" (The Spectre's Bride) for Birmingham, in 1886 “St. Ludmila" for Leeds, in 1891 the “Requiem" for Birmingham. The composer who in the seventies found it pretty hard to pay 2 florins a month for the rent of a poor piano now won newer and newer triumphs. The greatest conductors like Hans Richter and Hans Buelow in Germany, Seidl in New York, Nikisch in Bos- ton and Thomas in Chicago, performed his sym- phonical compositions, the famous Joachim String Quartet played his chamber music works, and in 1891, on Dvorak's fiftieth birthday, the University of Cambridge in England conferred on him the degree of doctor of music, then the