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

The Phonograph Monthly Review 333 ‘.'SIC BIBLICAL SONGS, OP. 99. NO. 7 By the Waters of Babylon. Victor 68271—Janpolski, in German. FOUR SONGS IN FOLK TONE, OP. 73, NO. 2 Amowing stood a lovely maid. Victor 87324—Emmy Destinn, in Bohemian. Operas: THE SLY PEASANT Air of the Prince. Victor 16207—Bohumil Benoni, in Bohem- ian. DIMITRI Air of Dimitri. Gramophone Company, Ltd., 2-82216—Karel Burian, in Bohemian. RUSALKA (Water-Nymph) Air of Rusalka, “Oh lovely moon”. Victor 88519—Emmy Destinn, in German. Air of the Prince, “Oh strange vision”. Gramophone Com- pany, Ltd., 2-72008—Otokar Marak; V-4-102529—Fr. Pacal, both in Bohemian. SYMPHONY FROM THE NEW WORLD H.M.V. D 536, 537, 587, 613—Sir Landon Ronald and Royal Albert Hall Orchestra. CARNEVAL OVERTURE H.M.V. D 1062—Ronald and the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra (Electric). QUARTET IN F MAJOR Complete Victor 9069-71—Budapest String Quartet (Electric). Vox 0655-7—Bohemian String Quartet. Vocalion—London String Quartet. Lento alone. English Columbia L 1465—Lener String Quartet. SLAVONIC DANCES No. 8 (mislabeled No. 1). Victor 6649—Chicago Symphony, Frederick Stock, conductor (Electric). VIOLONCELLO CONCERTO (In 2 parts only.) Parlophone E 10482—Teuermann. GYPSY SONGS Songs My Mother Taught Me. Victor 20494—Associated Glee Clubs cf America (Electric). H.M.V. DB 363—Nellie Melba, HUMORESKE No. 7, Piano. Victor 20203—Hans Barth (Electric). H.M.V. E 13—Mark Hambourg. Reminiscences of One of Dvorak’s Pupils By WILLIAM ARMS FISHER I T WAS my good fortune to study composition and orchestration with Dvorak for two years when he was Director of the National Con- servatory in New York. At the same time I was an instructor in harmony in the institution and was therefore naturally brought into frequent contact with Dvorak. I first saw him at the con- cert given in his honor in Carnegie Hall, October 21, 1892. As his pupil I came to realize how sim- ple and modest by nature he was. New York tried to lionize him but the pose of a lion was altogether foreign to his nature and the noise and hurry of New York life only intensified his love of home. One day he spoke of this to me and said that sitting in the quiet of his home he loved most to read his Bible and Shakespeare. I music his great fondness was for Beethoven and Schubert. One day he asked me to attend a rehearsal of the Conservatory Orchestra. They were playing one of Beethoven's earliest sym- phonies. The playing was rough, the intonation was often faulty, so much so in fact that between two of the movements I asked the dear man how he could stand it. “Ah,” he said, “they are play- ing Beethoven and I would rather hear Beet- hoven badly played than not to hear him.” His broadminded catholic spirit toward music of every type, no matter how humble, was a domi- nant characteristic. He habitually stopped to listen to every itinerant street band, with its dented or cracked instruments, to every hurdy- gurdy, to the tunes whistled by boys and to the songs of the hour that lesser musicians scorned as unworthy of notice. On these occasions Dvor- ak never failed to put his hand in his pocket for he, too, had been a street musician and under- stood. With the same spirit with which Newton re- garded a pebble on the beach he listened to every stray note of music. I well remember his once telling me how in the evening before he had been trudging through the snow with one of his boys to look in the windows of toy shops, for it was Christmas time, and the boy caught sight of a toy piano in the window and said Dvorak, “I looked and on the piano was a lettle musik und das musik war gut, so I took out my pencil and wrote it down.” When therefore with this eager spirit Dvorak for the first time heard Negro spirituals sung he became engrossed in them as something new and distinctive. He said “They are the most striking and appealing melodies that have yet been found on this side of the water.” His enthusiasm for them was that of a natural- ist who in a strange land comes across in his rambles a new and to him hitherto unknown flower. This enthusiasm, this discovery, led Dvorak not to any literal transaction or direct use of Negro themes but after first saturating himself in the Negro idiom he embodied his de- light in this new-found treasure in his Symphony from the New World , Op. 95, his String Quartet, Op. 96, and String Quintet , Op. 97. It was my good fortune to hear the Kneisel Quartet read at sight on a Sunday morning at the Conservatory the Quartet and Quintet, an un- forgettable experience. Mrs. Thurber, the head of the Conservatory, was of course there, a few