Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 3, No. 8 (1929-05)

256 The Phonograph Monthly Review May, 1929 where he was a gold medal graduate, who has been out of work almost continuously for the past two years. He declared that there were at least 1500 to 2000 musicians out of work in New York alone,—all of them excellent artists on their in- struments and of sufficient ability and experience to join any of the leading orchestras in this or any other country. Then again there are those unfortunate foreign musicians who have been lured over here by false promises by unscrupulous agents abroad. I hap- pen to know several most pitiful cases in New York, Philadelphia, and right here in Boston. One of my very best friends has been compelled to go abroad for three months every summer for the last three years, returning on new permits in the fall for the concert season. This artist receives around $3000 for the season here, and after he has paid his living expenses in this coun- try, his trips back and forth to Europe, and his expenses abroad, he has nothing left. Last year he had considerable sickness in his family and he came to me and expressed the fear that he would actually starve during his stay in England if he were to try to save up for his trip back in the fall. I gave him a letter to Mr. Louis Ster- ling, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Columbia Companies, and I am very happy to say that Mr. Sterling received him with open arms, and sent him to the Clerkenwell Road laboratories with a letter to the Musical Director requesting that he be given an opportunity to play for recording. He played every day during his stay in England and came back to this coun- try able to look forward to the coming season free from financial worries, having saved up quite a little money thanks to Mr. Sterling’s kind consideration. This is only one of many cases that has come to us every season. Therefore, for both art and humanity’s sake let music lovers get together to agitate for an amendment to the existing law which would permit worthy foreign artists already in this country to remain here and to become American citizens. The Dvorak Recordings By ROBERT DONALDSON DARRELL T HE twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Antonin Dvorak (May 1, 1904) has not been made the occasion of any wholesale issue of recordings such as marked the observance of the recent Beethoven and Schubert cen- tenaries. Granted that the Dvorak anniversary by no means approached the others in historical and personal significance, it offered an apt opportunity for paying a deserved homage to the great Bohemian. America as well as his native country has long reserved a warm place in its) heart for him, not only in remembrance of his own stay here as head of the National Conservatory, but for the influence of the works writen here and the example his great, uncabined spirit and abhorrence of sham and showmanship set for our native musicians. Yet if the phonograph companies have not utilized this anniversary for the issue of several Dvorak compositions in recorded form, they have not denied him generous attention l in the past. And as our interest in Dvorak has received fresh impetus this month, it is quite fitting that we examine our phonographic repertory of Dvorak works, in the manner in which the recorded Schubert literature was reviewed in the Schubert Centennial issue of this magazine last Novem- ber. I have stated that the phonograph companies have given Dvorak generous attention in the past,—praise which is qualified by the fact that they have frequently been more generous than discriminating. A piece like the thrice- familiar Humoresque necessarily becomes so hackneyed on account of its extreme popularity that its original light grace and pleasing lithesomeness are quite lost sight of. The piece no longer adds anything to its composer’s reputation. And yet such a piece is an ideal subject for recording because its records will be heard by thousands where larger and more significant works would be heard by relatively few. And to many of the people who provide the great market for Humoresque records the piece comes as music that is fresh and new, rich with a feeling they have never found in their customary diet of popular ditties and dance music. It is not altogether safe for the musical connoisseur to sneer at the Humoresque; it has played its part in the unending process of musical education and that part has been no unworthy one. The Humoresque, by the way, is the seventh in a series of eight “Humoresky,” Op. 101, written for piano solo* It is recorded in this form, presumably in the original ver- sion, by Mark Hambourg for H. M. V. (For the order numbers of this and other records referred to see the list of Dvorak recordings printed at the end of this article.) The Humoresque has always been best known, however, in the arangement for violin and piano and in this version it has been recorded by many excellent artists. That by Mischa Elman has perhaps enjoyed first favor and not unjustly so. Only second to the Humoresque in popularity is I he fourth of the Gypsy Songs Op. 55, “Songs My Mother Taught Me.” This, too, is available in a number of different arrangements and by a variety of artists. There are only two American electrical records of the song as a soprano solo available at present, those by Rosa Ponselle for Victor and Barbara Maurel for Columbia. In England there are electrical recordings by Leila Megane and Leonard (Row- ings. Of the acoustical recordings two are of exceptional