The Edison phonograph monthly (Jan-Dec 1912)

12 Edison Phonograph Monthly, Jan., 1912 Concerning Record No. 900 The average Dealer, looking over our supplement for February, 1912, probably would not, under ordinary circumstances, give more than passing consideration to Amberol Record No. 900, "Kamenoi Ostrow," by the American Symphony Orchestra. The Record is one of such unusual beauty, however, and the selection on it has such a pretty inspiration behind it, that we feel constrained to here dwell at greater length on it than is possible in the limited space allotted to the Record descriptions in another section of the Monthly. Kamenoi Ostrow, or Kamenoi Island in English, lies in the Neva River near St. Petersburg. Any afternoon in summer if you walk to the furthest extremity of its pine-treed avenues, you can see Finland in the distance, beyond a strip of sea, silvered under this clear, northern light. The delicate white chalets of the rich Petersburgers are set like pearls amid its greenness. Verdure and silvering lights are so rare in raw, blizzardly Russia that they make of this fitly a poetic spot, and when the chimes of the island bells break melodiously upon your ear you are ready to believe that Arcady is in Russia and not Greece. It was like this when Rubinstein, the dreamyeyed, wandered here, happy and enchanted with the bells. Their music so haunted his ears that on his return to the chalet of the Grand Duchess Helene, whose honored guest he was, he wrote his famous sonata of "Kamenoi Ostrow," in which the soft chimes of the bells ring as sweetly as they do still on the island. The sympathy of his remarkable hostess, who divined the bud of genius in him long before it flowered, and the appreciation of the cultivated circle surrounding her helped him to that confidence necessary for his first authoritative work. No wonder he was so happy here that his happiness sung itself out of him. For who was he to be on an equality with the autocratic aristocracy of Russia? A Jew, against whose family the Emperor's edict forbidding them even to dwell in any one place had worked such hardship that the elder Rubinstein cannily turned Christian. Wonder-eyed, he used to watch his mother, a cultivated German, when she was at the piano. At five he had constructed for himself a violin out of some old pieces of wood and discarded elastic. Soon he became a boy prodigy, one of the few instances where youthful precocity has made good in maturity. When he was only ten years old, in 1839, he enthralled his first concert audience, and all through the cholera plagues of 1848, 1849 and 1850, all Russia, with its "eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die" recklessness, rushed to hear the musician. From pianist he leaped upward to opera composer. It was on the first night of his first opera in St. Petersburg that the Grand Duchess Helene met him and told him "he would come to something yet." Their friendship grew until she made him one of her own circle in Kamenoi Ostrow, and from that friendship of a great lady for an outcast and wanderer and its idyllic surroundings flowed the work of Rubinstein's that his lovers love the best. We firmly believe that Dealers, by their concerted efforts and interest, can make a "special" out of this particular Record. It is not one that will appeal, without some particular argument, to the class of people who ordinarily buy the latest popular rag-time "hits," but we are anxious to determine just how far Dealers are able to make it go, by telling their customers (in all classes) what we have reviewed here. You Never Can Tell The opening of Franz Lehar's new opera, "Gypsy Love," calls to mind the following in* cident which occurred when "The Merry Widow" was in rehearsal. One of the leading critics came to the theatre and demanded, after his usual custom, to be admitted. He met with a blank refusal from Lehar, the composer. The manager, however, anxious to placate him, took him aside and whispered that it really didn't matter, because in a week's time another piece would be in rehearsal, which he would be welcome to see. "This just shows how an expert may be mistaken," said Lehar, in relating this incident recently. "The 'Merry Widow' ran in Vienna alone for a year and nine months." Superfluous, Yet Pleasant I would like to say here that the lasting qualities of an Edison Phonograph are really remarkable. I have had mine over fourteen years, and it is played four or five evenings out of every week. The repairs for the entire period do not amount to $4.50. Certainly the new Reproducers, Diaphragms, Horns and the Amberol Attachments cost more, but they all added to the value of the machine. All things considered, the Edison Phonographs and Records have no equal, and never did have. — W. G. Blitz, 61 Excelsior St., Pittsburg, Pa.