My Life in Objects -- XV (Dvorak)

 

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The George Szell -- Cleveland Orchestra recording of Dvorak's New World Symphony, which I purchased sometime about 1952, was the first "long playing" album that I ever owned. The record jacket illustrated above is not, I'm sorry to say, the correct one. I couldn't locate the proper image on the internet, and my own copy of the recording failed to make the cut when we moved to smaller quarters in 2009. The design of the jacket is, however, imprinted on my memory: a water color of a rural landscape against a neutral blue-gray background. The Symphony was No.5 in those days but the reissue uses the renumbered system which became conventional in the 80s, I believe, and caused the New World to be demoted, or promoted, to No.9. Whatever the number, whatever the jacket, I listened to that recording hundreds, many hundreds of times, and I know every note.

Although my mother loved classical music and listened daily to WQXR, our family did not own a phonograph. Eventually, sometime around 1953 or 1954, a record player appeared courtesy of my older brother Eugene, who set it up in his bedroom and also bought a few albums. His collection consisted of a few Broadway musicals and some pop standards (Sinatra and the Mills Brothers for sure). He allowed me to use his machine when he wasn't at home. What an opportunity! I memorized Oklahoma and Guys and Dolls, among others.

When I was eleven or twelve years old, I was home from school of a week. Was it whooping cough? The radio became my constant companion (no TV in those years). Every day for a week, I listened to a "dramatization" of a novel by Dumas. I believe it was Twenty Years After, but I can't be positive. The story was not memorable, nor were the performances, but the "background music" was to my ears astonishingly beautiful. On Friday, when the story came to conclusion, it was announced that the music that had entranced me was the New World Symphony.  

After I gained access to Eugene's record player, I saved my nickels and for $1.98, the standard price of LPs at that time, I bought a copy of the Symphony. It was an expenditure of significance, even for someone who was pulling down $.75 an hour shelving books at the local public library.

Having discovered that one could buy and own recorded music, I little-by-little added to my collection. By the time I graduated from college, I owned ten or a dozen recordings. I remember Dennis Brain's performance of Mozart's Horn Concertos, Paul Kletzki's version of Mahler's Symphony #1, an Angel recording of Bach's Magnificat, and a Prokoviev Lieutenant Kije Suite. There were a few others that I can no longer remember. But none of them were as important as the Szell Dvorak, which was my gateway to the classics.

I'm listening to it now. Via Alexa.

Comments

[Don Z. Block]

Dvorak fans received a big gift when those symphonies were renumbered and many of his previously unrecorded works began to appear in albums put out by Supraphon. I used to buy them in a record store across the street from the Strand bookstore. His early symphonies are not that good, but each has at least one movement that is memorable (meaning I can whistle it). The one movement in the 3rd symphony that stands out has a Wagnerian sound that could have been written by Wagner himself if Wagner had been as nice a guy as Dvorak.

[Darrell Fancourt]

P.S. I believe your Kodaly LP was on Columbia with Bernstein conducting the NYPO.

[Darrell Fancourt]

The first time I ever heard the Mahler was when you played your LP for me in 1957. The LP sleeve was mostly plain, light brown I think, except for a small white square in the upper right-hand corner containing the information: Mahler Symphony No. 1, Paul Kletzki conducting the Israel Philharmonic. As with most Angel records of that time, the pressing was bad and there was a lot of surface noise - ruinous to the sustained pianissimo passages that begin the first movement. You also played a Kodaly/Prokofiev LP, the first time I'd ever heard the Hary Janos Suite. Both the Mahler and the Kodaly have remained favourites ever since. Other than that, I don't remember much about your LPs.