F1.

This is one of the loveliest tunes in a Symphony that abounds in such. Note the pentatonic nature of its opening half, and the contrast of the following four bars, in which the missing two notes of the scale re-appear.

The VIOLINS (Firsts and Seconds in Octaves) repeat this happy song, and with a three-note figure taken from its last bar but one, climb high up their compass. TROMBONE and STRING BASSES thunder out the opening of the same tune, and then, with a burst of energy, the WHOLE ORCHESTRA agrees wholeheartedly that every trace of pessimism is now swept away, and with that assertion they bring to an end the first section, or 'Exposition' of the Movement.

Here the first side of both H.M.V, and Columbia Records ends.

The Development of this material and its Recapitulation follow. The themes above quoted having been grasped, the course of these two further sections of the Movement will be quite clear.

A little tragic feeling is experienced in the Development and recurs at the end of the Recapitulation.

The Columbia Record is complete. The H.M.V. Record omits a few brief passages, which for the benefit of readers who wish to follow the Movement with their score may be indicated:

Introduction-Nothing omitted.

First Movement-Bars 76-83

106-113

285-288

301-308

335-342

These omissions are discreetly contrived and are of trifling importance, amounting only to 31 bars out of a total of about 430. Close-knit form not being a strong point with Dvorak, his work is more susceptible of judicious cutting than that of some other composers. Still the Columbia people have managed to avoid all cuts, and they have only given two sides to this Movement, the same as H.M.V. On the other hand, the H.M.V. Record of this particular Movement reproduces perhaps a rather better orchestral balance and steadier tone than the Columbia Record, especially in full passages, and the H.M.V. Trombones are decidedly better than the Columbia. Both H.M.V. and Columbia have, however, done substantial justice to the Movement.

Second Movement (Largo =Slow and broad in style).

True to his determination to write a genuine American symphony, Dvorak turned to Longfellow, and since he was already paying the Negro a compliment in the nature of some of his musical subject matter he determined to pay the Noble Redskin another in the choice of a poetical subject.

The Second Movement, which is on the whole a very lovely thing indeed, is intended, we are told, to express the composer's reflections upon the romantic love of Hiawatha and Minnehaha.

And made answer very gravely,
'Yes, if Minnehaha wishes;
Let your heart speak, Minnehaha!'
And the lovely Laughing Water

Seemed more lovely as she stood there,
Neither willing nor reluctant,

As she went to Hiawatha,

Softly took the seat beside him,

While she said, and blushed to say it,

'I will follow you, my husband!'
This was Hiawatha's wooing!

This Movement is in the key of D flat major, which, under its alias of C sharp major, is a not distant relative of E minor, the key of the previous Movement.

Dvorak seems to have been sanguine enough to suppose that people would not make the usual disturbance between the two Movements, and so has opened the second with a passage transitional from one to the other. It is a passage of low-lying chords, solemnly intoned by HORNS, Trumpets and TROMBONES (with Clarinets and Bassoons thrown in, since they happened to be at hand). It should begin very softly, ending in a swell to loudly, but neither Sir Landon Ronald nor Mr. Harty has succeeded in persuading his players to subdue their tone at the beginning, not even, indeed to play these chords in tune, the Hallé Wind players being really disgracefully 'out'.

Two bars of very soft chords by MUTED STRINGS follow -in the score and in the Columbia version, not in the H.M.V.!

Then begins one of the most beautiful musical themes in the whole of nineteenth century music. It is surprising what the economical Scots have done with the pentatonic scale, and it is surprising what the Bohemian butcher-boy can do with it. There is something of the 'five small loaves and two fishes' value about the five notes which make up this scale, when they come into the hands of racial and individual genius, and Dvorak has heightened the value by

F

entrusting this melody to the poetical COR ANGLAISwith Muted String accompaniment.

Cor Anglais.

When this melody has been extended and completed (a Clarinet at one point doubling it for a few bars, at the tenth below), its last few notes are twice echoed by CLARINET (with another Clarinet and Bassoons accompanying).

There follows the solemn chord passage with which the Movement opened, now lifted from the bottom of the orchestral compass to the top, and taken from the Brass and entrusted to the WOOD WIND.

Further treatment, very delicate and tender, of the melody just quoted follows (note especially the two Horns who play it as a duet, three notes apart from each other), and then steals in this further melody, in FLUTE and OBOE:

Flute & Oboe.

РР

Ρ

etc.

This again is pentatonic in its outline-insisting upon the Lah, Soh and Me of the scale in a very characteristically pentatonic way, and only admitting the seventh of the scale (the Te) as a mere passing-note connection between the Doh and the Lah.

Another tune which is heard is this (more of it is heard from Columbia than H.M.V., by the way, for the latter 'cuts' rather extensively in this Movement):

Still another tuneful passage is the one beginning as follows, of which the New York critic, Mr. Krehbiel, who was, I believe, in the Master's confidence, said, 'it may be intended to suggest the gradual awakening of animal life in the prairie scene; and striking use is made of trills, which are exchanged between the different instrumental choirs as if they were the voices of the night or dawn in converse'.

(This, to me, somehow brings thoughts of the pastoral piping of the hero of Iolanthe, which, by the way, was written in 1882, ten years before the work now under discussion, so in saying this I am making no reflection upon Sullivan. There is a good deal in common between Dvorak and Sullivan, by the way.)

So the Movement continues, making use of the material already quoted, and doing so in the most charming manner, with a strange mingling of simplicity and subtlety.

Towards the end there come a TROMBONE allusion or two to the First Subject of the previous Movement (better heard in H.M.V. than in Columbia), also allusions, in Horns and in Strings, to the Second Subject of that Movement and a little later a passage where MUTED VIOLINS carry the Main Tune of the Movement and twice break off, in what, if the device were not so poetically used, we might call a 'musical chairs' fashion.

Taking this Movement as a whole one may say of it, as of the previous Movement, that it overflows with lovely