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My first memories are related to the gramophone with the large horn and a picture of a little dog listening to the ‘voice of its master’ coming from the horn. [The ‘Gramophone dog’ has been the Symbol of EMI Records since 1909.] That was the first explanation they gave to me when I started asking questions. When I started going to school, I realized that what was written on the picture was the gramophone brand ‘His master’s voice.’ Ten or twelve years later, when I was in Bulgaria, I learned that these gramophones were also called ‘a dog’s brand’ [a Bulgarian idiom meaning ‘shoddily made’], but I didn’t understand all the connotations of the phrase yet.
At our home in Salonica there were a lot of records with the same dog on them. They were all opera and symphonic pieces. My sister played the piano. She was seven years older than me and studied music and singing from an early age. I remember that there was music playing at home all the time. Either Caruso [Enrico Caruso (1873-1921): a famous Italian tenor] would be heard from the gramophone or my sister would be singing and playing. Sometimes I would be taken for a walk to the ‘White Tower’ [Major attraction of Salonica’s seaside promenade, built by the Byzantines in the 15th century and the symbol of the city.], in front of which there was a park with an orchestra, which I was told I loved as a child. A number of years later I heard the same orchestra playing the famous overtures by Suppe, ‘The Light Cavalry’ and ‘Peasant and Poet’ [Franz von Suppe (1819-1895): a famous Austrian composer and conductor of operettas.] Nobody could foresee that I would become a conductor and those overtures would be part of my concert repertory. The whole operettas haven’t been performed in Bulgaria yet. When conducting them, my first memories of listening to them always resurfaced.
My relatives told me that I loved pretending to be a musician when I was a child. Obviously, my parents realized that my interest in music was deep and they bought me various musical toys. The first ones were some small violins. Naturally, I started out by ripping them to pieces to see what was inside. So, my father had to buy me a tin violin, which I couldn’t break. And it worked. You could tune up its strings and they played the right tones. I even keep a photo of mine with it: standing on a chair looking as if I’m just starting to play ‘Caprice’ by Paganini [Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840): a famous Italian virtuoso: violinist and composer]. Probably my parents were influenced by the media, which at that time wrote a lot about an infant prodigy, a violinist from the USA. His name was Yehudi; we had the same names, and so what? Due to the popularity of Yehudi Menuhin [Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999): one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century] my parents probably thought that I would be the next to play the violin around the whole world. But no! My photo is a total refutation of the proverb ‘The morning shows what the day will be.’ Never in my childhood did I play anything serious on the violin, let alone Paganini. Well, later, due to certain circumstances I found myself playing many other instruments through a small slender stick, without touching them physically, of course, only emotionally.
At our home in Salonica there were a lot of records with the same dog on them. They were all opera and symphonic pieces. My sister played the piano. She was seven years older than me and studied music and singing from an early age. I remember that there was music playing at home all the time. Either Caruso [Enrico Caruso (1873-1921): a famous Italian tenor] would be heard from the gramophone or my sister would be singing and playing. Sometimes I would be taken for a walk to the ‘White Tower’ [Major attraction of Salonica’s seaside promenade, built by the Byzantines in the 15th century and the symbol of the city.], in front of which there was a park with an orchestra, which I was told I loved as a child. A number of years later I heard the same orchestra playing the famous overtures by Suppe, ‘The Light Cavalry’ and ‘Peasant and Poet’ [Franz von Suppe (1819-1895): a famous Austrian composer and conductor of operettas.] Nobody could foresee that I would become a conductor and those overtures would be part of my concert repertory. The whole operettas haven’t been performed in Bulgaria yet. When conducting them, my first memories of listening to them always resurfaced.
My relatives told me that I loved pretending to be a musician when I was a child. Obviously, my parents realized that my interest in music was deep and they bought me various musical toys. The first ones were some small violins. Naturally, I started out by ripping them to pieces to see what was inside. So, my father had to buy me a tin violin, which I couldn’t break. And it worked. You could tune up its strings and they played the right tones. I even keep a photo of mine with it: standing on a chair looking as if I’m just starting to play ‘Caprice’ by Paganini [Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840): a famous Italian virtuoso: violinist and composer]. Probably my parents were influenced by the media, which at that time wrote a lot about an infant prodigy, a violinist from the USA. His name was Yehudi; we had the same names, and so what? Due to the popularity of Yehudi Menuhin [Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999): one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century] my parents probably thought that I would be the next to play the violin around the whole world. But no! My photo is a total refutation of the proverb ‘The morning shows what the day will be.’ Never in my childhood did I play anything serious on the violin, let alone Paganini. Well, later, due to certain circumstances I found myself playing many other instruments through a small slender stick, without touching them physically, of course, only emotionally.
Location
Bulgaria
Interview
Jul Efraim Levi