Fisher, William Arms
Fisher, William Arms
Fisher, William Arms, American music editor and publisher; b. San Francisco, April 27, 1861; d. Boston, Dec. 18, 1948. He studied theory with Horatio Parker and singing with William Shakespeare in London. When Dvořák went to N.Y. in 1892, Fisher became his pupil. In 1897 he settled in Boston as ed. and director of music publication for O. Ditson & Co.; was its vice president (1926–37). He ed. several vocal albums, among them 60 Irish Folksongs (Boston, 1915) and Ye Olde New England Psalm Tunes (Boston, 1930). He wrote the words of the song “Coin’ Home” to the melody of the slow movement of Dvořák’s New World Symphony, a setting that became enormously popular.
Writings
Notes on Music in Old Boston (1918); The Music That Washington Knew (1931); One Hundred and Fifty Years of Music Publishing in the U.S. (1933); Music Festivals in the U.S. (1934).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire