Chapter XIII: The Oratorio Society of New York

My father had always considered that a study of the oratorios of Bach and Handel was a highly important foundation for the young musician, and I had spent many hours with him in studying their scores and imitating their form in my own counterpointal work. Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion” and Handel’s “Messiah,” “Samson,” and “Judas Maccabæus” I knew virtually by heart. My father also believed the development of amateur choruses to be a very strong factor in the musical growth of a people. Under his inspiration the chorus of the Oratorio Society constantly grew in numbers and technical proficiency; but it suffered from the great dearth of men singers, especially tenors. The terribly one-sided condition of musical development in our country, proceeding almost exclusively on feminine lines, showed itself markedly in this branch of the art. Many of the men singers who in one way or another had been cajoled or coerced into joining a choral society, had often to be drilled in their parts like children, though without a child’s quickness of perception. The result was that the labor of training was incessant and the mistakes of one year repeated themselves inevitably the next. In rehearsing such oratorios as Handel’s “Messiah” or Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion,” for instance, a good routined conductor could always prophesy beforehand what mistakes the chorus was going to make.

During my father’s time the sopranos in the Oratorio Society were of overwhelming power and quality; but this was largely because my mother, when we came to America, gave up all solo singing in public and devoted herself enthusiastically to leading the soprano choir. Her voice was phenomenal in its strength and quality, and when, as in some fugal chorus of Handel’s, the sopranos finally enter on the main theme, her triumphant voice would carry everything along with it. She always sang by heart, her beautiful, deep-set eyes fixed on the conductor, and when this conductor happened to be her own husband or son there was a devotion and a love in them that I can never forget.

To maintain a choral society in a huge city like New York is doubly difficult because of the many temptations and distractions that beset its members in so large a metropolis and threaten the regular attendance at rehearsals. I have always felt, therefore, that the many splendid performances which the society has given, in its long existence of forty-nine years, are especially to its credit. The rehearsals with these amateur singers, however, demand from the conductor ten times the energy, patience, and vitality that are necessary with an orchestra composed of trained professionals. And yet there is a charm in working with devoted amateurs. My father loved it, and even during the harassing labors of founding and maintaining the German opera at the Metropolitan, he always turned to the regular Thursday-evening chorus rehearsals of the Oratorio Society as a change and rest. I confess that I have similarly enjoyed the almost primitive study necessary with an amateur chorus after a day spent with my orchestra, and I look back with the deepest pleasure on the many years during which I conducted the Oratorio Society.

Smaller cities should be able to develop choral societies far more easily than New York. Toronto, Canada, has always been an example of what can be accomplished in that direction. There are four choral societies of high merit there, among which perhaps the Mendelssohn Choir, founded by Doctor Vogt, ranks highest. The English have an inherited love and talent for choral singing, and in Toronto the weekly rehearsal is the one “dissipation” of the week, and is eagerly looked forward to by the singers. I have heard the Mendelssohn Choir repeatedly on their visits to New York and have been thrilled by the beauty and volume of their tone and the precision of their singing.

I have written elsewhere of the great musical festival which was projected and conducted by my father in May, 1881. For the great chorus of twelve hundred, which was its outstanding feature, the four hundred singers of the Oratorio Society formed the backbone, and I was intrusted with the drilling of two other sections of the festival chorus. As I had been the accompanist and organist for years at all the rehearsals of the Oratorio Society and had officiated as conductor of the Newark Harmonic Society for three years after the festival, I was technically well equipped to take over the directorship of the Oratorio Society when it was offered to me after my father’s death in 1885.

I conducted the last concert of that season, Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion,” and found that the affection and reverence which the chorus cherished for my father made them help me devotedly in my difficult beginning.

For the following season I cast about to find a new work to mark my entry into this field, and decided that a concert performance of Wagner’s “Parsifal” would interest the New York public. The sacred character of the work, the importance and beauty of its choral portions, and the fact that as yet its music was almost unknown seemed to me to invite such a performance, even though Wagner had conceived it for dramatic representation and with a stage-setting. He had intended the work for performance only in Bayreuth, but in 1882, when it was first produced there, he himself had given me an orchestral score in manuscript of the choral Finale from the first act to present to my father, so that he might produce it in concert form in New York.

During a visit to London in the spring of 1886 I called on the London representative of the publishers of “Parsifal” and asked whether an orchestral score of the complete work could be purchased. He told me it could, but that its purchase would not entitle me to a performance of the work, and that if I used it for a performance I would have to pay a fine of fifty pounds. I told him I was quite ready to pay such a fine as I wanted it for a concert performance in New York, and promptly bought an orchestral score and had the orchestral parts copied from it.

Owing to my connection with the Metropolitan Opera House I was able to give the work an exceptional cast. _Kundry_ was sung by Marianne Brandt, who had sung it in Bayreuth at one of the first performances. Max Alvary was cast for the title rôle, and Emil Fischer for _Gurnemanz_. Alvary became ill shortly before the performance and his part was taken by another young tenor of our company, a Mr. Kraemer. The choral portions were sung by the Oratorio Society with thrilling effect.

This was the first performance of “Parsifal” outside of Bayreuth, and it made a sensation but also aroused quite a controversy in the newspapers as to its fitness for the concert room. Good and weighty arguments can be produced on both sides. At a performance in concert a great deal is lost to many people, especially to those whose imagination cannot function without the stimulus of scenery, costumes, and dramatic action; but at that time this was the only opportunity for American music lovers, who could not make the long trip to Bayreuth, to become acquainted with the music. To many listeners the choral portions, especially those centring in the religious ceremonies in the Hall of the Holy Grail, were just as impressive, if not more so, than in a scenic representation. To-day, and generally speaking, I would rather hear the music from “Parsifal” with my eyes closed. My imagination, stimulated by the music, can paint the scenic and dramatic investiture far more idealistically than any actual stage representation, but I do not claim this as a truth for all, but only as my individual preference.

We gave two concert performances at the Metropolitan Opera House (public rehearsal and concert), and over three thousand people listened with rapt attention at each rendition.

Years after, in 1903, when the then director of opera at the Metropolitan, Heinrich Conried, announced his intention of giving a stage performance of “Parsifal,” I received a letter from Madame Cosima Wagner, saying that she had heard that I possessed the score and orchestral parts of the work. She begged me not to give them to Mr. Conried, as the _meister_ had left absolute directions in his will that stage representations of this work were to be reserved for all time for Bayreuth. She had heard that I had given a concert performance and wondered how I had gotten permission.

I wrote to her and explained now I had obtained the score and had sent the “fifty pounds fine” to the publishers, according to my agreement with them. I then received another letter from her, as follows:

DEAR MR. DAMROSCH:

Thank you very much for your kind lines and the expression of
your feelings for Parsifal, which, of course, is never to be
given out of Bayreuth; but concerning the production at concert,
there has been made a very limited choice of fragments, which is
not to be extended. The choice, done by the master, is as
follows:

1. Prelude, close of the first act,—nothing of the second.

2. Verwandlungsmusik—close of the third act.

3. Amfortasklage

4. Charfreitagszauber

I am astonished that for £50 you got the allowance (permission)
to execute the whole Parsifal in concert and I will ask the
publisher (about it).

Concerning the performance on the stage, I still hope that the
cultivated part of the public at New York won’t agree to it.

Receive, dear Mr. Damrosch, with my best thanks, my kindest
regards.