Chapter XVI: The European Tour (1)

In the spring of 1919 I received a letter from M. Lafere, then _Ministre des Beaux Arts_ in France, which interested the directors of the New York Symphony Society and myself exceedingly. In this letter he referred to the services of the New York Symphony Orchestra and myself to French art in America and invited us to make a professional visit to France the following year. He promised every assistance from the French Government and assured us of a warm welcome.

Mr. Flagler immediately decided that this invitation must be accepted inasmuch as it was the first time a foreign government had extended such a courtesy to an American musical organization. He also thought that our visit coming so soon after the war and including possibly the countries of the other allies in the war, such as Belgium, Italy, and England, would not only make a good impression but would help to establish musical relations with Europe on a more equal basis. Up till then the current had been all the other way. European singers and instrumentalists had been coming to America in a steady stream for many years, but in the meantime America had developed several orchestras of her own which could compare favorably with those of Europe; and he was very proud that the organization of which he was president and supporter should have been singled out for so great an honor and opportunity.

I sailed for Europe in the spring of 1919 to confer with the Beaux Arts about arrangements for our visit to Paris and other cities in France, and at the same time I also received invitations from the governments of Belgium and Italy to visit their countries with the orchestra. In London Augustus Littleton, the publisher, head of the old house of Novello & Co., also received me very cordially and insisted that our visit to Europe would not be complete if we did not include London. As England, like our country, has no Ministry of Fine Arts and can therefore take no official cognizance of musical affairs, he immediately and energetically set to work to form a committee of invitation, headed by King George and composed of all the foremost composers and conductors of Great Britain.

Affairs began to shape themselves very favorably, and our manager, Mr. George Engles, began to map out a tour of seven weeks, during which we were to visit five countries and play, in all, twenty-seven concerts. But in the meantime foreign exchange sank lower and lower and reports of transportation conditions in Europe were so gloomy that I began to be seriously doubtful of the possibility of the proposed tour in the spring of 1920. I finally decided in January to send our manager to Europe personally to look over the ground, and at the same time I expressed my fears to Mr. Flagler.

I told him that we would have to pay enormous sums for travelling expenses, the item of steamer passage alone amounting to fifty thousand dollars, and that while we would have to pay our orchestra salaries in American dollars, our receipts in Europe would be in francs, lire, etc. The dollar was then selling for seventeen francs in France and for twenty-three lire in Italy. I suggested to him to postpone the tour until a time when war-torn Europe would be economically in a better condition and when her transportation system would again be more nearly on a pre-war basis.

Mr. Flagler listened to me and said: “I do not see how we can possibly postpone the acceptance of these official invitations from four countries to a later period. Now is the psychological moment to do it. How much do you think the tour will cost?”

I had made a kind of general calculation and mentioned the amount, which seemed to me large.

“Isn’t that curious?” he answered. “That is exactly what I thought it would cost. Go right ahead with your preparations.”

I was naturally delighted at his decision. I knew that American orchestras had achieved a perfection of ensemble which but few, if any, European orchestras could equal. I was proud of our organization and anxious to demonstrate it as a standard of American musical culture.

The members of the orchestra were wild with excitement at the marvellous news. Many of them had been born in America and had never seen Europe. It was the wonderland of their imagination. Others had been there as soldiers during the war, and still others had left Europe years before to found their fortunes and families in the New World and had not been back since. They immediately appointed a committee to agree upon a minimum salary schedule which, while giving them a fair recompense for their time, would yet make that part of it not too difficult for us. To this sum, however, Mr. Flagler later added ten dollars a week more for each player, as he thought that their hotel expenses might be greater than we had calculated.

The managerial work of constructing the tour was beset with many difficulties, as the war had disorganized many of the regular concert organizations in Europe under whose auspices we would have played under normal conditions. The railroads, also, made much slower time than formerly. But gradually the tour began to assume shape and the first concert was scheduled to be given on May 6 at the Grand Opera in Paris, which the _Ministère des Beaux Arts_ had offered to us, and the last concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 20. In order that this tour might be representative in every way of the best in American music, Mr. Flagler suggested that we take along two young American-born soloists of distinction—Albert Spalding, violinist, and John Powell, composer-pianist. I immediately set to work to prepare a series of appropriate programmes which should serve the double purpose of demonstrating the fine qualities of our orchestra and soloists, and also pay proper tribute to the great composers of the countries we proposed to visit.

We were to open with three concerts in Paris, and as I was conversant with all the details in connection with Paris especially, I preceded the orchestra and arrived there April 22. At my hotel, the “France et Choiseul,” I found a letter from my old friend, Robert Underwood Johnson, who had just left Paris to go to Rome as American ambassador to Italy. He said:

DEAR WALTER:

It is pleasant to think that, within a few days, you will be
occupying the “ambassadorial suite” in which I am writing these
lines (Davis of London had it also). We leave day after tomorrow
and shall be very happy to see you all when you come to Rome. We
are looking forward with pride and agreeable anticipation to the
invasion of Italy by the Symphony and its director and the
assisting artists. We have no Embassy, alas! being “all dressed
up (or nearly so) with no place to go to” and so we shall slum
it at the Grand Hotel until the money seems to be giving out.

Don’t let any of your party perish by stumbling over the torn
carpet at the entrance to this apartment. I have tried to have
it mended, but my failure shows that I am no diplomat—yet.

Au revoir. Bientôt à Rome.

My first act was to have that carpet mended, and I immediately sent a telegram to the American Embassy in Rome announcing the important news. And then the affairs of the tour began to engulf me to such an extent that until Mr. Engles arrived and relieved me with able hands of a great deal of that burden, I thought that I was back again in the old days of the Damrosch Opera Company, when I was owner, director, orchestral conductor, stage-manager, and prima donna pacificator all in one.

To add to my worries, a railroad strike was announced for May 1, the day on which the orchestra were to arrive at Le Havre, and not content with that, the dock workers of Le Havre intended also to lay down their “tools,” whatever they may be, and stop working on that date. When I thought of the musical instruments and trunks of my orchestra in the hold of the steamer _Rochambeau_, which was to arrive on or about May 1, my heart stopped beating. However, I had been in too many close shaves on my great Western orchestral tours to be altogether dismayed, for even if the railroad stopped running there would always be motor-trucks and airplanes. We had made arrangements with Thomas Cook and Sons to take care of all transportation matters from the day the orchestra arrived in France until their sailing for home from England, and they assured me that, if necessary, they would have camions, such as were used during the war, to carry my whole orchestra, together with their baggage and musical instruments, from Le Havre to Paris.

Luckily the ship docked several hours before the dock workers’ strike began, and double-basses, kettledrums, and innumerable music boxes were safely landed from the hold of the ship. I had intended to go to Le Havre to meet the orchestra, but the strike conditions were too uncertain and I thought it better to remain in Paris and direct operations from there.

The government was moving several trains, and the telegram that the orchestra had started for Paris cheered me up considerably. I was at the station at 3.30 that afternoon, to be met with the news that the train was delayed and would be in at six. At six there was no sign of it, and, as is usual at French stations, there was absolutely no one who had any idea when it might arrive. I stayed there till eight o’clock—no train. Finally there was a whistle. Every one dashed out. It was a freight-train, but, like the dove from Noah’s Ark, I saw the “man from Cook’s,” a little man, attired then and during the entire tour in a very small derby hat and an exceedingly long double-breasted frock coat, sitting on top of one of the cars. He was tired, dirty, but triumphant, for all our musical instruments and music boxes were in these cars. He had passed the orchestra half-way at Rouen, where they were held up by a hot box. This sounded like home to me, as I had heard those magic words only too often when our train, coming through Idaho or Arizona on our way to or from California, would be held up for hours and we would wonder whether we could “make” the concert that evening.

The orchestra had rehearsed our repertoire with me so thoroughly before we sailed that but little more was necessary. I gave them three rehearsals, however, before our first concert, the first two at the _Salle du Conservatoire_, to shake them together again after their long voyage, and the last on the afternoon of the concert, May 6, at the Opera House in order to accustom them to its acoustics. The orchestra played so superbly at the two first rehearsals that I was jubilant and proud of them. The ensemble was perfect and each man played as if the success of the concert depended on him—which it certainly did. But when we began rehearsing at the Opera House the tone of the orchestra suddenly seemed so thin and lifeless that I was nearly beside myself with anxiety. The orchestra was placed on the stage, but the local management had not seen fit to provide us with any proper scenic setting or roof, so that the sound of our large and noble orchestra was completely dissipated in the flies. When I remonstrated, I was told that they had a roof for the stage but that it was in the storehouse, situated beyond the fortifications of Paris, and that this was the first time in many years the Opera House had been used for a concert. They finally agreed to have at least half a roof up for our concert and to set a smaller scene, which would contain the sound and throw it into the audience-room in more compact fashion. After twenty minutes or so of rehearsing, I threw down my stick and told the men to call it a day. I went back to my hotel very depressed, as so much depended on the first impression which our orchestra would make that evening.

The programme was as follows:

1. Overture, “Benvenuto Cellini”............................... Berlioz 2. Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”.................................... Beethoven 3. “Istar,” Variations symphoniques............................ d’Indy 4. “Daphnis et Chloe” (Fragments symphoniques)................. Ravel

The reader will notice that we placed on it two works by living French composers, both of whom were to be at the concert. The house was completely sold out, and greeted me in very friendly fashion when I came on the stage.

From the very first chords of the “Eroica” Symphony, I noticed that the slight improvements in our scenic surroundings, and above all the fact that the house was filled with people, had acted like magic on the acoustics. The tone of the orchestra had become full, clear, and incisive. My spirits rose and I forgot everything except the orchestra before me and Beethoven’s score. After each movement the applause was deafening, and at the end of the symphony there was joyous shouting from the galleries. We seemed to have played our way into their hearts, and after the first part there was a steady stream of French musicians to my dressing-room to congratulate me on our marvellous orchestra and its ensemble, and to express their delight that we had come over on such a friendly mission. Among them were: Vincent d’Indy, Gabriel Fauré, André Messager, Gabriel Pierné, Theodore Dubois, Paul Vidal, Nadia Boulanger, and many others.

As we turned into the French part of our programme the enthusiasm became still greater, and at the conclusion of “Istar” some of my first violins discovered the composer, d’Indy, in the audience and, pointing toward him, stood up to applaud. In a minute not only the whole orchestra but the audience were on their feet and with loud cries of “Auteur!” “d’Indy!” the house was in an uproar until d’Indy, his face as red as a beet, was compelled to rise and acknowledge this tribute.

The programme finished with the marvellous “Daphnis et Chloe,” by Ravel, in which the luscious tone of the orchestra and its virtuosity demonstrated themselves so successfully that not only did the concert come to a tumultuous climax, but several of the French papers announced afterward that this work had never had such a vivid and perfect rendering before.

My interpretation of the Beethoven “Eroica” Symphony puzzled some of the newspaper critics, as it did not conform to their French traditions. These do not permit such slight occasional modifications of tempo as modern conductors brought up in the German traditions of Beethoven believe essential to a proper interpretation of this master. But I was much pleased and honored to receive a complete approval of my interpretation, not only verbally from several of my French colleagues, but also from M. d’Indy in an article which he wrote on our concert and in which he said:

Leaving aside everything that Walter Damrosch has done for our
country and the French musicians, generous acts for which our
gratitude has often been expressed, I wish mainly to pay my
tribute to the extremely expressive interpretation at the
concerts he has given lately at the Opera. Whether it is
classical, romantic, or modern music, Damrosch first of all
endeavors to set off and illustrate what we call the “melos,”
the element of expression, the voice that must rise above all
the other voices of the orchestra. He knows how to distribute
the agogic action, the dynamic power, and he is not afraid—even
in Beethoven’s works and in spite of the surprise this caused to
our public—to accelerate or slacken the movement when the
necessities of expression demand it.

The French are a courteous people, and at the end of the concert there was an even greater crowd of musicians and friends behind the scenes to express their pleasure at our success.

The programmes of the other two concerts were as follows:

MAY 8 1. Overture, “Le Roi d’Ys”................................... Lalo 2. Symphony, “From the New World”............................ Dvořák 3. Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in B Minor.............. Saint-Saëns MR. SPALDING 4. _a._ “Pélléas et Mélisande” (Fileuse)..................... Fauré _b._ Ma Mère L’Oye (Les Pagodes).......................... Ravel 5. Prelude to “Die Meistersinger”............................ Wagner

MAY 9 1. Symphony in C (Jupiter)................................... Mozart 2. Poems (d’après Verlaine).................................. Loeffler 3. Symphony in D Minor....................................... Franck 4. Negro Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra.................... Powell JOHN POWELL

The two young American artists, Albert Spalding and John Powell, made a splendid impression, and of the orchestral works the Prelude to the “Meistersingers” of Wagner and the Mozart and Franck Symphonies received special acclaim.

It was delightful to hear the half-suppressed “Ah’s” and “Bravos!” so characteristic of the French audience after the Andante of the Mozart Symphony. I confess that the more spontaneous approval which European audiences give in drama, opera, or concert is exceedingly gratifying and stimulates the artist to the very best that is in him. Every artist who is worth his salt will always approach an audience with the feeling that they are as strangers whom through his art he must win over as friends. This feeling exists whether he makes his first bow as a beginner or appears for the three thousandth time after twenty years of public work. It is a wonderful moment for him when, after having done his best and given all there is in him, his audience show by the intensity of their approval that the “song which he breathed into the air” has found its home “in the heart of a friend.”

On Sunday morning, May 9, at eleven, the orchestra of the Conservatoire gave a great party in our honor as a return courtesy for one that we had given to the French Orchestra on their arrival in America in 1918. We all met at the _Salle du Conservatoire_ where M. Leon, representing the Ministry of Fine Arts, was waiting to receive me. With the Conservatoire Orchestra were various French masters, including the venerable Gabriel Fauré, and Messager, the conductor.

After various speeches of welcome, I was presented with a beautiful engraving of Beethoven and made an honorary member of the Conservatoire Orchestra. We then marched to the _Taverne du Nègre_, where luncheon was served. There were so many different kinds of wine-glasses before each plate that I asked permission to make a short speech in English to my orchestra. It consisted of the following:

“Gentlemen, remember we have a concert this afternoon, so please mix your wine with much water.”

Needless to say, in all the speeches the theme of the war was constantly played upon by the French orators—how much France owed to our intervention and to the bravery of our soldiers.

It would have been very pleasant to stay on in Paris, where our orchestra were beginning to feel very much at home, and rest upon our young laurels, but our tour had only begun and we had to carry on!

In the meantime Mr. Engles and our treasurer, Roger Townsend, had to smooth out all kinds of new difficulties and complications, among which the passport nuisance was the greatest. War conditions still prevailed and passports had to be carefully viséd by the ambassadors of every country we visited. All our orchestra were practically Americans, but technically they belonged to America, France, Belgium, Italy, England, Russia, Germany, Austria, and Czecho-Slovakia. Many of them had had only their first American papers when the war broke out, and according to war regulations could not yet obtain their American citizens’ papers. They were therefore compelled to travel on foreign passports and some of their visés were exceedingly difficult to obtain, as new countries like Czecho-Slovakia, for instance, had not yet a properly organized diplomatic service. Others, like Russia, were not recognized at all and our Russians had to travel on Kerensky passports issued for them by the Kerensky ambassador who was still “holding the fort” in Washington. Through the kindly help of Mr. Grew, councillor at our embassy in Paris, and other friends in high places, we finally obtained our hundred visés and left Paris for Bordeaux on May 11, and—in spite of the railroad strike—with the passage of our train assured as far as Bordeaux.

The only fly in the ointment was a little revolution before we left the station. Some of the members of the orchestra had brought their wives and even a few small children to Europe with them. They very naturally desired to give their families a good time and wanted to have them with them and in the orchestra cars on the entire trip. As railroad space was exceedingly limited and the bachelor and straw-widower members of the orchestra strenuously objected to this addition, I had to veto the plan, and painted the difficulties of travel, hotels, passports, etc., in such lurid fashion that I succeeded in preventing their departure from Paris with us. The husbands promised to leave their families in Paris until our return, about three weeks later, but as all the wives and children came to the station to see their respective husbands and fathers off, I was nervous until the last doors of the car were slammed to and the whistle of the French locomotive, which always sounds like the shrill wail of the damned, announced that we were really off.

The orchestra were in a very gay mood and insisted on getting out every time the train stopped even a second, and then having to be pulled back as the train started again without any warning. A passport picture of one unfortunate little second violinist was sent through all the cars, pasted on a piece of paper with the inscription: “Wanted for bigamy. Member of the New York Symphony Orchestra. Reward of three francs if returned dead or alive to George Engles, Manager.” This had been perpetrated by Willem Willeke, who was not only a master violoncellist but the master mind behind almost every practical joke indulged in during the tour.

We arrived in Bordeaux that evening and were welcomed at our hotel by a typical little hotel manager, with his head entirely bald on top but beautifully covered with the long hair combed forward from the back of his head. He also had a full beard neatly parted in the middle, and of course a long double-breasted frock coat. He rubbed his hands with the pleasure of welcoming us and assured us that all our rooms were properly reserved. Actually it took us three-quarters of an hour to get ourselves and our baggage straightened out in the proper rooms. Our party consisted of Albert and Mrs. Spalding, John Powell, Mary Flagler, my daughter Gretchen, and myself, and the highly efficient manager had sent each one of us at first to the wrong rooms while our bags had still further gone astray. But a good bath and a delicious dinner at the famous _Chapon Fin_ put us all in good humor.

The theatre at which we were to play the following evening was directly opposite to our hotel and its frontal façade is without doubt the most beautiful I have ever seen. Such examples of the finest architecture of the eighteenth century stand out in remarkable contrast to their more modern surroundings and it is difficult to understand how French architects, with such noble examples to follow and with a school in Paris which is still considered the best in the world, should have allowed their art to degenerate to such an extent within the last thirty years. One has but to compare the noble façade of the Place de la Concorde with such modern monstrosities as, for instance, the Hotel Mercedes or the Palais de Justice at Tours, to realize that in their endeavor to break away completely from their own noblest traditions they have deliberately courted anarchy, for their architecture rests upon no laws of beauty or symmetry. Many of our best American architects are graduates from the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, but they have not become revolutionaries and have understood how to adapt their appreciation of the best French traditions to American needs. The results demonstrate an art of which every American can be proud.

Our concert, which was given under the auspices of the local symphony society, was received with great favor. The interior of the theatre is delightfully intimate, and the audience gave the impression of belonging to an old musical civilization. We were presented with huge bouquets of flowers tied with the American colors. Albert Spalding’s performance made a splendid impression, and the “Meistersinger” Overture came in for special enthusiasm.

But what was my astonishment at suddenly beholding three of the “orchestra wives,” who were supposed to have remained in Paris, seated in one of the boxes. I do not know to this day whether they rode on the bumpers or in one of the baggage-cars. However, they were charming ladies; and, as a married man, I could not be too angry with them or their indulgent husbands. We compromised in the matter by permitting them to continue with us for the rest of the tour, provided that they and their husbands occupied space elsewhere than that reserved for the orchestra, and that they looked out for their own passports whenever we approached the border.

As we returned to our hotel after the concert the smiling hotel manager stood in the lobby to receive us and to express his congratulations at the success of a _concert merveilleux_. As we entered the electric lift to go to our respective rooms, he himself shut the grating on us and pressed the button to send us slowly upward. (All French lifts move slowly.) Its almost celestial calmness irresistibly brought the Finale of Gounod’s “Faust” to my mind, when _Marguerite_ ascends heavenward. I began to sing the melody of the “_Anges radieux_,” and just as we got up to the first floor we suddenly heard the voice of the hotel manager, a vibrant tenor, enthusiastically continuing the trio from below. I gazed downward and there he was, his face raised ecstatically toward us and his hand pressed to his double-breasted frock coat—perhaps a poor hotel manager but certainly an enthusiastic lover of music.

The newspapers of Bordeaux were full of praise about our concert, but one of them said: “The orchestra played with that dryness characteristic of all North Americans.” Alack and alas! Had the Eighteenth Amendment, which went into effect the previous January, already made its dreadful influence felt?

Lyons was to be the next city on our itinerary, but unfortunately the railroad strike had completely isolated it and there was no way of reaching it from Bordeaux. We were therefore very reluctantly compelled to cancel the concert. Every seat had been sold long before, and as Lyons ranked next to Paris in musical importance the cancellation was a great disappointment to us.

The next morning Engles brought me a telegram which he had just received from our general manager in Paris, to the effect that at Marseilles the hall in which we were to play had been condemned by the fire department as unsafe, and that therefore the concert would have to be given at another theatre and under different management. Engles did not like the look of things and begged me, as he could not speak French, to go with him to Marseilles and look over the ground with him. We were to have played in Marseilles under the auspices and management of the local symphonic organization, which, however, turned out to be but a small and not very influential body of musicians, most of whom were amateurs. Their secretary, who was to attend to the details of management, was a newspaper man and an amateur double-bass player, of which instrument he was very proud. When we arrived, only two days before the concert, we found that absolutely nothing had been done to advertise it. There were no posters, no advertisements, and the manager of the theatre to which we had been transferred did not even know before our arrival whether we were a jazz band of colored people from America or perhaps a troupe of wandering minstrels.

We were to give two concerts, and at first it seemed as if, under such disheartening circumstances, it were better to cancel them and proceed to Monte Carlo and Italy, where already sold-out houses awaited us. The newspaper man, who was the real delinquent, was nowhere to be found. He had gone to the country “_pour se reposer_” and was not expected until the following day. Luckily the theatre manager proved to be of the right sort. When he saw what our organization really stood for he would not hear of cancellation, and immediately went around to all the newspaper offices with Engles. Posters, the principal method of advertising in Europe, appeared on the street corners as if by magic; and while it was too late to attract a large audience for the first concert, he assured us that if this concert were the success which he expected, the theatre, which held about twenty-four hundred people, would be entirely sold out for the second concert on Sunday afternoon. His prophecy proved correct. There were not more than eight hundred people at the first concert, but as they were real sons of the _Midi_ and as they had never heard a symphonic organization of such size and importance in their lives, they went mad. They applauded with their hands, with both feet, with their canes and umbrellas. They shouted in eight-part harmonies and the rafters of the theatre trembled in sympathy. After the concert they lined up at the box-office in a great crowd while the theatre manager, grinning from ear to ear, said: “Did I not tell you?”

In the meantime the delinquent local secretary-manager turned up and I was fully prepared to annihilate him for his lack of proper preliminary advertising for our concert, but as he immediately called me “Cher maître” and expressed his delight in such eloquent French at the coming of so notable an organization as ours, he completely spiked my guns and I found myself unable to get in a word edgewise, much less tell him what I really thought of him.

I have told before that he was an amateur double-bass player in the local orchestra, and this was evidently the ruling passion of his life, although I never could understand why an amateur should choose this particular instrument for his delectation. After the second concert and while the hall was still ringing with the shouts of the fiery citizens of Marseilles, he came into my dressing-room as I thought to add his tribute of praise, but, alas, all he said was: “Cher maître, I could hardly hear your double-bass players during the entire concert.” I presume that at the concerts of his orchestra he was so taken up with his own double-bass part that as he played he heard nothing of the other instruments around and about him. He became, so to speak, intoxicated with the resonance of his own instrument. At our concert, seated in the audience, he suddenly found, poor man, that the double-bass was not the only pebble on the orchestral beach, and that occasionally the violins, the wood winds, or the brasses had also something of importance to enunciate. It must have been a sad revelation to him, and I do not wonder that he refused to accept it.

In the meantime the strike fever was spreading in every direction, and there was not a trolley running through the town of Marseilles nor a boat leaving the harbor. The effect was a very curious one, as the streets were filled with great crowds restlessly moving up and down, and seemingly without work or affairs of any kind to keep them busy. In several of the streets small bands were playing in roped-off circles while thirty couples or so were dancing madly around with hundreds of others outside the ropes watching them. The huge audience who arrived for our Sunday afternoon concert must have come on foot, as there was not a wheel turning anywhere.

After we got back to the hotel the great iron doors were suddenly closed and bolted, for quite a riot started in front of it. The trolley company was trying to run a car through the city, manned by young mechanics from the School of Technology, and every once in a while a mob of strikers would rush at them, break the windows of the car, and pull off the young strike-breakers. But it was all done in rather an amiable fashion, while a crowd of men in light straw hats applauded with their hands and shouted “Bravo,” all as if it were a performance gotten up for their pleasure. Then a couple of amiable gendarmes would come along and in the same placid fashion place the young men on the car again, which would then proceed for another few yards or so. Suddenly, however, this seeming comedy took a tragic turn. The mob made a vicious lunge; they were stopped by the police who suddenly acted with great energy, and soon there were several men seriously hurt. In the meantime the strike-breakers had again connected their car with the electric wire, and although the car with its broken windows looked a perfect wreck, it moved triumphantly along the tracks and the strike was broken. Next morning every car was running again.

Later that afternoon I received a visit from Morris Tivin, the first double-bass player of our orchestra. He brought with him a boy of fifteen, a little Russian Jew, who had a most remarkable history. He had escaped from a prison in Russia and worked his way to Constantinople. As he was a violinist of exceptional ability, he had made a meagre living there playing in the cafés. Having read in some old Paris paper that we were to give a concert in Marseilles he had quickly made up his mind to get there and perhaps through our help reach the promised land of America. He arrived in Marseilles as a stowaway after incredible hardships, and when he introduced himself to some of his Russian compatriots in my orchestra, he was literally starving and without a cent in his pockets. Within a few hours our orchestra had subscribed enough money to send him to New York with several letters to their colleagues at the Musical Union, and within a week after his arrival he was engaged as second concert master at a large salary in one of our Western orchestras.

The generous spirit displayed by our men, which demonstrated itself in so quick and practical a fashion, is characteristic of the rank and file of our profession. I have never known a case of an orchestra musician or chorus singer in need that his colleagues were not immediately ready to help, and as their own earnings are comparatively small their generosity is much greater in proportion than that of many a rich man whose name figures largely among the subscribers to our charitable organizations.

Our next concert was to be in Monte Carlo, and I motored with my wife from Marseilles along the Riviera, reaching Monte Carlo on the evening of May 17. The orchestra had already arrived by train and were to be found all over the town photographing points of interest, especially the beautiful statue erected to Hector Berlioz, which we were all glad to honor. Every orchestra musician adores this great master, who in his scores has done more than any other to develop new tone combinations in the symphonic orchestra since Beethoven and before Wagner.

A great many of our men naturally went to the Casino to behold the world-famous gambling tables, but if I ever had any worries about their squandering their earnings they quite disappeared. Many only watched at the outer edge, or else bet one chip very timidly. An aged harpy, who looked as though she had played at Monte Carlo since the time of Napoleon III and who kept a note-book of her losses and winnings and never bet less than a hundred francs at a time, took it upon herself to teach one of our talented young flute players how to play with one white chip. She kept him in a state of the most panting thrills, while she placed his bets for him.

The next morning I found a note from Jean de Reszke telling me that he, his wife, and Amhurst Webber would motor over from Nice for the concert, and asking my wife and me to lunch with him at the Grand Hotel de Paris, where we were staying. It was such a joy to see him again. We had not met since 1902, when he had been at the Metropolitan at the height of his fame and I had conducted many a glorious “Tristan” performance with him in the title rôle. Amhurst Webber, a highly talented English musician, had then been with him as pianist and I had helped him a little with his studies in composition and instrumentation. Mme. de Reszke I had never had the pleasure of meeting before. A great tragedy had come upon her, as their only son had been killed in the first year of the war. It was heart-breaking to see her, as her face told the story of her irreparable loss.

The concert in the afternoon took place in the exquisite little theatre at the Casino. It seats only about four hundred people and of course every seat was occupied. Jean de Reszke was in the fifth row of the parquet, and as I came to the “Prize Song” in the “Meistersinger” Overture, which he had sung so often and so ravishingly in New York, I could not help but turn around to look at him. He gave me an immediate smile, but the tears were running down his face.

At the close of the concert I was solemnly informed by the very polite little intendant of the theatre that M. Blanc, the principal owner of the Casino, the opera, the gambling tables, the Hotel de Paris, in fact everything which draws the hundred-franc notes from the grateful tourist, had expressed a desire to meet me and to thank me for the “_concert exquis_.” I was accordingly piloted to another part of the building, where, in an anteroom, five or six people were waiting as if in a doctor’s outer office, while flunkies in livery were silently walking around or delivering whispered messages to this or that man. One of these approached my little intendant with a message, who turned to me and, with a face radiant with pride, said: “Think of it! He will see us first before all the others!”

We followed the flunky into an inner room where I found a tired-looking, gray-mustached little man whom I had noticed sleeping in one of the boxes during about half an hour of the concert. He congratulated me on the “splendid concert and the exquisite playing of the orchestra,” and as I sat there I marvelled at it all. Here was a man whom we in America would call a gambling-house keeper, but he is certainly a king among them. He has provided his gambling tables with a setting so exquisite that words cannot describe it. Nature in her most charming mood, beautiful architecture, delightful music, exquisite cooking—all these so skilfully combined as to create an agreeable atmosphere for the thousands who come every year with full pockets and generally leave with empty ones. Incidentally he makes millions by thus cleverly pandering to the gambling instincts which are inherent in almost every man (and woman).

To me the most delightful feature of the concert, except of course the visit of Jean de Reszke, was a large audience of seventy-five who sat behind the scenes as there was no room for them in front. They were the orchestra of the Monte Carlo Opera, an excellent body of men who embraced us in true southern fashion between the parts and at the end of the concert.

The next morning I continued the trip by motor to Genoa. As there had been no strike of any kind in Monte Carlo I thought that our hoodoo had lifted, but, lo and behold, at Genoa we found only one old, gray-bearded portier at our hotel to greet us. All the waiters, porters, chambermaids, cooks, scullions, in fact everything that could strike in connection with a hotel, were on strike and the discomfort was considerable. We had looked forward with pleasurable anticipation to our first Italian dinner. We had dreamed of fritto misto, spaghetti, and of delicious Italian ices, but these dreams quickly vanished. There was not even a crust of bread to be obtained at the hotel. Finally we were furtively conducted through an alley into the back entrance of a little restaurant by way of the kitchen, and there we obtained some food, but of the simplest and poorest variety. The next morning a cup of wretched coffee and a piece of stale bread at the railroad station made our breakfast, but luckily for us a kind young American, Mr. Allan, called on us and whisked us off in his car to his house, where a delicious luncheon made us forget our deprivations of the night before.

I was again amazed at the cleverness with which the members of our orchestra adapted themselves to European travelling conditions. They had all found excellent restaurants and had really fared much better than we.

We gave our concert at the _Teatro Carlo Felice_, and our first Italian audience proved to be even more noisy in their demonstrations of pleasure than the _Midi_. I was very much touched to receive a large wreath tied with the stars and stripes, from the American Consul-General, who told me after the concert that he considered such a cultural mission as we were engaged in of as much importance for cordial relations between our country and Italy as any business enterprise. He said that music meant so much to the Italian that he was amazed and delighted to find that Americans did not only interest themselves in business but also cultivated the arts. As the Italians had been so bitterly disillusioned regarding President Wilson, after the phenomenally enthusiastic acclaim which they had given him on his visit to Rome only a year before, I was not surprised to have one old gentleman say to me after the concert: “We do not like your President, but we love the Americans.”

We left next morning by train for Rome. The highly talented young composer, Signor Vincenzo Tommasini, had interested himself in our concerts there and had enlisted the sympathies of the Accademia Santa Cecilia, under whose auspices we were to play at the Augusteo. The Santa Cecilia, which is composed of musicians and music lovers, is perhaps the oldest musical organization in the world, as it was founded by Palestrina. Under the presidency of Count San Martino it maintains a symphony orchestra which gives a series of concerts during the winter under its own conductor, Maestro Molinari, and various guest conductors.

All these concerts are given at the Augusteo, so called because it was built by Augustus as a tomb for the Cæsars. It is a rotunda built of the old Roman bricks, but balconies, a stage, and an organ have been added to it in recent times to adapt it to modern concert needs. It very likely was an excellent tomb, but its acoustics are hardly suited for an orchestra. I do not know of any concert-hall built in circular shape that is satisfactory in that respect. The sound vibrations seem to travel around and around and great confusion of tones is the result, especially in such music where changing harmonies succeed each other rapidly. At our little preliminary rehearsal the hall was empty with the exception of half a dozen members of the Santa Cecilia, and as we began to play through a few bars of the symphony I thought I had suddenly become deaf, as the sound of the orchestra did not reach me where I stood. But I remembered our first experience at the Grand Opera House in Paris and trusted to better conditions when the hall was full. This hope was justified, as the tone of the orchestra was much clearer and better balanced at the concert.

After the first and second movements of the “Eroica” Symphony there were great applause and shouts of “Bravo!” from the boxes and parquet, but this was immediately followed by very disconcerting whistling from the top gallery, which seemed to develop into a kind of duel between the two factions. I was somewhat disconcerted at this and thought that perhaps something in our playing had not pleased the galleries, but my friends of the Accademia Santa Cecilia assured me that this was nothing but a characteristic little demonstration which often occurred at their concerts. If the parquet and boxes approved of some particular composition or rendition the galleries felt it incumbent upon them to oppose it. I do not know how true this explanation is, but during the concert the whistling suddenly ceased and after the “Riccardo Wagner. Tristan e Isotta, Preludio e Morte di Isotta (Lipsia 1813—Venezia 1883),” as the Italian programme had it, the two factions seemed to have buried their hatchets completely and were in absolute harmony as far as their enthusiastic acclaim toward us was concerned.

During the two days following, the Romans overwhelmed us with hospitalities. The heat was terrific, but the entire orchestra responded to an invitation to be presented to the mayor and to visit the Capitoline Museum, where they were offered a private view of its art treasures, followed by a luncheon given by the municipality in the adjoining ruins of the Tabolarium.

On the following morning Tommasini, Molinari, and a few others of my musician colleagues sauntered into my salon and suggested that we go to a concert given that morning at the Borghese Gardens by the famous Banda Communale di Roma. The heat was so overwhelming that I shuddered at the idea of standing under the blazing noonday sun listening to a concert, especially as I had to conduct our own second concert on that afternoon.

“Please come,” said Tommasini.

“No, indeed,” I said. “It is far too hot and I want to do good work this afternoon.”

“But the concert is given in your honor.”

“Good gracious! Why didn’t you tell me that immediately? Come along!”

I grabbed my hat and we drove to the Borghese Gardens, where a crowd of several thousand people were gathered around the bandstand and where Maestro Vecella was conducting his band in a beautiful rendition of the Prelude to Wagner’s “Parsifal.” It was a wonderful performance. His clarinets played the opening unison phrase with a vibrant and singing quality that I have rarely heard equalled, and I was struck by the rapt silence with which the huge audience of Italians listened to it. I, unfortunately, arrived too late to hear the rendition of Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony,” which Vecella himself had arranged for military band and which my musicians afterward told me had been beautifully performed. The concert came to a close with a selection of airs from one of the popular modern Italian operas. To my astonishment and delight, as the band began to play this or that air, evidently well known to the audience, groups of men around the bandstand joined in singing it with the orchestra _mezza voce_, but with that perfect quality of tone which is inborn in the Italian race. And then, as the sounds of one group would die out, another from the other side would take it up, and this continued until the end of the number. It was a delightful demonstration of the innate musical genius of the Italian people.

I forgot temporarily that the sun was blazing down with a fierceness almost unendurable, but after I had thanked Maestro Vecella for this truly wonderful concert, I begged Molinari and Tommasini to take me back to my hotel.

“Stay a little while longer,” said Tommasini.

“Impossible!” I answered. “I am melting away and there will be nothing left of me if I do not get to some shaded spot soon.”

“Oh, but you will,” he said. “The Banda Communale are now going to present you with the gold medal of the society, with a special inscription.”

“Why in heaven’s name did you not tell me this sooner?” I said to my friend, but he simply smiled his inscrutable Italian smile and lit another cigarette. With the resolve to do or die, I marched along with them to a private room in a restaurant adjoining the Gardens and there ices and vermuth were served to the members of the two musical organizations, and I was presented with the gold Roman medal, which I treasure very highly as coming from so remarkable a body of players as the Banda Communale di Roma.

For some years I have been interested in the new musical development that is going on in Italy. There had been a period when her church music led the world in the variety and beauty of its form. Later on, especially in the eighteenth century, she had produced many composers of distinction in instrumental music, but from then on and until very recent times, opera had almost completely monopolized her writers. The splendid opera-houses which are to be found in her smallest towns are eloquent testimony to the important place which that form of art occupies in the hearts of the Italian people. Every Italian can sing, and the critics and lovers of opera are to be found just as much among the poorer classes as among the aristocracy.

But all the testimony of older musicians with whom I have spoken and who have travelled through Italy is to the effect that her orchestras formerly were of a very poor quality. Their playing was slovenly and rehearsals few and insufficient. Many of the players in the opera-houses of even the larger cities followed some other calling in the daytime, and there was many a tailor or shoemaker who played his violin in the evening at the opera.

Within the last twenty-five years, however, a complete and almost miraculous change has come over musical conditions throughout Italy. Its conservatories in Rome, Milan, Bologna, and Naples turn out excellent players, and several of her conductors rank with the best of other countries. Signor Mancinelli, for instance, who was my colleague during the years that I conducted at the Metropolitan for Maurice Grau, was a first-class musician and conductor, well versed in more than Italian music. He was a great lover of Mozart and gave beautiful performances of the “Magic Flute” at the Metropolitan. He envied me my job of conducting the Wagner operas and later on conducted many of them in Italy and Spain.

Toscanini is one of the greatest conductors living to-day. His range extends to the music of all countries, and I have heard him conduct Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” Verdi’s “Falstaff,” and Wagner’s “Meistersinger” in one week with equal penetration into their beauties and, incidentally, without an orchestral score in front of him. He has made a virtue of necessity, as he is almost blind and has therefore developed his power of memory to a greater extent than I have ever seen in any other musician, not even excepting Hans von Bülow.

The result of Italy’s more serious attitude toward instrumental music shows itself not only in the quality of Italian orchestras, but in a group of highly talented young composers who devote their principal efforts to symphonic music, and who are creating works that rank with the best that other countries are now producing. Several years ago I produced an orchestral suite written by a boy of sixteen, Victor di Sabata, which showed remarkable talent and fine orchestral coloring. Such men as Resphighi, Sinigaglia, Tommasini, Casella, Pizzetti, and Malipiero have found frequent places on our programmes, and I expect still further contributions, constantly growing in importance, from this new development of the musical genius of Italy.

I was much touched by the interest which our ambassador, Mr. Johnson, constantly showed in our success and well-being. He had invited the Queen Mother and several of the young Princesses to our concerts, and at the many official and governmental functions which I had to attend he was a sympathetic companion and real brother artist. He always responded very felicitously when occasion demanded, and all my Italian musician friends loved him.

At a farewell supper which I gave on the last night John Powell, whose negro Fantasy had interested our Italian audiences greatly, and the composer, Malipiero, sat next to each other, but as John speaks English and Malipiero Italian and French, the silence between them for about ten minutes was deep and profound. Suddenly they broke into the most fluent conversation and the words burst forth in torrents. They had suddenly discovered to their mutual delight that the German language was a common meeting-ground.

I left Rome very reluctantly. Quite apart from the many personal friends that I had made there, its eternal beauty again enveloped me and bade me stay.