Part 16

We accordingly resumed our New York concerts under the best possible auspices with an enthusiastic directorate and a large subscription list. I was, however, not satisfied with the wood-wind players at that time available in New York. The Musical Union, which controlled all orchestral players, had made the influx of good musicians from Europe almost an impossibility by insisting that a player must have lived at least six months in this country before he could join the union, and that until he became a member no other member of the union would be allowed to play with him. As all orchestral engagements in opera, concert, or theatre were in the hands of union men, this meant that the newcomer would have to starve for six months before he could begin to earn a dollar toward his maintenance. This law was not enforced by the union men for patriotic reasons, as most of them had been born in Europe, but because they feared the possible competition for the positions they monopolized. The best wood-wind players at that time—and, generally speaking, this applies to-day—were French or Belgian. The Conservatoire of Paris has for years produced very superior artists on these instruments. The Boston Orchestra, which is non-union, had several among its members, and their exquisite tone and beautiful phrasing always particularly enraged me because, owing to the union restrictions, I could not have players of equal merit.

I determined therefore to throw down the gantlet to the union by deliberately going to France to engage the five best artists I could find in flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and trumpet, demonstrate their superior excellence to anything we could obtain in New York at that time, and through the pressure of public opinion—and, above all, the necessity of artistic competition with the Boston Symphony—force the union to accept these men as members. When the Frenchmen arrived, the rage among the members of the New York union knew no bounds. I had a summer engagement for the orchestra on one of the roof gardens, but the union refused to let them play with us except as “soloists,” and I determined to take the matter higher up to the annual convention of the National Federation of Musicians, which was held in Detroit in the summer of 1905.

I found the national delegates much more amenable to reason than my New York colleagues. There were more real Americans among them and many of them listened to my pleadings with interest and sympathy. The president of the federation, Joseph N. Weber, is a man of real intellectual ability; and while he and I have had some violent quarrels and disagreements during these many years, and while I have sometimes denounced him to his face as a fanatic and he has given me tit for tat, I must acknowledge that he not only has had the ability to build up a remarkable organization of great power, but has often acted with great fairness in disputes that have come up between the directors of the New York Musical Union and myself.

The National Federation decided in my favor and gave me the permission to incorporate these five Frenchmen in my orchestra and to enroll them as members of the New York union, but as I had “sinned against the laws of the federation in bringing them over from a foreign country,” I was fined one thousand dollars. It was, however, intimated to me privately that if I would return to the next convention of the federation, which was to be held in Boston the following summer, I would in all probability receive a remission of the greater part of this fine. It is needless for me to say that I never saw any part of that one thousand dollars again.

I returned to New York jubilant and my French players proved themselves such superior artists that, together with our other excellent members, many of whom had been with me for years, the orchestra quickly took rank among the best in the country.

The leader of my first violins was Mr. David Mannes. I had discovered him a few years before at one of the New York theatres, where he was a member of the little orchestra and where I heard him play a solo charmingly between the first and second acts. The beautiful quality of his tone, and a fine sensitiveness to the melos of the work he was playing, attracted me and I engaged him for the last stand of the first violins. From there he was quickly promoted until he occupied the position at the first stand of concert master. He married my sister Clara, a pianist of fine accomplishment. Their sonata recitals have become models of intimate unity in chamber-music playing, and several years ago they founded the David Mannes Music School. This encroached so much upon his time and energy as to compel him to resign his position in the New York Symphony Orchestra, which he had held so honorably for many years.

Each year the guarantee fund for the maintenance of the orchestra was increased by the supporters of the New York Symphony Society, and more and more men were engaged on regular weekly salaries. At last my dream was realized, and New York had an orchestra organized on the same lines as the Boston and Chicago Orchestras, devoted exclusively to symphonic music and assembling daily for rehearsal.

The fund at this time reached over fifty thousand dollars a year, mainly subscribed by the directors of our organization. Several of these had been supporters from my father’s time, among them Isaac N. Seligman, who, with his family, had been interested in music in New York for many years. Others had come into the organization when I became its conductor and had remained loyal supporters and close friends from that time on. Among them were: Richard Welling, a director since 1886, a well-known lawyer and reformer in municipal politics, and who as a member of the Naval Reserves promptly enlisted as an ensign when we entered the Great War, although he was then well over fifty years of age; Miss Mary R. Callender and Miss Caroline de Forest who had been directors since 1885. Miss Callender further signalized her affection for the orchestra by leaving fifty thousand dollars to the pension and sick fund after her death in 1919. The complete list of the subscribers to the fund at the time was as follows:

Mrs. H. A. Alexander Mme. Nordica Mr. C. B. Alexander Mr. Stephen S. Palmer Miss Kora F. Barnes Mrs. Trenor L. Park Mrs. William H. Bliss Mr. Amos Pinchot Miss Mary R. Callender Mrs. Joseph Pulitzer Mr. Robert J. Collier Mr. Thomas F. Ryan Mrs. Paul D. Cravath Mr. Charles E. Sampson Mr. Paul D. Cravath Mr. Samuel S. Sanford Miss Caroline de Forest Mr. R. E. Schirmer Mr. Charles H. Ditson Mr. Henry Seligman Mrs. S. Edgar Mrs. Henry Seligman Miss A. C. Flagler Mr. Isaac N. Seligman Mr. Harry Harkness Flagler Mr. Jefferson Seligman Mr. Edward S. Flagler Mrs. Jesse Seligman Mrs. Frances Hellman Mr. Frank H. Simmons Mr. Otto H. Kahn Miss Clara B. Spence Mr. A. W. Krech Mrs. F. T. Van Beuren Mrs. Daniel Lamont Mr. Richard Welling Mr. Albert Lewisohn Mrs. J. A. Zimmerman Mr. Frank A. Munsey Mr. Paul Warburg Mr. Emerson McMillin

The ideal conditions under which I now worked gave me the opportunity to carry out several artistic plans which I had had for a long time. The first of these was a Beethoven cycle, in which I gave not only all the nine symphonies in chronological order, but other compositions of Beethoven, some of which had not yet appeared on the concert programmes of New York. Accordingly, in the winter of 1909, I prepared six programmes composed of Beethoven’s works, and at the last concert gave a double performance of his “Ninth Symphony.” This was a real _tour de force_, but not original with me. During the summer of 1887, which I had spent with von Bülow in study of the Beethoven symphonies, he had told me of having given such a double performance in Berlin and that the results had been very remarkable, inasmuch as at the second hearing, the audience had been able the more perfectly to grasp many of the intricacies of this “Hamlet” among symphonic dramas. Our double performance caused a good deal of comment, most of which was very favorable. Between the two performances the orchestra and chorus were refreshed with hot coffee and sandwiches, and as the work takes about an hour and ten minutes to perform, the repetition, together with a half-hour of rest between, brought the final tumultuous outburst of the choral “Ode to Joy” to eleven o’clock. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the audience began a great demonstration of approval, applauding and shouting for many minutes; but while I and my performers took some of this as ours by right, I have always felt that the audience intended a good part of it as directed toward themselves for having so nobly endured the great strain which I had put upon them.

This was the first Beethoven Festival ever given in New York, and a few years later I organized a Brahms Festival on similar lines. I directed his four symphonies, the ingratiating Zimbalist playing the “Violin Concerto,” Wilhelm Backhaus the great “B-Flat Piano Concerto,” and my brother with the chorus of the Oratorio Society conducting a very beautiful performance of the “Requiem.”

Such festivals devoted exclusively to the work of one composer are a great lesson to the serious music lover, and I think that as Beethoven represents almost the alpha and certainly the omega of symphonic music, there should be repetitions of Beethoven cycles every few years. I have never been able to understand why it should not be similarly possible to give Shakespearian cycles in spring, in which all of our best actors could combine to make up ideal casts. We should certainly make American children as familiar with Shakespeare’s great tragedies as, for instance, the children of Germany, to whom Shakespeare is much more of a household word than he is to those of this country or England. If music can find Flaglers and Higginsons to endow it as an educational necessity, why cannot similar men be found to do the same for the drama and thus help to lift it as an educational factor from its painfully weak position to which the necessities of making it a paying institution have driven it.

During all these years my relations with Mr. and Mrs. Flagler became more and more intimate. I had never met such people in my entire life. Their devotion to and interest in the orchestra increased constantly, and Mr. Flagler’s contributions to the fund became greater and greater as the needs of the orchestra increased. But his help was offered with a shyness, as if it had been the orchestra that conferred the benefit upon him. He also took over a work which I had always detested more than anything else, and that is the collection of funds. As the expenses of the orchestra increased with the years, it became necessary to collect money from outside sources beyond the large sums already contributed by the directors of the society. With constant good humor, patience, and infinite tact Mr. Flagler, whose own donations to the fund were greater in proportion to his income than those of many others, would write letters or call personally on well-to-do musical patrons to collect perhaps a few hundred dollars toward the fund, and he would be inordinately proud of his success as a financier and collector.

Finally even his infinite patience wore out under this yearly strain and this manifested itself in a very remarkable way.

In the spring of 1914 he quietly informed me that he had decided to assume the entire financial responsibility of the orchestra himself and to contribute all necessary funds for its proper maintenance. This amount was double what would have been considered necessary ten years before, but salaries of orchestral players and other expenses in connection with the giving of concerts had increased enormously and it was Mr. Flagler’s desire that, while there should be no waste, the affairs of the orchestra should be managed in such liberal fashion that the artistic needs could first be considered in shaping its policy.

This magnificent and unique act naturally created a great excitement in the musical circles of New York, and Mr. Flagler was universally acclaimed as its foremost musical citizen.

I have a characteristic letter of his, dated August 31, 1914, in which he says:

Indeed I am not overmodest about my gift to the Symphony Society. It is not that, but what I am doing is so little in comparison with what the _real_ makers of music, creators and interpreters like yourself do for the betterment of the world through their art, that it doesn’t deserve to be thought of. I _am_ proud and happy in the thought that I may be the means of helping you to put before the world your ideas in regard to the interpretations of the masters and to bring the God-given art of music to many who would not otherwise have its uplifting and consoling power, and that is what we are doing together. You shall be free as never before to work out your own ideas unfettered by thoughts of the financial necessities. . . .

Since then the society has pursued the even tenor of its way and, freed from all financial worries, has contributed much to the cause of music. The orchestra plays over a hundred symphony concerts during the winter, in New York and elsewhere. These include a series of Sunday-afternoon concerts at Æolian Hall, Thursday-afternoon and Friday-evening concerts at Carnegie Hall, and a series of young people’s concerts and another of children’s concerts. There are also subscription concerts in Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Rochester, and several tours every winter to Canada and the Middle West. During the war Mr. Flagler often gave the services of the orchestra for charities connected with the war, and several times donated the gross receipts of our regular concerts to such organizations as the American Friends of Musicians in France, in which he and his wife became very much interested. But perhaps the climax in the history of the orchestra was reached in its great European tour in the spring of 1920. To this I shall devote a separate chapter following one on my experiences in France during the Great War.

XV

THE GREAT WAR

When America finally entered the Great War I was, like most of my fellow citizens, anxious to do something to help, and therefore shared the restlessness and discontent which most men of maturer years felt because they were not “too proud” but too old to fight.

A number of music lovers had formed an organization, “American Friends of Musicians in France,” the object of which was to collect money with which to help the families of musicians in France who were suffering or destitute because of the war. Through my French colleagues we had heard of many such cases—some of the most famous musicians were at the front, in the trenches, and in the hospitals, doing their share just as did the men in all the other professions and callings. Several organizations had been formed in France to help toward maintaining their families, but much remained to be done, and through our society, which aroused immediate response in America, we were raising considerable sums and expected to continue this work until the end of the war.

I had been elected president, and while discussing with our committee the best ways and means of helping the older French musicians, it was brought out that many of them were too proud to accept alms. What they really wanted was opportunity to work in their profession, as the constant air raids and bombardments of Paris had almost entirely stopped the giving of lessons and concerts. During our discussion Henri Casadesus, a French musician who was then on a concert tour in America with his Society of Ancient Instruments, and who had given us much valuable information regarding conditions in France, suggested that an orchestra could be formed of such musicians as were still in Paris, which might be used to travel around the country to the various camps in which our huge army was forming and drilling, and to give our soldiers good popular music during their hours of rest and recreation.

It was suggested that a French conductor be engaged to lead this orchestra, but Casadesus asked whether it would not be possible for me to go over and take charge personally. He thought that the French Government would look on this idea very favorably, and through the Ministère des Beaux Arts would give us every assistance possible toward the forming of the orchestra and its transportation through the country. Needless to say, my heart leaped with joy at this suggestion. One step led to another, and Mr. Harry Harkness Flagler immediately and with characteristic generosity donated a check large enough to pay the entire expenses and salaries of a French orchestra of fifty men for six weeks.

The plan was outlined to the National War Work Council of the Young Men’s Christian Association, who accepted it with enthusiasm, and to the French High Commission in Washington, of which Mr. Tardieu was at that time the chief. He sent one of his staff, the Marquis de Polignac, to New York to discuss and arrange details, and immediately cabled to Paris to obtain for me the necessary authority to enter France and to proceed with the plan. The acting director of the Ministère des Beaux Arts was at that time M. Alfred Cortot, the distinguished pianist, and within a week he cabled us that he could place at my disposal the Pasdeloup Orchestra of fifty men who would be ready on my arrival to travel throughout our recreation centres, camps, and hospitals.

As no civilian who was not in government employ could sail for France except under the auspices of one of the welfare organizations, I was to sail as a war worker for the Y. M. C. A., whose entertainment division was under the direction of Mr. Thomas McLane, an earnest, patriotic citizen of New York who gave his entire time enthusiastically to this arduous work. A few weeks before sailing, however, the war situation became so serious that the possibility of carrying out our scheme seemed very doubtful, but Mr. McLane and his chief, Mr. William Sloane, felt strongly that I should go over anyhow, look over the field, and make myself useful in one way or another.

The regulations of the Y. M. C. A. demanded that each one of their workers should submit an indorsement by three well-known American citizens, and as I had the honor of many years’ acquaintance with Theodore Roosevelt, I gave his name as one who might be willing to testify to my Americanism. The letter which he wrote is so characteristic that I am vain enough to reprint it here.

Sagamore Hill, May 4th, 1918.

DEAR MR. MCLANE:

Mr. Walter Damrosch is one of the very best Americans and citizens in this entire land. In character, ability, loyalty, and fervid Americanism he, and his, stand second to none in the land. I have known him thirty years; I vouch for him as if he were my brother.

Faithfully (_Signed_) THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

The assurance of a safe-conduct from the Ministère des Etrangères was a rather important item as I had been born in Germany, even though only the first nine years of my life had been spent there. My father emigrated to America in 1871, and as I had received my education here, had lived in America ever since, and had married an American, I had never felt myself anything but an American and of the most enthusiastic variety. When the Germans invaded Belgium, when they sank the _Lusitania_, and when they seemed to have broken all laws of international relations, I expressed myself, both personally and in newspaper interviews, so strongly that long before we entered the war several Berlin newspapers violently took me to task and honored me by calling me a renegade and a traitor to the country of my birth.

There was an understanding between our country and France that no American civilian of German birth should be permitted to enter France except by special permission of either M. Clemenceau or M. Pichon, then Minister of Foreign Affairs. The French high commissioner cabled to the latter and in most cordial terms recommended that I be permitted to enter France, both because of my office as president of the Society of American Friends of Musicians in France, and because of a life-long admiration for French music, which I had demonstrated for thirty-three years by producing in our country nearly every important symphonic work that French composers had written before and within that time.

M. Pichon promptly cabled the necessary visé and with all proper credentials I set sail on June 15, 1918, on the French steamship _La Lorraine_.

The ship’s passengers were almost entirely soldiers and war workers. There were two hundred and fifty Belgian soldiers with their officers returning to France after three years spent in Russia, and who, when the revolution broke out, had after incredible hardships reached Vladivostok, sailing from there to California. There were Polish soldiers on their way to join the Foreign Legion of the French army and there were dozens of Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., K. of C., and S. A. workers. There were not more than a dozen civilians, among them my friend, Melville Stone, director of the Associated Press, and M. Sulzer, the Swiss minister then accredited to our country. It was strange to be on a transatlantic steamer without any idle rich, tourists, or commercial travellers; and the large guns mounted fore and aft with a gun crew watching, ready day and night, gave one a grim foretaste of the war raging on the other side.

On the first day out Stone told me that M. Sulzer would like to meet me. I expressed my pleasure and laughingly said: “I will promise not to ask him any questions regarding the Swiss citizenship of Doctor Karl Muck.” Stone must have repeated this to Sulzer, for immediately after our introduction he said: “I want to tell you that Doctor Muck had no more claim to Swiss citizenship than you have. The facts are as follows: After the Franco-Prussian war, Muck’s father—a Bavarian living in Munich—was afraid that Bavaria would become completely Prussianized, and, as he had no liking for that country, he preferred to emigrate to Switzerland, where he acquired citizenship which at that time was very easy, as Switzerland was glad to receive the intelligentsia of other countries. His son Karl left Switzerland as a boy to be educated in Germany, and never returned. He went to a German university, studied music, became an orchestral conductor, and as such officiated in various German opera-houses, until he became conductor and Generalmusikdirektor at the Royal Opera in Berlin. There he remained for many years and when the war broke out offered his services to the German Ministry of War in a clerical capacity. The Swiss Government does not recognize him as a citizen and refuses him the protection which such citizenship would afford him.”