Part 23

The heat was again intense, but as the audience were in an extremely receptive and tumultuous mood, we did not mind it, and the orchestra played superbly. I was sorry therefore to have been compelled to nip in the bud a little plot which I luckily discovered that evening. Sixteen adventurous young members of the orchestra had very quietly decided that they would take a midnight train for Venice, spend a happy day there on its lagoons, with perhaps even a swim on the Lido, and then take another night train for Milan, arriving just in time for our concert there. Milan is an important musical centre, and I did not wish to play there with an orchestra partly tired out by two night trips, besides the strong possibility of delayed Italian trains, which operate on the principle of _chi va piano, va sano, ma non lontano_. I therefore had to forbid this little excursion, although I sympathized strongly with our men for wanting to carry it out.

I arrived in Milan two hours ahead of the orchestra and was met at the station by a committee consisting of Signor Finci, the president of the Milan Symphony Society, under whose auspices we were to play, Campanari, brother of my old friend the barytone, and honorary secretary of the Verdi Home for Aged Musicians, the prefect of the police, and several others. All had pale and anxious faces, and had come to tell me that there was not a room to be had in Milan, that several hotels had closed their doors as there was a restaurant and waiters’ strike, and that they wanted to consult with me what had better be done. That mischievous strike devil evidently was to be a permanent member of our organization on the entire tour. I retired with the committee to the room of the prefect at the railroad station and discussed various plans, although in the back of my mind was the firm conviction that my men would find rooms, beds, and food if they were suddenly dumped in the middle of the desert of Sahara. I finally asked Campanari if there were any spare rooms in the Verdi Home for Aged Musicians, and he informed me that the entire home was empty, as they had not been able to operate it at all during the war, owing to lack of funds. There were plenty of beds, blankets, and sheets, but no servants of any kind. This was at least something, and I thought that my young men would not at all mind sleeping in beds that were intended for aged musicians and doing their own chamber work. The prefect also suggested several empty beds in the city hospital, but this did not look to me so inviting. However, I finally arranged with them to meet again at the station on the arrival of the orchestra and I would put the matter before them, and then let them go forth and fare for themselves. Any one who had not found a bed should return to the station and report at the office of the prefect, who would then see that some kind of accommodation was found. This plan was carried out and my manager reported to me that at the final hour only two of our orchestra reported at the station, the one to say that he had found no room and the other that he had two. These two men went off arm in arm therefore, and my faith in the orchestra was again abundantly justified, although the hotel strike here was even worse than in Genoa. I was quartered with my family at the Continental Hotel and, with the exception of a few toothless old hags, who made a pretense of taking care of the rooms, there was no service of any kind. The principal cause of the strike seems to have been a realization on the part of hotel employees that it was undignified for them to accept tips, especially as the tipping system produced such unequal results, the chambermaid on the first floor of a hotel receiving often ten times as much in tips as the one who officiated on the fourth floor. They therefore demanded that a tax of ten to fifteen per cent be added to the bills of travellers, this amount then to be distributed among the employees according to a certain schedule. In the meantime we sizzled in the heat and suffered. To add to our discomfort, there was a great scarcity in the city supply of water, and if one wanted a bath it could only be obtained at six o’clock in the morning or after ten at night.

But again the discipline of the men and the determination to demonstrate themselves as an artistic organization manifested itself in a remarkable way, and both of our concerts were superbly played and enthusiastically received. We considered Milan one of the most important cities of our tour. Its opera at the famous La Scala is world-renowned, and of recent years, especially through the efforts of Maestro Toscanini, a highly cultivated audience for symphonic music has developed.

Toscanini, whom I had known and often admired in America, was rehearsing and conducting in Padua. To my surprise and delight he took a night train from there in order to be present at our Sunday afternoon concert and to give me a brotherly greeting. After the concert he accompanied me to the railroad station where he was to take the night train back to Padua. As we arrived my orchestra, who were already in their respective sleeping-cars, recognized him and with a great roar of welcome gave him three American cheers.

Our three days in Milan had been very busy ones. On Friday afternoon the Ricordi Music Publishing Company gave us a reception, showing the orchestra through their enormous printing works. The first concert was given that evening. On Saturday the mayor and commune of Milan gave us a reception with a visit to the City Museum at the Castello Sforzesco. This was followed by a concert given for us by the excellent municipal band in the courtyard, and a “tea” which consisted of all manner of sandwiches, ices, cakes, and, above all, innumerable bottles of champagne. We were all glad that there was no concert that evening.

After the Sunday concert a number of motor-buses took the orchestra and musical instruments quickly to the station, while our Italian friends stood around and marvelled at what they called “American efficiency,” and we rolled out of Milan and Italy on our way to Strassbourg, exceedingly tired, but with a feeling that we had brought Italy and America many steps nearer to each other by our visit. We had been simply overwhelmed with demonstrations of affection from the moment we arrived in Italy, and there is something in the almost childlike manner in which the Italians demonstrate their feelings that endeared them very quickly to us. They are seething with vitality, and the very intensity of their emotions, which to the cooler North American temperament sometimes seems exaggerated, is a force to be reckoned with in the future of the world. While their civilization is the oldest in Europe they seem to be the youngest people of to-day, and in my profession and the kindred arts I expect great things from the Italian people as soon as the dreadful aftermath of the World War shall have been cleared away.

I was much interested in Strassbourg and Metz in the curious mixture of German and French civilization. In Strassbourg we were very cordially received by the new director of the Conservatory, M. Ropartz, of Nancy, one of France’s most distinguished musicians.

At Metz the mayor made a speech of welcome and with a group of citizens gave us a “vin d’honneur” after the concert. Both cities gave us audiences evidently accustomed to concerts of symphonic music and with a fine appreciation of what we would offer them.

On the public square in Strassbourg I noticed a group of citizens excitedly pointing toward a steeple on the opposite side and, lo and behold, I saw a stork, the first one to get back from his winter sojourn in Africa to spend the summer in his native haunts. The reader will wonder that I have not something more exciting to relate, but I confess that the complete freedom from the official and social engagements after our hectic weeks in Italy came like a heavenly balm, not to mention the agreeable change of living again in a hotel with real waiters, chambermaids, and cooks to minister to one’s comfort.

I looked at that stork and suddenly an old doggerel jumped into my head that I had sung with other children over fifty years before, and which begins:

“Storch, Storch, Steiner, mit de langen Beiner”—

and here was perhaps a descendant of the very bird whom we had greeted so long ago. I was inclined to become sentimental over this interesting possibility, but the stork flew away without showing any reciprocal interest and my mood did not last long.

We returned to Paris the following day, and on the morning of June 4 started in a special train to Fontainebleau, where the entire orchestra were to be guests of the mayor and municipality for the day.

The suggestions which I had made to Francis Casadesus in Paris and Chaumont during our long talks in 1918, while he and I were examining the two hundred bandmasters of the A. E. F., had borne quick fruits. Casadesus had communicated my suggestion of a summer school for American musicians to his very musical friend, M. Fragnaud, the sous-préfet of Fontainebleau. He in turn had interested M. Bonnet, the mayor, and in consequence a quick decision had been reached that the summer school should be placed at Fontainebleau and housed in an entire wing of the historic Palais de Fontainebleau, which would be donated for this purpose by the French Government. I was delighted at this happy outcome, and, as the people concerned evidently wished to signalize it by some special fête, I gladly accepted their invitation to give a concert there with our orchestra and make this, so to speak, the beginning of relations which will, I hope, help materially to bring France and America musically closer together for many years to come.

Many French musicians and dignitaries were on the train to take part in the day’s celebration. There were M. Paul Leon, representing the Ministère des Beaux Arts; Alfred Cortot, distinguished pianist; Mangeot, editor of the _Monde Musicale_ and founder of the École Normale de Musique in Paris; Francis and Henri Casadesus, Mlle. Boulanger, Albert Bruneau, composer of the opera “Le Rêve”; M. Dumesnil, deputy for Fontainebleau, and many others.

The whole town had been declared “en fête.” Every shop was closed and French and American flags, gaily intertwined, festooned all the principal streets. The street leading to the Mairie was lined on both sides by French troops, and we all tried to look as if we were delegates to the Versailles Conference as we marched to the reception of the mayor, and looked at this martial array.

The luncheon which followed was one of those typical French affairs in which the gay was charmingly mingled with the more serious and ceremonial. M. Dumesnil proved himself one of the greatest orators I have ever heard and played upon every emotion of the human heart, evoking tears and laughter with the voice and diction of a virtuoso.

He was succeeded by M. Bruneau arising and suddenly addressing me, and at the close pinning the Legion d’Honneur on my coat, after which, to the huge delight of my orchestra, he, in true French fashion, kissed me on both cheeks. It is very agreeable to have one’s orchestra present while such honors are conferred, as their approval demonstrates itself in most noisy fashion, and my boys know that this particular decoration is as much theirs as mine.

As there was no theatre in Fontainebleau large enough to hold the huge audience, the concert was given in the Ménage d’Artillerie, which had been hastily converted into a concert hall. It proved excellent for this purpose, except that as soon as we began playing, hundreds of birds, which had had undisturbed possession of the rafters and of the musical privileges of this building for years, were evidently disturbed and angered by our intrusion. They suddenly flew out from their nests and burst into shrill songs of protest, which mingled, not without interesting results, with the harmonies of the “New World Symphony,” played by special request of the sous-préfet, M. Fragnaud, who is himself an excellent amateur oboe player.

In the front rows of the audience were hundreds of school-children who had been dressed “en Américaine,” with enormous bows and sashes composed of the American stars and stripes. That there were several hundred of these I can testify, as I had to shake hands with every one of them after the concert.

The following day, before leaving for Belgium, I received the welcome news that a rather disagreeable matter concerning our three concerts at the Paris Opéra had been most amicably settled. The Opera House, which is the property of the French Government, had been offered to us by the Ministère des Beaux Arts “free of rent,” but we were to pay for the actual expenses of light, heat, and service incurred. When I first arrived in Paris our local manager informed us that the Director of the Opera, who holds a lease of the building, intended to charge us thirty thousand francs for his “expenses.” This seemed to me excessive, and I remonstrated with M. Leon, the Director of the Beaux Arts. The Director of the Opera, who had lost millions of francs at the opera during the war, was a man of wealth to whom the opera was more or less of a personal toy, but he evidently wished to recoup somewhat on us, for he argued that, inasmuch as he might have given opera performances on the days and hours when we had our concerts, we should be charged with the pro-rata expense of his singers, orchestra, chorus, and ballet. This argument, however, did not seem valid to us, as since time immemorial there had never been any opera performances on those days of the week. I presented our case to M. Leon and told him that as I had never had any dealing or arrangement with the Director of the Opera but only with the Ministère des Beaux Arts, I was compelled to leave the matter entirely in their hands. We were their guests, and if they felt that we should pay thirty thousand francs for “expenses” we would most certainly do so. The results were most satisfactory, but not entirely unexpected by me, and the sum which we finally paid was a perfectly fair amount.

We went to Brussels on June 3 by motor, through a great part of the devastated regions and all the horror and misery of destroyed villages, field after field pock-marked by shell explosions and dreary remains of a few stumps of trees where had been acres and acres of forest.

On our arrival we were welcomed with open arms by our ambassador, Brand Whitlock, and his wife. He told me that but two weeks before he had been suddenly informed that we could not play at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie because a socialist organization of Brussels claimed the right to it for an entertainment of their own. There had been a mix-up because the director of the opera, who had promised us the theatre, had died and the new incumbent claimed to have no knowledge of our coming. They intended to place us in a Flemish theatre, which of course did not have the dignity of the Royal Opera House, and Mr. Whitlock promptly told them that, as we were there by invitation of the Belgian Government and as our coming had an international significance, he could not permit us to be euchred out of our rightful possession of the Théâtre de la Monnaie, and if we could not have that he would telegraph to me urging us to cancel the concert. This evidently produced results. The socialist organization was appealed to, and immediately and courteously said that it would do anything for an American orchestra.

The same lack of what we would call proper management of concerts seemed to exist in Brussels as in many cities of France and Italy. Large advertisements, such as fill the amusement columns of American papers, are hardly ever used. Two lines inserted only once or twice are the rule. Reading notices, giving the programme or other information regarding the concert, are printed only if paid for at so much a line. Small posters, which are pasted on street corners for a week or two, are almost the only advertising indulged in.

Transfer companies—such as in our country meet a musical or theatrical organization at the station with a specified number of trucks to carry the musical baggage or scenery to the theatre—are not known. We had put this important part of our tour into the hands of Thomas Cook and Sons, and their representative, on the arrival of the train, would negotiate with this or that driver lounging around the station and lazily looking for jobs. In Italy the porters again and again simply refused to transport our stuff because the weather was too hot, and they would only begin at six or seven o’clock in the evening, when thirty little handcarts, pushed by as many men, would carry the musical instruments to the theatre. Luckily concerts in Italy begin at nine or nine-thirty, so we always managed in one way or another to get our instruments transported. Several times, however, even soldiers and military camions were bribed into service. This slovenliness, which is maddening to an American, is so universal in Europe, especially since the war, that one marvels how anything can be accomplished; and yet with the exception of places where strikes interfered we got along, even though we were sometimes wild with anxiety and foolishly furious at what we considered to be their national characteristics.

Everybody in Belgium, however, seems to read the posters, for the demand for seats in Brussels was so great that we could have filled the little opera-house twice over. Its acoustics are marvellous, and the strings vibrate like an old Cremona violin. They had specially requested that the concert should be purely symphonic and without any soloist. I therefore gave them the lovely Mozart “Jupiter” Symphony and the César Franck D Minor. Franck had been born in Liège, and I wished to demonstrate to them our love and understanding of this noble musician. I do not think I have ever played before an audience more sensitive to the beauties of music. As a special compliment to Brussels we played an Adagio for strings by Lekeu, a modern, highly talented, young Belgian composer, who unfortunately had died at the age of twenty-four. The Adagio is a work of tender, melancholy beauty, and sounded so exquisite in this building that the players and I were intensely moved by it during the performance. This emotion was evidently communicated to the audience, so that at the close their applause could not be quieted, and I finally had to take the score of the composition from my desk and point to it in silent pantomime.

After the concert, as I was preparing to leave the theatre, two ladies came toward me with an old man who proved to be the father of Guillaume Lekeu. He tried to thank me for our playing of his son’s composition, but broke down completely as the tears poured down his face.

The following day at Antwerp I saw again to my great delight the famous old tenor, Van Dyk, with whom I had given many a Wagner opera during our engagement at the Metropolitan with the Maurice Grau Opera Company. His villa, near Antwerp, had been occupied by a German general and his staff during the four years of the war. They had drunk up his entire wine-cellar, consisting of many hundred bottles of choice vintages, and had also removed every bit of copper from his door-knobs and kitchen. Otherwise they had left his house intact, and, with imperturbable good humor and courage, Van Dyk had taken up again the work of gaining an existence for his family. Twice a week he went to Brussels, where he had an interesting class in dramatic singing at the Royal Conservatory, and besides this he was busily engaged as a director of an insurance company.

In Antwerp, as well as in Liège and Ghent, we found the same discriminating and educated audiences as in Brussels.

Hardly anywhere did we see the ravages of war, and what little there were were being quickly repaired by the industrious inhabitants.

We left Belgium on June 10, to enter Holland, playing at The Hague that evening and in Amsterdam the day after.

In Holland our American diplomatic representative, William Phillips, Minister to The Hague, had been active in assuring us a welcome. He was an old friend and had invited not only the Queen Mother, who is the only musical member of the royal household, but a distinguished party of nearly one hundred, including all the diplomatic representatives and the highest officials of the court and governments, to be his guests at the concert.

After the first part he introduced me to the Queen Mother, who proved to be very charming and much interested in music, and who also possessed that delightful royal quality of putting you “at your ease.” This consists in asking a question and then not waiting for you to answer, but answering it in all its possibilities and bearings herself. Conversation is thus made rather one-sided but agreeable, even though all the brilliant things one might have said remain unuttered.

After the concert the entire distinguished party assembled at the legation for a delicious supper, at which I met a great many charming Dutch ladies who, fortunately for me, spoke English or French.

The next day Mr. Phillips motored me to Amsterdam. There the members of the local orchestra immediately poured into the willing ears of my men dreadful stories of local jealousy of our coming, that several of the newspapers had been told to criticise us severely, and that all the adherents of the local orchestra had ostentatiously decided to absent themselves from our concert. Very little of this proved to be true. The huge hall in which we played, the Concertgebow, has a stage perched up so high that the people in the parquet literally have to strain their necks to see the performers, and the reverberation of sound is excessive. The hall seats three thousand people, and there were not more than fourteen hundred at our concert. However, they certainly made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers. All previous notions of the phlegm of the Dutch people were completely dissipated. Not being a prima donna, I did not keep count of the many times I was recalled after the “Eroica” Symphony, but, as I had to march down and up a platform of about fifty steps each time, the exercise in connection with it was considerable. The newspapers next morning, in spite of all the dark rumors, were enthusiastic in our praise and generous in their comparison of our orchestra with their own splendid organization.

London marked the last lap of our musical race through Europe. We stayed a week and gave five concerts, four at Queens’ Hall on June 14, 15, 16, and 19, and one on June 20 at the huge Royal Albert Hall. The lucky star which had accompanied us during the entire tour shone for us with steadfast light during this last week. The orchestra never played better and the newspapers heartily echoed the reception we received from the public.

I had not conducted in London since a concert mentioned elsewhere in these reminiscences, given at Princes’ Hall by Ovide Musin in 1888, when I was but twenty-six years of age. Since then great changes have come over the musical life of England. At that time music was to a great extent in the hands of foreigners, and one has only to see the old pictures by Du Maurier in _Punch_ to realize that the musician in English drawing-rooms was generally a long-haired German or Italian. Hans Richter was the great popular conductor in London and there were many foreigners in the British orchestras.