Part 25
Among this group I was made heartily welcome. The atmosphere was intensely local, if not provincial, and as against the searching, feverish life of a great metropolis like New York, with its many conflicting interests and racial currents, the tranquillity and purely American quality of Boston life, as it presented itself to me, was a complete contrast. I am speaking of Boston of thirty-five years ago and of conditions that have to a certain extent disappeared, for to-day even the young descendants of the New Englanders of that era seem to find their pleasures in different and more restless fashion.
In the group of which I have spoken, Mrs. Gardner was among the most original and fascinating. She was certainly the leaven in the Boston lump and sometimes shocked the more staid element by her innovations and interest in more modern currents in art and literature than had hitherto rippled its calm Emersonian surface. Boston was at that time perhaps the best example of that typically American musical culture of which I have spoken elsewhere, which instead of growing upward from the masses was carefully introduced and nurtured by an aristocratic and cultivated community through symphony concerts and lectures on music. Its original impulse sprang perhaps more from the head than the heart, but it would not be fair therefore to say that New Englanders approached music only from the intellectual standpoint. I have seen very emotional outbursts among Boston audiences, both at my Wagner recitals and years after when I returned with the Damrosch Opera Company to give the Wagner music-dramas. While it is possible that they felt heartily ashamed of these enthusiasms afterward, and exclaimed, “Is this Boston?” the fact remains that even a Bostonian is human, like other Americans, and needs only to be encouraged to prove that he too has a heart which can beat warmly and respond to the emotions kindled by art.
Their capacity for friendship in the finest sense of the word is wonderful, and I achieved many of my dearest friends at that time. We have all grown much older since then, with the exception of Mrs. Gardner, on whom the years leave no imprint and whose enthusiasms for life and art flame just as brightly to-day as then.
I was certainly very young in those days, and remember, after one of my lectures, which had gone off with great enthusiasm, walking along Boylston Street toward my hotel, thinking in my young conceit that I was evidently a good deal of a personage, when I saw that the street was filled with crowds of people and the police were making a passage with difficulty so as to allow an open carriage, drawn by two horses, to pass through. In it sat a rather stout, smooth-shaven gentleman with a very shiny high silk hat, and the people were cheering him like mad. “Who is this?” I asked a bystander. He gave me a contemptuous look and stopped cheering just long enough to say: “Don’t you know John L. Sullivan when you see him?” I accepted the rebuke meekly and entered my hotel a much more modest man than I had left it a few hours before. John L. Sullivan, “Boston’s greatest citizen,” had just come home from a fight in London, but I do not know to this day whether he had won or lost.
The Boston orchestra was at that time conducted by Wilhelm Gericke, who had brought it to a remarkable state of proficiency. I found him to be a very likable man, a thorough musician, and always gentle and friendly in his attitude. I used to envy him because, while I had to maintain my orchestra at that time by my own exertions, he had a great philanthropist behind him. His orchestra was engaged by the year, played under no other conductor, and assembled every morning at 9.30, like clockwork, for rehearsal. Gericke brought the orchestra up to a high standard of virtuosity. His sense of values was absolute, and under his training and greatly assisted by Franz Kneisel, his concert master, the strings soon acquired great unanimity and a ravishing quality of tone. His readings were always musicianly, although I felt occasionally that they were too reserved. He had a horror of the exaggeration of the brass instruments, and perhaps erred on the other side in subduing them too much; but when he returned, years after, for another five years in Boston his readings had gained in freedom and elasticity, and the balance of the different choirs seemed perfectly adjusted. Boston, and indeed the country, owes him much. He was fortunate in his opportunities, but he proved himself worthy of them.
Rightly or wrongly, Major Higginson had made it his rule to engage none but German conductors for his orchestra. He had gained his first enthusiasm for symphonic music as a young man in Vienna, and had got the idea firmly in his mind that only Germany could give his orchestra the leaders which it required. Among the long line of conductors who came and went, not all, naturally, were of equal worth. A few were distinctly second-raters, and I remember one whose blustering incompetence and conceit finally so enraged Major Higginson that, as the gentleman would not resign when requested because his contract still had another year to run, Higginson sent him a check for the entire amount and dismissed him. Curiously enough the impetus which the reputation of having been conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave was so great that it landed him in two other American orchestras, one of which he brought to the very verge of ruin and the other he ruined altogether, so that the city which had founded it and lavished hundreds of thousands upon it is now without any symphony orchestra and seems to have lost the courage to begin again.
But among the conductors of the Boston Orchestra two stand out as among the best that Europe has sent over. These are Arthur Nikisch and Doctor Karl Muck. The one died last winter, beloved and mourned by the musical public of all Europe and of North and South America; the other was sent from our country back to Germany after the war in deserved disgrace, after having been interned as prisoner of war at Fort Oglethorpe.
When I first met Arthur Nikisch in 1887 he was conductor at the Leipsig Opera House. I had gone there to attend an annual meeting and festival of the Tonkünstler-Verein, an association of which Franz Liszt had always been the president and which had originally been formed by a small group of Liszt-Wagner-Berlioz adherents, of whom my father was one. One of the features of the festival was a stage performance of Berlioz’s “Benvenuto Cellini,” given in honor of Liszt. The work fascinated me, and its performance under the young Nikisch delighted me beyond words. In appearance he already had the same characteristics which his enemies decried but which among his friends only aroused a delighted chuckle when he appeared on the platform, and which quickly changed to a hurricane of enthusiasm after he had demonstrated his marvellous skill as an interpreter. I refer to the long black lock which always hung low over his forehead and his still longer white cuffs which more and more enveloped his little white hands as the performance progressed.
Gericke had developed the orchestra into a perfect instrument, and when Nikisch arrived he played upon it like a virtuoso. I have always maintained that Nikisch achieved still greater mastery during his years in America, because until then he had had no such orchestra at his disposal. The much-vaunted Leipsig Gewandhaus and the Berlin Philharmonic, which he conducted, suffer from the troubles common to all co-operative organizations. Their members outstay their period of usefulness and retain permanent places in the orchestra after they should give way to younger and better men.
The readings of Nikisch were distinctly personal and therefore, because they reflected his own nature, so ingratiating that I have often enjoyed certain of his interpretations although I considered them wrong and contrary to the intentions of the composer. Nikisch made them convincing for the moment.
Doctor Muck, who became conductor of the Boston Symphony some years later, was less personal in his readings. His principal work in Germany had been the conducting of opera, and occasionally a lack of routine in symphonic work showed itself in badly combined programmes, but only in that one respect. As a conductor of the symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms he was a master, and to me his interpretations of Brahms rank among the finest that I have heard. It was a tragedy that this man, who had gained not only the confidence and respect of his patron, Major Higginson, to a greater degree than any other of the Boston conductors, who was admired not only in Boston but in every city which the orchestra visited, and to whom America had given unbounded acclaim, should at the crucial moment have proved himself a supercilious, arrogant Prussian of the worst Junker type, ungrateful toward the man to whom he owed his many successful years in America, and finally even an abject coward and renegade toward the country to which he owed national allegiance.
The story in its entirety is too unpleasant to be told, but as after Muck’s return to Germany he saw fit to indulge in the most violent diatribes against America and its treatment of him, it is justifiable to tell a little of the truth in these pages.
In order to understand the story properly it is necessary to recall the excitement which swept through the country when we finally entered the Great War. Wars arouse prejudice as well as patriotism, and suspicion as well as faith. One of the curious, almost pathological, results of the psychosis of war is the spy mania, and this manifested itself in the years of 1917 and 1918 to a remarkable extent—in America as well as in Europe. One need only recall the many stories of concrete tennis-courts which were discovered and vouched for by reputable people as having been built years before by German army officers, who, disguised as “rich American financiers” (!) had constructed lavish country places along the Atlantic seaboard, all of which possessed these remarkable concrete tennis-courts. These were to support great guns which at the proper moment were to put the American navy out of existence! There were also wonderful stories of secret wires discovered in private houses, and of strange beacon-lights suddenly flaming up at regular intervals along the coast in order to signal messages to some mysterious German submarine.
It was all like a war novel of Oppenheim, and as some of our ladies joined the secret-service in an unofficial capacity, they together with others—who conceived it to be the height of faithlessness to our country to enjoy a symphony of Beethoven or an opera of Wagner while we were at war with Germany—had a beautiful time in the happy illusion that they were doing real war work.
Doctor Muck immediately became a centre of suspicion. He had taken a cottage at Seal Harbor, Maine, for the summer of 1917, and of course he was immediately accused of having a wireless outfit and signalling to a whole fleet of German submarines which were cruising off Mount Desert Island and whose immediate object was, of course, to capture all the millionaires of Bar Harbor and hold them captives for huge ransoms.
According to others he had placed a telephone receiver in the cellar of his house in Boston which skilfully tapped the wire of the telephone of the lady next door, and she, to her horror, had one morning on lifting her telephone, in order to call up her butcher, heard his “guttural” German voice conversing with some mysterious German at the other end about a shipment of dynamite, which was to be used, of course, to destroy Faneuil Hall and the birthplace of Henry W. Longfellow in Maine.
There was not a story so wild that it did not gain credence, but it was not so strange that many of these preposterous rumors should centre around Doctor Muck. His attitude toward us had become more and more supercilious. That he should sympathize with his own country was perhaps natural, but that he should use some tact and reticence in this respect was equally to be expected. He might have taken example from Fritz Kreisler who, as an Austrian citizen, served at the beginning of the war in the Austrian army, but was retired and returned to this country before we entered the conflict. From then on he acted with such dignity and tact, giving up all playing in public during that critical period, that he retained the personal respect and affection of all right-thinking Americans.
As the war situation became more and more serious, Doctor Muck seemed to become more and more supercilious. In response to a perfectly natural impulse, the public demanded that our orchestras begin or end their concerts with the playing of the national anthem. This had become the symbol of our patriotism, and as millions of our young men began to gather in the camps and to be sent abroad in the transports, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was beginning to awaken in every heart emotions that were hardly known to our generation before the war. Doctor Muck refused to play the anthem. Not from Boston nor New York, alas, but from Providence, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh angry mutterings began to be heard. These cities insisted that an orchestra which in time of war was not willing to play our national anthem should not be permitted to play at all. Doctor Muck’s answer to this, in a newspaper interview, was that he conducted an artistic institution, that “The Star-Spangled Banner” is not a work of art, and therefore “only fit to be played by ballroom orchestras and military bands.”
Up till then I had upheld Doctor Muck in so far as it seemed just as bad taste for him, as a German, to conduct our national hymn in time of war with his country as it was for our public to insist that a German should do so. He could have said: “I am a German; my country is at war with yours. I am your guest because in 1915 Major Higginson insisted that I should return to America as he thought that the orchestra could not exist without me. I am now in an unfortunate position. Let me retire from conducting here during the war, or at least let your national anthem be conducted by the concert master.”
But this interview was a flippant evasion of the real point at issue, and when the reporter of the _New York Tribune_ brought it to me, I exclaimed that I did not believe Doctor Muck could have said anything so outrageous, whereupon the reporter told me that his editor had expected me to say this and had therefore telegraphed to Boston and obtained a confirmation of the interview. I then expressed myself in very plain language regarding Doctor Muck’s attitude, but his only answer was a new interview in which he declared that it was all a mistake, that he was not a German but a Swiss! This belated claim, which was based on technicalities and contrary to the facts, was promptly denied by the Swiss minister in Washington, and then suddenly Doctor Muck proceeded to conduct “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but in listless fashion, although half a dozen cities by that time barred their doors to him and the concerts of the orchestra had to be cancelled.
In the meantime the secret-service men of the government had been patiently following every rumor and clew regarding Muck’s supposed spy activities, and while they discovered that his attitude toward us was absolutely inimical and that he was therefore decidedly _persona non grata_, there was no foundation of truth in the rumors connecting him with wires, wireless, beacon-lights, dynamite, or German submarines. The secret-service men, however, discovered other disagreeable things in regard to him which had no connection with the war but which made him liable under the laws of our country. An incriminating package of letters was shown to him, and on his acknowledgment that he had written them he was given the choice of internment as a prisoner of war at Fort Oglethorpe or of being arrested on another charge and brought before the civil courts for trial. He naturally threw up his hands and accepted the former as the lesser evil. As he was released after the war on condition that he return to his own country, I cannot see that he has cause for anything but gratitude toward this country and its lenient treatment of him.
The whole affair was a terrible shock to Major Higginson. He was an old man and the discoveries regarding Doctor Muck, in whom he had placed such confidence and for whom he had vouched so absolutely, were unendurable to him. He had expected to continue his support of the orchestra, and it was generally assumed that he would leave the organization an endowment sufficient to maintain it after his death. Instead of this, he announced his determination to withdraw altogether, and left the decision whether they wished to continue the orchestra with a group of music lovers whom he had called together. For a time its future was in great doubt. Thirty of the players were discharged because of their German nationality, but money was subscribed by various Boston citizens to rebuild the orchestra, and to-day, under the leadership of Pierre Monteux, it is fast regaining its old excellence. It will never again occupy the unique position it held twenty-five years and more ago, because since then so many other symphony orchestras have been founded in America on similar lines and with similar generous endowments. But to Major Higginson will always belong the glory of having blazed the trail. He set the standard, and America will give his memory loving reverence and gratitude.
XIX
MARGARET ANGLIN AND THE GREEK PLAYS
During the winter of 1915 I received a letter from Margaret Anglin, our distinguished American actress, asking me to compose the incidental music for two Greek plays which she intended to produce the following summer at the great open-air Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California. The plays selected were the “Iphigenia in Aulis” of Euripides and “Medea” of Sophocles. I was fascinated by the problem involved, as it necessitated not only the composing of the music but the creation of a form in which it was to be cast.
We know very little of the music of the ancient Greeks, and if we sought to imitate that, it would sound so archaic and even unnatural to our modern ears as to fail in properly supporting the emotions of the drama for us. While the Greeks had developed the technic of the drama to a remarkable extent, music as an art was at that time in its infancy, although its importance was fully recognized by Plato and the great dramatists.
The problem for me was to write music which should take full advantage of the modern development of harmony and orchestration, and form an emotional current on which the drama could float without being in any way submerged. The treatment of the Greek chorus was another problem for which I had no precedents. Mendelssohn had written incidental music to “Antigone,” but this music does not represent Mendelssohn at his best, as much of it is dry and academic in character.
The Greek choruses usually begin with a recital of some old story of mythology, with which every Greek in the audience of that era had been familiar since childhood. Gradually this story is brought into connection with the situation on the stage and reaches its climax when the chorus implores the actors to draw their lesson from it. These choruses I treated in various ways, according to the needs of the dramatic situation. Some were recited to a soft but expressive undercurrent of music, others were sung, and still others were a combination of both. I would have the story of the old Greek legend recited by the first leader of the chorus. Then the second leader, as he applied it to the dramatic situation, would burst into song, until, in the third phase, the entire chorus would join in their impassioned pleadings or warnings.
In the spring of 1915 I took a little cottage in Setauket, Long Island, and there within six weeks wrote the entire music for the two plays, the orchestra parts being copied sheet by sheet as my score was finished. In June I packed them in my bag and travelled across the continent to meet Margaret Anglin and take charge of the musical part of the production.
On arriving in San Francisco I found the great World’s Fair already in full operation. Its Spanish architecture and the luxuriant verdure in which it was enclosed made it a perfect dream of beauty, but I gave myself little opportunity to enjoy it, as my real mission was across the bay at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, where Margaret Anglin and a company of players were already busily engaged from morning till evening in rehearsing. They were anxiously awaiting my music in order to make it fit in properly with the stage arrangements.
The Greek Theatre at the California University is one of the most remarkable structures of its kind in the world. Built amphitheatrically against the side of a hill and absolutely on the lines of the old Greek theatres, its top is fringed by sombre eucalyptus-trees.
A few years before I had seen a performance of the “Bacchante” of Euripides given by a company of Roman actors at an antique amphitheatre on the side of a hill overlooking Florence. Much of this performance had been impressive, but the music was tawdry, and as the play was given according to old Greek custom in the late afternoon, the cruel sunlight made the make-up of the actors and the garish colors of their costumes doubly prosaic. The ancient Greeks had no artificial lighting and were therefore compelled to give their performances in daylight, although they sought to temper it so that night would fall at about the end of the play. Margaret Anglin, with her characteristic genius, perceived that a much greater glamour and stage illusion could be produced by giving her performances at night, leaving the audience in darkness and marking out the stage with great electric lights from above, which could be heightened or lessened according to the actual needs of the drama.
If the drama in America had been treated as seriously by its cultured citizens as music has been, Margaret Anglin would perhaps be to-day the artistic head of an endowed theatre devoted to productions of Shakespeare, Goethe, Molière, Calderon, Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. These great masters of the stage would form just as important a part of her repertoire as the symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms make up an important part of the programmes of the New York Symphony Orchestra. Margaret Anglin is to-day the greatest tragedienne of the American stage, and should be acting _Medea_ and _Lady Macbeth_. But instead of that she has to tour the country, playing “Green Stockings” and similar piffle, and only indulges her artistic ambitions and ideals in occasional productions of Greek dramas at her own risk and very much at her own expense.
I was immensely interested in the rehearsals on the stage of the Greek Theatre. They began at nine-thirty in the morning and would often last—with an intermission of an hour or two for lunch—until eight o’clock at night, but as they were held outdoors in the glorious fresh air of California there was but little fatigue, and all concerned gave themselves up enthusiastically to Miss Anglin’s direction and picturesque conception.