I am an American musician and have lived in this country since my ninth
year. I was born in Breslau, Silesia, on January 30, 1862, and my first
memories are connected with war, the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. I was
four years old and remember being with my mother in a room in our
apartment in Breslau, which was filled with flowers and growing plants
(mother always had a marvellous gift for maintaining and nursing plants)
and various friends coming in to condole with her over the death of my
baby brother, Hans, who had died of cholera, which was then raging in
Breslau. The second child of my parents, born in 1860, had been
christened Richard, after Richard Wagner, who had officiated as
godfather at the ceremony. This child lived but a short time, and Wagner
had vowed that he would never again stand as godfather for the children
of any of his friends, as the ill luck which had pursued him all his
life was thus carried even into their families.
In order to safeguard the rest of her children from the danger of the
dread disease to which little Hans had succumbed, my mother took my
older brother, Frank, myself, and a baby sister into the country near
the Bohemian frontier, where the war was being fought. I can remember my
brother and myself standing at a country road, each armed with a huge
bouquet of flowers we had gathered, and watching for General Steinmetz
and his army to pass on their way to the front. As they marched by, my
brother bravely ran to one of the officers and gave him his flowers, but
my courage gave out and I threw my bouquet so that it fell on the
ground, from which one of the soldiers smilingly picked it up and stuck
it on his bayonet. That same afternoon Frank and I lay on the ground
with our ears closely pressed to it and we could plainly hear the
booming of the cannon.
When peace was declared, King William of Prussia (afterward Emperor
William the First) together with Crown Prince Frederick, Bismarck,
Moltke, and a brilliant retinue of officers, made their triumphant entry
into Breslau on horseback. My brother and I watched this gorgeous sight
with delighted eyes from the balcony of our apartment. My mother threw a
wreath, which fell on the neck of the horse carrying King William and
he, looking up, saluted her.
* * * * *
Musical conditions when my father first came to Breslau in 1858,
immediately after his marriage, were miserable enough, and it was not
until he founded, together with some musical enthusiasts, the “Breslau
Orchester Verein” that a regular symphonic orchestra was established
with a series of subscription concerts. All the great artists of the day
came to Breslau to take part in these concerts, and generally they
stayed at our house, although our quarters were very simple—Liszt,
Wagner, von Bülow, Clara Schumann, Tausig, Joachim, Auer, Haenselt,
Rubinstein. Some of them I can remember vaguely, but of course many
stories and anecdotes were current in the family regarding their visits.
When Tausig, Liszt’s greatest piano pupil, spent a night in our house,
the bed in the guest-room broke down in the middle of the night and he
calmly arranged his mattress on the floor and continued his slumbers.
But his visit was connected in my brother’s and my mind particularly
with a certain apple pudding which he adored and which my mother always
baked especially for him, so that it became known in our family as the
“Tausigsche Apfel-Speise.” It was a luscious mixture of apples, raisins,
and almonds incased in a delicate, light pie-crust.
My father and Tausig would sometimes engage in the most violent
discussions on musical or philosophical topics, and the latter would
often become so enraged that he would rush out of the house, vowing he
would never return. Then he would run around the block and come back in
five minutes, smiling and saying, “Come, Damrosch, let us play a
Beethoven Sonata together,” and all would be well.