“You should then go to-night to the theatre to hear the first
performance of Calderon’s play ‘Above all Magic is Love,’ for which your
father’s old friend Lassen has written the music and which he will
conduct.”
I assured the master that I would certainly go, but sensing a certain
frigidity in the air, and feeling that so unimportant a person as myself
must not take any more time of the great Liszt, I withdrew.
That evening I went to the historic little theatre doubly hallowed by
the productions and ministrations of Goethe, as well as the memorable
times in the fifties when Liszt officiated there and conducted the first
performances of Wagner’s “Lohengrin” in which my mother had sung
_Ortrude_. The theatre was so small that you could almost see every
person in it as in a drawing-room, and to my astonishment, in the first
intermission, one of the servants of the theatre came to me and asked me
if I were Herr Damrosch. When I answered in the affirmative he said that
Kapellmeister Lassen wished to see me. I followed him to the stage and
was immediately accosted by Lassen whom I had not met before, but of
whom I knew, because he and my father had been close friends for many
years.
He said: “What did you do to the master this morning? I came in just
after you left and found him in tears. He said, ‘a young son of Damrosch
called on me this morning, I thought of course he would stay here and
study with me, but instead of that he told me he was only going to stay
two days. The young generation have forgotten me completely. They think
nothing of me and they have no respect for us older men of bygone days.
Am I a hotel in which one takes a room for a night, then to pass on
elsewhere?’”
Needless to say, I was overcome at such a dreadful development of a
perfectly innocent remark of mine. I could not conceive it possible that
so small a person as myself should have unwittingly brought about so
tragic a result, and I implored Lassen to tell me how I could efface it.
Lassen, seeing my unhappy state, advised me to go the next morning at
eight o’clock to see Liszt again and to explain everything to him. I sat
through the rest of the play but actually did not hear a word of it or a
note of Lassen’s music; I was too occupied with my own misery. I did not
sleep all night, but tossed about restlessly and at six arose and
wandered about dismally until seven when a frowsy waiter in the
dining-room of my hotel, the “Russische Erb Prinz” gave me a cup of
coffee.
Punctually at eight o’clock I knocked at Liszt’s door and as I entered I
saw this wonderful-looking old man with his splendid white hair and
deep-set eyes, already at his work-table. As he saw me his eyebrows
arched and said:
“What, still in Weimar?”
I came forward and tried to speak, suddenly burst into tears and then
managed to stammer out my great admiration for him, how my father had
always held him up as the ideal musician of our times, and how he must
have misunderstood my words of yesterday if he thought that I intended
any lack of respect or reverence for such a man as he. As I reread this
it seems quite articulate, but as I told it to Liszt it must have
sounded very ridiculous, but nevertheless I suddenly felt his arms about
me and a very gentle furtive kiss placed upon my forehead. He led me to
a chair, sat down by me and began again to talk and reminisce about my
father and mother. He then invited me to come that afternoon to his
piano class and I left very much relieved at the outcome of my visit.
I then called on another old friend of my parents and also of Liszt’s,
Fräulein von Schorn. I found at her house a friend of hers, Baron von
Joukowski, a Russian painter of distinction and a highly interesting
man, who had become very friendly with the Wagner family and who had
designed the Hall of the Holy Grail for the “Parsifal” production at
Bayreuth. When I told them of my experience with Liszt they explained to
me that Liszt had grown very old, that he felt the modern musical world
was forgetting him and that in choosing a sacred text like “Parsifal,”
Wagner had been, so to speak, encroaching somewhat on his domain.
Perhaps even a latent jealousy of Wagner’s all-usurping powers was
slightly clouding a friendship and self-sacrifice which Liszt had so
abundantly given to Wagner all his lifetime. They also told me that
Liszt was now surrounded by a band of cormorants in the shape of
ostensible piano students, many of whom had no real talent or ambition,
but who virtually lived on the master’s incredible kindness, abusing it
in every way and altogether making the Weimar of that day a travesty on
former times.
Bülow confirmed this to me several years later and told me how he had
once “cleaned out” Liszt’s rooms and bade this unsavory crowd never to
return. Liszt had thanked him, but next morning they were all back
again.
I attended the audition in Liszt’s rooms that afternoon and found that
there was indeed a pitiful crowd of sycophants and incompetents
assembled, but there were a few exceptions, notably young Eugene
d’Albert who was then perhaps fifteen or sixteen years of age and who
played wonderfully and to Liszt’s great satisfaction. There were a few
others who, however, did not play on that afternoon. But another one who
shall be nameless, sat down to play the Beethoven sonata in E flat, Op.
31, No. 3, and botched the introduction so horribly that Liszt gently
pushed her off the chair and sat down himself saying, “This is the way
it should be played,” and then the music seemed to just drop from his
fingers onto the piano keys, and such a heavenly succession of sounds
ravished my ear that I did not think it possible human hands could evoke
it. He then said to her: “Now, try it again.” And she did, and, if
anything, played even worse than before. Again Liszt played the opening
phrases, and then, somewhat irritated, he said:
“So, blamieren Sie sich noch einmal.” (Now, make a fool of yourself
again.) By that time to our relief she felt that both she and we had had
enough.
After this I met Liszt several times and he always treated me with
uniform cordiality, but every once in a while the memory of our first
meeting would come to him and he would make some gently malicious
remark, such as “Oh, here comes our young American; like lightning he
flashes through the world!”
From Weimar I went to Ems and dutifully took the “cure” for five weeks,
drinking the three glasses of the more or less miraculous waters while
the band played before breakfast, and watching little girls dressed in
white smilingly presenting bouquets of bachelor’s-buttons, popularly
supposed to be his favorite flower, to old Emperor William, who,
accompanied by an adjutant or two, used to take the cure at Ems every
summer.
To strangers like myself the place on the promenade at which the French
Ambassador, Benedetti, had “insulted” the King of Prussia in 1870 was
always pointed out, but this was many years before Bismarck’s famous and
cynical confession that it had all been a put-up job by him in so
altering the famous telegram relating to the King’s meeting with
Benedetti that, according to Bismarck’s memoirs: “It will be known in
Paris before midnight, and not only on account of its contents but also
on account of the manner of its distribution, will have the effect of a
red rag upon the Gallic Bull.”
Two summers ago, after an absence of thirty-eight years, I revisited Ems
with my wife and daughters. We had motored from Paris to Coblenz on a
visit to General Allen, then in command of our Army of Occupation in
Coblenz, and from there to Ems was but a short motor ride. We found the
town occupied by French troops from Morocco, and our officer guides
pointed out with some amusement the stone which marks the place where
Benedetti and King William had met in 1870.
In July I went to Bayreuth in high expectation, to hear the first four
performances of Wagner’s “Parsifal.” To a young musician from America
such an experience was especially new and exciting. I arrived there a
week or two before the first performance, hoping to gain admission to
some of the rehearsals. I found this impossible, but I met scores of
artists by whom I was cordially received because I was my father’s son.
Many of his old friends were there for the “Parsifal” performances and I
remember with much pleasure the kindly, refined and gentle Herman Levi,
General Music Director of the Munich Opera, who had been chosen by
Wagner to conduct the Bayreuth performances.
I received an invitation for the first reception held by Wagner and his
wife, Cosima, at Wahnfried and dutifully presented myself there with
some nervousness, which was allayed somewhat when I found Liszt almost
at the door as I came in. He immediately recognized me and not only
introduced me to Cosima, but when she said, “Father, you must introduce
this son of our old friend, Doctor Leopold Damrosch, to the Meister,” he
took me into Wagner’s workroom where I beheld Wagner surrounded by
musicians and in front of him the giant tenor, Albert Niemann, well
known later on to Wagner lovers in America as a member of the German
company at the Metropolitan for a number of years, and also as the
creator of _Tannhäuser_ in Paris at the tragic and disastrous
performances of 1861.
As we came in, Wagner was joking Niemann unmercifully, saying:
“Look at this man! I invited him to create the part of _Parsifal_ for me
and he refused because I told him that _Parsifal_ must be a beardless
youth and he said he would not cut off his beard for any man.”
“Why, Meister,” answered Niemann, “you know that is not true; I would
cut off my nose if it were necessary to sing one of your rôles
properly.”
Wagner greeted me with kindness, asked about my father, and a few days
later sent me, through his publishers, for my father, a manuscript copy
of the finale from the first act of “Parsifal” (no orchestral score was
at that time engraved) for performance in New York by the Symphony and
Oratorio Societies. This was a remarkable act of friendship on his part
and I was very proud to be able to carry the precious score back to my
father.
It was to me indescribably touching to note the way in which Liszt
sought to efface himself at Wagner’s house, in order that Wagner’s glory
should stand forth alone. When I first saw Liszt there I, following the
custom of the young musicians at Weimar and elsewhere, sought his hand
in order to kiss it; but, with a force incredible in so old a man, he
pressed down my hand, saying with his gentle smile: “No, no, not here.”
I doubt whether there ever was a musician who worked so incessantly for
the benefit of other musicians as he. He was constantly seeking, either
with his ten magic fingers as pianist or with his pen as musical critic
or propagandist, or with his own money, to save others from want or to
help them to obtain the recognition which he thought they deserved. It
is impossible to name the hundreds whom he thus benefited—Berlioz,
Saint-Saëns, César Franck, Schumann, Cornelius, and so on, and of course
above all Wagner himself, whose friendship with Liszt has become
historic. Like most friendships, the one gives much more than he
receives, and that one was Liszt, who, in his admiration for Wagner’s
genius minimized himself and what he had accomplished as composer to an
exaggerated degree. In those personal qualities that make up a man’s
character, Liszt was infinitely the superior. Wagner’s genius as a
musician was the greater, but this brought in its trail an overwhelming
egotism and a vanity which made many of his relations with his fellow
men unfortunate. Liszt gave up all worldly glories and honors and riches
which he might have acquired if he had continued his career as perhaps
the greatest piano virtuoso that ever lived, in order to devote himself
absolutely to composition and musical propaganda, without any thought of
pecuniary rewards. He literally, like his patron saint, Francis of
Assisi, took the vows of poverty. When I saw him he lived in most simple
fashion, always travelled “second class” and gave what little money he
had to others who seemed to him to need it more. Without his
never-ceasing support and encouragement, his absolute faith in the
eventual triumph of Wagner’s music, and without continual financial
support from Liszt and from those he constantly urged to help, Wagner
could never have carried on his struggle toward the triumphant
completion of a Bayreuth and an almost complete realization of his
ideals.
The first performance of “Parsifal” made a tremendous impression on me.
I was much moved by the noble allegory and the music accompanying the
sacred rituals of the Christian Church as presented upon the stage in
the scene during the uncovering of the Holy Grail. But I must confess
that with each succeeding performance this feeling lessened. The fact
that it was not a devotional ceremony but an imitation of one which had
been carefully drilled and trained into the performers whose gestures of
devotion repeated themselves each time with automatic regularity,
gradually began to affect me disagreeably. I was at that time too young
to analyze this feeling properly, but, as the years went by, I gradually
arrived at the belief that such ceremonials should not be presented on a
stage, for if we see a group of Christian Knights partaking of the
Lord’s Supper, we should have the full conviction that it is a real
ceremony and not an imitation. The foot-washing scene between _Parsifal_
and _Kundry_ also affected me disagreeably. It was too direct an
imitation of Magdalen washing the feet of Christ. On the other hand, the
Good Friday scene between _Parsifal_ and _Gurnemanz_ moved me and many
others in the audience to tears because it was a lovely and lovable
presentation of the divine mercy through the self-sacrifice of the
Saviour. Old Scaria, the Vienna bass, who took the part of _Gurnemanz_,
sang and acted this scene with convincing tenderness.
I was naturally much interested in the invisible, subterranean orchestra
of the Bayreuth auditorium, and as the first noble theme of the prelude
literally floated into the darkened hall, the great advantage of an
invisible conductor was manifest. The division of the music into bars,
which are an essential of the conductor’s beat, should be seen only by
the orchestra, and I still wish it were possible to educate the public
to listen to music with their ears only and not with their eyes. But
this theory of mine would find violent opposition from the small but
select company of “prima donna conductors” who, at that parting of the
ways which comes to every conductor, whether he shall make himself an
interpreter of the composers’ works or a perverter in order to
demonstrate his own “tricks of the trade,” have chosen the primrose path
because a large part of the public are easily gulled and more easily
moved if the conductor “dramatizes” the music through his gestures. By
the skilful manipulation of his arms and hands, his hips and his hair,
he gives the impression that when the ’cellos play a soulful melody, it
really drips from his wrists, and when the kettledrums play a dramatic
roll it is really the result of a flash of his eye. There are many
people, especially among the gentle sex, to whom admiration for one
conductor entails a deep hatred of all others. It would be interesting
to note how many of them could pick out their favorite if half a dozen
of the prima donnas of the baton were to perform invisibly with an
invisible orchestra in quick succession to each other.
The strings of the Bayreuth orchestra were noble and rich in tone, but I
was disturbed by many inaccuracies and false intonations of the wind
choir, which surprised me all the more as the orchestra was supposed to
be composed of the best of every kind from the different opera-houses of
Germany. These faults were not noticed or acknowledged by my German
friends, and I think that the years have brought more and more of a
cleavage in this respect between their orchestras and ours, and that
to-day American orchestras obtain, especially in the wind-instrument
choirs, greater purity of tone and, without sacrificing elasticity, a
greater precision of ensemble.
I have always had a penchant for French wood-wind players and have given
them and their Belgian cousins a preference in my orchestra. Generally
speaking, a conductor can safely engage a first prize from the Paris
Conservatoire in flute, oboe, or bassoon without giving him any further
examination.
Where else can one find a flute of such ravishing tone quality as that
of George Barrère, who has been first flute of the New York Symphony
Orchestra for seventeen years and who was first recommended to me by his
great teacher, Tafanel, in Paris? I am happy to say that he is
developing many American players and giving to them something of his own
luscious and spiritual tone quality, so that he, as well as Mathieu, our
first oboe, and Lettelier, bassoon, are continuing the great traditions
of the Paris Conservatoire in this country and imparting their qualities
to a group of young American pupils. Germany has produced some great
clarinet players, of whom Muhlfeld, for whom Brahms wrote his beautiful
“Quintet for Clarinet and Strings,” was a fine example. Mr. Lindemann,
first clarinet of my orchestra, is another, and his tone is of a
peculiarly pure quality. I prefer the tone of the German trombonists to
that of their French colleagues. The Germans cultivate a darker and more
noble tone quality.
The summer of 1886 I returned again to Germany. I had been invited to
conduct some selections from “Sulamith,” a cantata of my father’s, at
the annual meeting of the “Ton-künstler-Verein” which took place at the
beautiful Thuringian hill town of Sondershausen, the residence of the
princely house of Schwartzburg-Sondershausen, where the prince
maintained a good permanent symphony orchestra.
Liszt, as venerable founder and president of the Ton-künstler-Verein, an
association of musicians the original purpose of which was the
production and cultivation of the modern school of composition, again
received me very kindly and expressed himself as much pleased at hearing
my father’s work.
At the close of the Festival I accompanied him, together with Baron
Joukowski and Fräulein von Schorn, back to Weimar. During the trip Liszt
was in a very gay mood and kept us in gales of laughter with a number of
outrageous puns and amusing comments on certain phases of the Festival,
especially on a long debate between Doctor Rieman, an eminent musical
theorist, and another man whose name I have forgotten, on certain
theories regarding the science of harmony. This debate, which was wholly
technical and very “gründlich” lasted for two hours, during which poor
Liszt had to sit in the front row in a room crowded to suffocation and
with not a door or window open. I can still see the venerable head of
Liszt drooping and dropping every now and then from sheer fatigue, and
then the Meister raising it again with that ineffable smile on his face
in order to show an interest in the discussion.
When we arrived in Weimar, Joukowski invited us all, together with
Lassen, to dinner at the Hotel “Zum Russischen Hof.” It was a jolly
affair. Champagne was served immediately after the soup and Liszt
reminisced so brilliantly and beautifully of the old Weimar days of
which Fräulein von Schorn and Lassen had been a part and with which I,
too, could claim some connection through my parents, that we all sat
spellbound.
During the dinner Liszt asked me if I knew anything of a portrait of his
which had been painted under interesting conditions many years before.
Liszt occupied rooms at the old Villa d’Este at Tivoli, near Rome, for a
month or two every winter. It then belonged to his old friend, Cardinal
Prince Hohenlohe. One evening his bell rang, and as his servant had gone
out, Liszt took a candle and opened the door. His visitors were Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, the American poet, who had brought a painter
friend, Mr. Healy, to introduce to the maestro. Longfellow was so struck
with the picturesque appearance of Liszt as he stood in the old doorway
in his long black soutane, holding a lighted candle, that he asked Liszt
for permission to have Healy paint a picture of him, and he consequently
gave Healy several sittings. Longfellow took the painting back with him
to America.
I had never heard of or seen this picture, but thirty years later, when
Ernest Longfellow, a nephew of the poet, was lunching at our house I
remembered the incident and asked him if he knew anything of the
whereabouts of the picture. He told me that he remembered it very well
and that it was still hanging in his uncle’s house in Cambridge. Through
the courtesy of the present occupants I was permitted to take a
photograph of it and it is reproduced in this book.
It was not until midnight that we accompanied Liszt through the park and
the lovely Goethe Garden back to his house. It was a gentle summer night
with a hazy moon giving an indescribable glamour to the trees and
bushes, and suddenly Liszt laid his hand on my shoulder and said
“Listen!”
From the bushes came the song of a nightingale. I had never heard one
before and stood spellbound. It seemed incredible that such ecstatic
sweetness, such songs of joy and sorrow, could come from the throat of a
little bird, and to hear it all at twenty-four years of age and standing
at the side of Liszt! Dear reader, I confess that to-day, thirty-five
years later, I still thrill at the memory of it.
Alas! That was almost the last time that I saw Liszt. In July I went
again to Bayreuth to hear the first “Tristan” performance, and one
morning I met him, looking very old and worn, coming all alone out of
the church from early mass. A few days later, July 31, he had followed
his dearest friend, Wagner, into the beyond.
The following winter, in Liszt’s memory (March 3, 1887), I gave the
first complete performance in America of his oratorio, “Christus.” This
work made so profound an impression that I repeated it the following
year.
I am sorry that “Christus” has not been performed since then by our
choral societies, as I consider it to be Liszt’s greatest work. Many of
its themes are based on the Gregorian modes. The choruses are set in
sonorous harmonies and breathe a tranquillity which can only be achieved
by a perfect mastery of the subject and the form in which it is treated.
There are two orchestral numbers—a Pastorale, indicative of the
shepherds and the annunciation, “Angelus Domini ad Pastores ait,” and
the March of the Three Kings, “Et ecce Stella quam Viderant”—which are
brilliantly orchestrated. The march depicts the three kings of the
Orient with their mighty retinue, the star guiding them to the manger in
Bethlehem being indicated by a sustained high A flat in the first
violins in an organ point around which the processional continues. The
trio, or middle part, in a beautiful unison of the violins and
violoncellos, depicts the kings opening their treasures and presenting
gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the little Jesu.
The entrance of Christ into Jerusalem is characterized by an atmosphere
of exalted, joyous acclaim, and the setting for baritone of the prayer
of Jesus,
O my Father, if this cup may not pass away
from me, except I drink it, Thy will be done,
is one of the most moving that I know of in the history of religious
music.
In the last part there is an exquisite but simple setting of an ancient
Eastern hymn, “O Filii et Filiæ.” Altogether I cannot understand why, in
the dearth of religious music written by modern pens, “Christus” does
not take its permanent place in the repertoire of choral societies.
Like many other works of the greatest masters, a few good cuts will add
to the effectiveness of this oratorio.