My father had always considered that a study of the oratorios of Bach
and Handel was a highly important foundation for the young musician, and
I had spent many hours with him in studying their scores and imitating
their form in my own counterpointal work. Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion”
and Handel’s “Messiah,” “Samson,” and “Judas Maccabæus” I knew virtually
by heart. My father also believed the development of amateur choruses to
be a very strong factor in the musical growth of a people. Under his
inspiration the chorus of the Oratorio Society constantly grew in
numbers and technical proficiency; but it suffered from the great dearth
of men singers, especially tenors. The terribly one-sided condition of
musical development in our country, proceeding almost exclusively on
feminine lines, showed itself markedly in this branch of the art. Many
of the men singers who in one way or another had been cajoled or coerced
into joining a choral society, had often to be drilled in their parts
like children, though without a child’s quickness of perception. The
result was that the labor of training was incessant and the mistakes of
one year repeated themselves inevitably the next. In rehearsing such
oratorios as Handel’s “Messiah” or Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion,” for
instance, a good routined conductor could always prophesy beforehand
what mistakes the chorus was going to make.
During my father’s time the sopranos in the Oratorio Society were of
overwhelming power and quality; but this was largely because my mother,
when we came to America, gave up all solo singing in public and devoted
herself enthusiastically to leading the soprano choir. Her voice was
phenomenal in its strength and quality, and when, as in some fugal
chorus of Handel’s, the sopranos finally enter on the main theme, her
triumphant voice would carry everything along with it. She always sang
by heart, her beautiful, deep-set eyes fixed on the conductor, and when
this conductor happened to be her own husband or son there was a
devotion and a love in them that I can never forget.
To maintain a choral society in a huge city like New York is doubly
difficult because of the many temptations and distractions that beset
its members in so large a metropolis and threaten the regular attendance
at rehearsals. I have always felt, therefore, that the many splendid
performances which the society has given, in its long existence of
forty-nine years, are especially to its credit. The rehearsals with
these amateur singers, however, demand from the conductor ten times the
energy, patience, and vitality that are necessary with an orchestra
composed of trained professionals. And yet there is a charm in working
with devoted amateurs. My father loved it, and even during the harassing
labors of founding and maintaining the German opera at the Metropolitan,
he always turned to the regular Thursday-evening chorus rehearsals of
the Oratorio Society as a change and rest. I confess that I have
similarly enjoyed the almost primitive study necessary with an amateur
chorus after a day spent with my orchestra, and I look back with the
deepest pleasure on the many years during which I conducted the Oratorio
Society.
Smaller cities should be able to develop choral societies far more
easily than New York. Toronto, Canada, has always been an example of
what can be accomplished in that direction. There are four choral
societies of high merit there, among which perhaps the Mendelssohn
Choir, founded by Doctor Vogt, ranks highest. The English have an
inherited love and talent for choral singing, and in Toronto the weekly
rehearsal is the one “dissipation” of the week, and is eagerly looked
forward to by the singers. I have heard the Mendelssohn Choir repeatedly
on their visits to New York and have been thrilled by the beauty and
volume of their tone and the precision of their singing.
I have written elsewhere of the great musical festival which was
projected and conducted by my father in May, 1881. For the great chorus
of twelve hundred, which was its outstanding feature, the four hundred
singers of the Oratorio Society formed the backbone, and I was intrusted
with the drilling of two other sections of the festival chorus. As I had
been the accompanist and organist for years at all the rehearsals of the
Oratorio Society and had officiated as conductor of the Newark Harmonic
Society for three years after the festival, I was technically well
equipped to take over the directorship of the Oratorio Society when it
was offered to me after my father’s death in 1885.
I conducted the last concert of that season, Bach’s “St. Matthew’s
Passion,” and found that the affection and reverence which the chorus
cherished for my father made them help me devotedly in my difficult
beginning.
For the following season I cast about to find a new work to mark my
entry into this field, and decided that a concert performance of
Wagner’s “Parsifal” would interest the New York public. The sacred
character of the work, the importance and beauty of its choral portions,
and the fact that as yet its music was almost unknown seemed to me to
invite such a performance, even though Wagner had conceived it for
dramatic representation and with a stage-setting. He had intended the
work for performance only in Bayreuth, but in 1882, when it was first
produced there, he himself had given me an orchestral score in
manuscript of the choral Finale from the first act to present to my
father, so that he might produce it in concert form in New York.
During a visit to London in the spring of 1886 I called on the London
representative of the publishers of “Parsifal” and asked whether an
orchestral score of the complete work could be purchased. He told me it
could, but that its purchase would not entitle me to a performance of
the work, and that if I used it for a performance I would have to pay a
fine of fifty pounds. I told him I was quite ready to pay such a fine as
I wanted it for a concert performance in New York, and promptly bought
an orchestral score and had the orchestral parts copied from it.
Owing to my connection with the Metropolitan Opera House I was able to
give the work an exceptional cast. _Kundry_ was sung by Marianne Brandt,
who had sung it in Bayreuth at one of the first performances. Max Alvary
was cast for the title rôle, and Emil Fischer for _Gurnemanz_. Alvary
became ill shortly before the performance and his part was taken by
another young tenor of our company, a Mr. Kraemer. The choral portions
were sung by the Oratorio Society with thrilling effect.
This was the first performance of “Parsifal” outside of Bayreuth, and it
made a sensation but also aroused quite a controversy in the newspapers
as to its fitness for the concert room. Good and weighty arguments can
be produced on both sides. At a performance in concert a great deal is
lost to many people, especially to those whose imagination cannot
function without the stimulus of scenery, costumes, and dramatic action;
but at that time this was the only opportunity for American music
lovers, who could not make the long trip to Bayreuth, to become
acquainted with the music. To many listeners the choral portions,
especially those centring in the religious ceremonies in the Hall of the
Holy Grail, were just as impressive, if not more so, than in a scenic
representation. To-day, and generally speaking, I would rather hear the
music from “Parsifal” with my eyes closed. My imagination, stimulated by
the music, can paint the scenic and dramatic investiture far more
idealistically than any actual stage representation, but I do not claim
this as a truth for all, but only as my individual preference.
We gave two concert performances at the Metropolitan Opera House (public
rehearsal and concert), and over three thousand people listened with
rapt attention at each rendition.
Years after, in 1903, when the then director of opera at the
Metropolitan, Heinrich Conried, announced his intention of giving a
stage performance of “Parsifal,” I received a letter from Madame Cosima
Wagner, saying that she had heard that I possessed the score and
orchestral parts of the work. She begged me not to give them to Mr.
Conried, as the _meister_ had left absolute directions in his will that
stage representations of this work were to be reserved for all time for
Bayreuth. She had heard that I had given a concert performance and
wondered how I had gotten permission.
I wrote to her and explained now I had obtained the score and had sent
the “fifty pounds fine” to the publishers, according to my agreement
with them. I then received another letter from her, as follows: