In the spring of 1919 I received a letter from M. Lafere, then _Ministre
des Beaux Arts_ in France, which interested the directors of the New
York Symphony Society and myself exceedingly. In this letter he referred
to the services of the New York Symphony Orchestra and myself to French
art in America and invited us to make a professional visit to France the
following year. He promised every assistance from the French Government
and assured us of a warm welcome.
Mr. Flagler immediately decided that this invitation must be accepted
inasmuch as it was the first time a foreign government had extended such
a courtesy to an American musical organization. He also thought that our
visit coming so soon after the war and including possibly the countries
of the other allies in the war, such as Belgium, Italy, and England,
would not only make a good impression but would help to establish
musical relations with Europe on a more equal basis. Up till then the
current had been all the other way. European singers and
instrumentalists had been coming to America in a steady stream for many
years, but in the meantime America had developed several orchestras of
her own which could compare favorably with those of Europe; and he was
very proud that the organization of which he was president and supporter
should have been singled out for so great an honor and opportunity.
I sailed for Europe in the spring of 1919 to confer with the Beaux Arts
about arrangements for our visit to Paris and other cities in France,
and at the same time I also received invitations from the governments of
Belgium and Italy to visit their countries with the orchestra. In London
Augustus Littleton, the publisher, head of the old house of Novello &
Co., also received me very cordially and insisted that our visit to
Europe would not be complete if we did not include London. As England,
like our country, has no Ministry of Fine Arts and can therefore take no
official cognizance of musical affairs, he immediately and energetically
set to work to form a committee of invitation, headed by King George and
composed of all the foremost composers and conductors of Great Britain.
Affairs began to shape themselves very favorably, and our manager, Mr.
George Engles, began to map out a tour of seven weeks, during which we
were to visit five countries and play, in all, twenty-seven concerts.
But in the meantime foreign exchange sank lower and lower and reports of
transportation conditions in Europe were so gloomy that I began to be
seriously doubtful of the possibility of the proposed tour in the spring
of 1920. I finally decided in January to send our manager to Europe
personally to look over the ground, and at the same time I expressed my
fears to Mr. Flagler.
I told him that we would have to pay enormous sums for travelling
expenses, the item of steamer passage alone amounting to fifty thousand
dollars, and that while we would have to pay our orchestra salaries in
American dollars, our receipts in Europe would be in francs, lire, etc.
The dollar was then selling for seventeen francs in France and for
twenty-three lire in Italy. I suggested to him to postpone the tour
until a time when war-torn Europe would be economically in a better
condition and when her transportation system would again be more nearly
on a pre-war basis.
Mr. Flagler listened to me and said: “I do not see how we can possibly
postpone the acceptance of these official invitations from four
countries to a later period. Now is the psychological moment to do it.
How much do you think the tour will cost?”
I had made a kind of general calculation and mentioned the amount, which
seemed to me large.
“Isn’t that curious?” he answered. “That is exactly what I thought it
would cost. Go right ahead with your preparations.”
I was naturally delighted at his decision. I knew that American
orchestras had achieved a perfection of ensemble which but few, if any,
European orchestras could equal. I was proud of our organization and
anxious to demonstrate it as a standard of American musical culture.
The members of the orchestra were wild with excitement at the marvellous
news. Many of them had been born in America and had never seen Europe.
It was the wonderland of their imagination. Others had been there as
soldiers during the war, and still others had left Europe years before
to found their fortunes and families in the New World and had not been
back since. They immediately appointed a committee to agree upon a
minimum salary schedule which, while giving them a fair recompense for
their time, would yet make that part of it not too difficult for us. To
this sum, however, Mr. Flagler later added ten dollars a week more for
each player, as he thought that their hotel expenses might be greater
than we had calculated.
The managerial work of constructing the tour was beset with many
difficulties, as the war had disorganized many of the regular concert
organizations in Europe under whose auspices we would have played under
normal conditions. The railroads, also, made much slower time than
formerly. But gradually the tour began to assume shape and the first
concert was scheduled to be given on May 6 at the Grand Opera in Paris,
which the _Ministère des Beaux Arts_ had offered to us, and the last
concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 20. In order that
this tour might be representative in every way of the best in American
music, Mr. Flagler suggested that we take along two young American-born
soloists of distinction—Albert Spalding, violinist, and John Powell,
composer-pianist. I immediately set to work to prepare a series of
appropriate programmes which should serve the double purpose of
demonstrating the fine qualities of our orchestra and soloists, and also
pay proper tribute to the great composers of the countries we proposed
to visit.
We were to open with three concerts in Paris, and as I was conversant
with all the details in connection with Paris especially, I preceded the
orchestra and arrived there April 22. At my hotel, the “France et
Choiseul,” I found a letter from my old friend, Robert Underwood
Johnson, who had just left Paris to go to Rome as American ambassador to
Italy. He said: