LISZT AND WAGNER
In the spring of 1882 I sailed for Europe. My father wanted me to know his old friend, Liszt, and to hear the first performances of “Parsifal” in Bayreuth. My throat was also still bothering me and the doctor thought that a cure at Ems would be a good thing.
I was naturally overwhelmed at the idea of seeing the great Liszt face to face. His name had been, ever since I could remember, a household word in our family. My father and mother had told me so much of his friendship for them, his genius and his triumphs as a piano virtuoso, and of his voluntary relinquishment of all this to devote himself exclusively to creative work, and toward helping the entire modern school of young composers. My father had kept up a desultory correspondence with Liszt during the years he had spent in America, and as soon as I arrived in Weimar I went to the little gardener’s cottage in which he lived to pay my respects to the old master. I entered his room in great trepidation, and when I managed to stutter a few words to tell him that I was the son of Doctor Leopold Damrosch, I was amazed at the kindness of his reception. He immediately spoke of my father and mother with such love that I forgot some of my timidity. He asked me about an opera on Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” which my father had composed in the old Weimar days but which he had subsequently destroyed as he was dissatisfied with it. He then asked me how long I expected to stay in Weimar. I said two days and that I was then going to Ems for a cure and then to Bayreuth to hear the first “Parsifal” performances.
A curious change came over Liszt as I spoke. He repeated several times, “Two days, ha, yes, ‘Parsifal,’ of course, Bayreuth.—‘Parsifal,’ of course,” and then he picked up a box of cigars.
“Well, at least you’ll take a cigar before you leave Weimar?”
I said: “No, master, thank you very much, I do not smoke.”
“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.