My Musical Life

by Walter Damrosch

THE GREAT WAR

When America finally entered the Great War I was, like most of my fellow citizens, anxious to do something to help, and therefore shared the restlessness and discontent which most men of maturer years felt because they were not “too proud” but too old to fight.

A number of music lovers had formed an organization, “American Friends of Musicians in France,” the object of which was to collect money with which to help the families of musicians in France who were suffering or destitute because of the war. Through my French colleagues we had heard of many such cases—some of the most famous musicians were at the front, in the trenches, and in the hospitals, doing their share just as did the men in all the other professions and callings. Several organizations had been formed in France to help toward maintaining their families, but much remained to be done, and through our society, which aroused immediate response in America, we were raising considerable sums and expected to continue this work until the end of the war.

I had been elected president, and while discussing with our committee the best ways and means of helping the older French musicians, it was brought out that many of them were too proud to accept alms. What they really wanted was opportunity to work in their profession, as the constant air raids and bombardments of Paris had almost entirely stopped the giving of lessons and concerts. During our discussion Henri Casadesus, a French musician who was then on a concert tour in America with his Society of Ancient Instruments, and who had given us much valuable information regarding conditions in France, suggested that an orchestra could be formed of such musicians as were still in Paris, which might be used to travel around the country to the various camps in which our huge army was forming and drilling, and to give our soldiers good popular music during their hours of rest and recreation.

It was suggested that a French conductor be engaged to lead this orchestra, but Casadesus asked whether it would not be possible for me to go over and take charge personally. He thought that the French Government would look on this idea very favorably, and through the Ministère des Beaux Arts would give us every assistance possible toward the forming of the orchestra and its transportation through the country. Needless to say, my heart leaped with joy at this suggestion. One step led to another, and Mr. Harry Harkness Flagler immediately and with characteristic generosity donated a check large enough to pay the entire expenses and salaries of a French orchestra of fifty men for six weeks.

The plan was outlined to the National War Work Council of the Young Men’s Christian Association, who accepted it with enthusiasm, and to the French High Commission in Washington, of which Mr. Tardieu was at that time the chief. He sent one of his staff, the Marquis de Polignac, to New York to discuss and arrange details, and immediately cabled to Paris to obtain for me the necessary authority to enter France and to proceed with the plan. The acting director of the Ministère des Beaux Arts was at that time M. Alfred Cortot, the distinguished pianist, and within a week he cabled us that he could place at my disposal the Pasdeloup Orchestra of fifty men who would be ready on my arrival to travel throughout our recreation centres, camps, and hospitals.

As no civilian who was not in government employ could sail for France except under the auspices of one of the welfare organizations, I was to sail as a war worker for the Y. M. C. A., whose entertainment division was under the direction of Mr. Thomas McLane, an earnest, patriotic citizen of New York who gave his entire time enthusiastically to this arduous work. A few weeks before sailing, however, the war situation became so serious that the possibility of carrying out our scheme seemed very doubtful, but Mr. McLane and his chief, Mr. William Sloane, felt strongly that I should go over anyhow, look over the field, and make myself useful in one way or another.

The regulations of the Y. M. C. A. demanded that each one of their workers should submit an indorsement by three well-known American citizens, and as I had the honor of many years’ acquaintance with Theodore Roosevelt, I gave his name as one who might be willing to testify to my Americanism. The letter which he wrote is so characteristic that I am vain enough to reprint it here.

Sagamore Hill, May 4th, 1918.

Dear Mr. McLane:

Mr. Walter Damrosch is one of the very best Americans and citizens in this entire land. In character, ability, loyalty, and fervid Americanism he, and his, stand second to none in the land. I have known him thirty years; I vouch for him as if he were my brother.

Faithfully

(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.

The assurance of a safe-conduct from the Ministère des Etrangères was a rather important item as I had been born in Germany, even though only the first nine years of my life had been spent there. My father emigrated to America in 1871, and as I had received my education here, had lived in America ever since, and had married an American, I had never felt myself anything but an American and of the most enthusiastic variety. When the Germans invaded Belgium, when they sank the Lusitania, and when they seemed to have broken all laws of international relations, I expressed myself, both personally and in newspaper interviews, so strongly that long before we entered the war several Berlin newspapers violently took me to task and honored me by calling me a renegade and a traitor to the country of my birth.

There was an understanding between our country and France that no American civilian of German birth should be permitted to enter France except by special permission of either M. Clemenceau or M. Pichon, then Minister of Foreign Affairs. The French high commissioner cabled to the latter and in most cordial terms recommended that I be permitted to enter France, both because of my office as president of the Society of American Friends of Musicians in France, and because of a life-long admiration for French music, which I had demonstrated for thirty-three years by producing in our country nearly every important symphonic work that French composers had written before and within that time.

M. Pichon promptly cabled the necessary visé and with all proper credentials I set sail on June 15, 1918, on the French steamship La Lorraine.

The ship’s passengers were almost entirely soldiers and war workers. There were two hundred and fifty Belgian soldiers with their officers returning to France after three years spent in Russia, and who, when the revolution broke out, had after incredible hardships reached Vladivostok, sailing from there to California. There were Polish soldiers on their way to join the Foreign Legion of the French army and there were dozens of Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., K. of C., and S. A. workers. There were not more than a dozen civilians, among them my friend, Melville Stone, director of the Associated Press, and M. Sulzer, the Swiss minister then accredited to our country. It was strange to be on a transatlantic steamer without any idle rich, tourists, or commercial travellers; and the large guns mounted fore and aft with a gun crew watching, ready day and night, gave one a grim foretaste of the war raging on the other side.

On the first day out Stone told me that M. Sulzer would like to meet me. I expressed my pleasure and laughingly said: “I will promise not to ask him any questions regarding the Swiss citizenship of Doctor Karl Muck.” Stone must have repeated this to Sulzer, for immediately after our introduction he said: “I want to tell you that Doctor Muck had no more claim to Swiss citizenship than you have. The facts are as follows: After the Franco-Prussian war, Muck’s father—a Bavarian living in Munich—was afraid that Bavaria would become completely Prussianized, and, as he had no liking for that country, he preferred to emigrate to Switzerland, where he acquired citizenship which at that time was very easy, as Switzerland was glad to receive the intelligentsia of other countries. His son Karl left Switzerland as a boy to be educated in Germany, and never returned. He went to a German university, studied music, became an orchestral conductor, and as such officiated in various German opera-houses, until he became conductor and Generalmusikdirektor at the Royal Opera in Berlin. There he remained for many years and when the war broke out offered his services to the German Ministry of War in a clerical capacity. The Swiss Government does not recognize him as a citizen and refuses him the protection which such citizenship would afford him.”

Our journey was uneventful. We saw no submarines and, what was still more important, no submarines saw us. When we reached the “danger zone” some hundred miles from the coast of France, I was solemnly appointed a committee of one to inform M. Sulzer that as he was the Swiss minister and as such the representative of German interests in the United States during the war, we intended to bind him to the foremast and play a searchlight on him and on a large Swiss flag hanging over his head, during the two or three nights before we dropped anchor in the Gironde. He smilingly expressed himself as so willing to act in this capacity as our guardian angel, that we refrained and trusted to luck, which indeed never failed us.

We dropped anchor at the mouth of the Gironde to take on the usual officials, among them the secret-service men who were to look over the passengers while we waited the turn of the tide before proceeding up-stream to Bordeaux.

It was a beautiful sunlit evening, and as I was standing at the rail watching the tide, which ran out to sea like a mill-race, suddenly there was a splash and we saw one of the Belgian soldiers lying on the water, his face downward and his arms and legs outstretched and motionless. He was being carried out to sea with incredible speed by the tide, and it was evident that he was trying to commit suicide, as he made no effort to struggle. The sailors were all busy elsewhere getting out the mail-bags and trunks, and for a few minutes nothing seemed to be done. Suddenly there was another splash as, from the deck above, a man dove after the Belgian. It was Lieutenant Shirk, an aviator in our marines, who had not even taken the time to throw off his coat or leather puttees. A life-saving belt had been thrown just previously and floated with the tide several yards ahead of the Belgian soldier, but both were carried along so swiftly that it was some time before Lieutenant Shirk could reach him. As he approached, the Belgian promptly kicked at him, and it took several moments before he was overpowered and dragged toward the life-belt. In the meantime a boat had been lowered, but so swift is the tide in these waters that when the boat reached the two men, they seemed like two small black spots in the distance. The excitement and enthusiasm when they were brought back to the ship may easily be imagined.

Lieutenant Shirk proved to be a well-to-do young business man from Indianapolis, who when the war broke out had immediately enlisted, leaving a wife and children and large important business interests to give himself whole-heartedly to the service of his country.

If you “tell this story to the marines” they will refuse to acknowledge that it is anything extraordinary, and they will also tell you that that is just a way they have of dealing with any emergency on land or sea.

The sad part of this heroic rescue is that a few days afterward, meeting one of the Belgian officers in Paris, he told me that the soldier, soon after landing, had succeeded in his effort at self-destruction, and had shot himself in a fit of despondency. He had been away from Belgium for four years, and during all that time had had no news of his wife or children; his little farm was in the hands of the Germans, and there was neither hope nor desire to live left in him.

We all had to assemble in the saloon of the ship to present our passports, and when it came to my turn I was politely told to go to my cabin with two secret-service men, that they might question me further regarding my mission. One of these men was silent, but the other a very voluble, polite Frenchman. But even the visé by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the French High Commission did not seem quite to satisfy him. The fact that I had been born in Germany evidently impressed him unfavorably. He asked me finally: “Do you intend to take any money out of France?” “On the contrary,” I replied, “here is a letter of credit, every cent of which is to be used on French orchestra musicians.” In corroboration I showed him the cable from the Ministère des Beaux Arts offering me the use of the Pasdeloup Orchestra, the conductor of which was M. Rhene Baton. The face of my secret-service man suddenly became wreathed in smiles. “Ah!” he said, “M. Baton! Why, before the war I used to play third horn in his orchestra in Bordeaux. Everything is all right.” With a bow he handed me back my passport, and at this point his silent companion suddenly gave me a most genial wink, the nationality of which could not be mistaken. I said: “You are American.” “Sure!” he answered, and thus I was enabled to land at last in France with colors flying.

The next morning saw me in Paris at the little hotel “France et Choiseul,” to which I had always gone on my visits to Paris during twenty-five years preceding. I found the same courteous, smiling directeur, M. Mantel, to receive me. Even the old canary-bird, hanging in the courtyard, was still living, but either corpulence or old age had stopped his musical demonstrations.

It would take a man of much greater eloquence than I can claim, to give an adequate picture of Paris at that time. It seemed to me more beautiful and more noble than I had ever seen it during my many visits in times of peace. The streets were almost empty, there were no tourists, no pleasure-seekers, no idlers, and therefore that part of Parisian life which usually stands out so prominently and which, alas, is generally the only part that the average visitor sees, was entirely absent. One saw only the French people going about their daily tasks and the soldiers of France and her allies. The Champs-Élysées, the Tuileries, and, above all, the Jardin de Luxembourg seemed more charming than ever, but the tragic note was that the lovely children who in former times crowded these gardens were all gone. Constant air raids and the frequent bombardments by the “Big Bertha” had driven them away. It was said that a million and a half people had left Paris, and that, owing to the nearness of the German armies, the entire evacuation of the civilian population was imminent. Rumors had it, furthermore, that all the banks had sent their securities to Orleans and that the embassies and various relief organizations were ready to leave Paris at a few hours’ notice. There was not the least sign of panic, but an indescribable sadness brooded over the city.

During the long twilight, which is the most beautiful time to see Paris, when the sky and the clouds seem to hover most intimately and caressingly over its wonderful vistas, I used to take long walks along the banks of the Seine. Even the complete darkness at night, the absence of all electric lights or signs, with only an occasional half-hidden blue lamp here and there, made the city more picturesque and wonderful. It was almost as if the centuries of civilization and modern inventions had been swept away and we were back again in the time of the Grand Monarque, when Paris was only dimly lighted by faintly flickering oil lamps.

Of course, I soon made the acquaintance of the nocturnal air raids, and when the sirens placed at various high buildings of the city sounded their horrible warning that the German Gothas were approaching, every inhabitant was supposed to seek shelter in the cellars. I did this dutifully for two or three nights, but as it meant leaving one’s bed at about 11.30 or 12 and returning at about 1.30 or 2 A. M., I gradually realized that my own pet cowardice was more the fear of not getting enough sleep, as I was completely knocked out during the daytime by the lack of it. After weighing the alternatives carefully I decided to take the small risk of remaining in my bed and getting a good night’s rest in consequence; and having solved this question to my complete satisfaction, I used to wake up on hearing the warning of the sirens, stretch myself comfortably, and immediately go to sleep again.

The gatherings in the abri of our hotel were, however, quite amusing. The guests used to assemble in the wine-cellar, which was protected by walls several feet thick, and in which we could further fortify ourselves by sampling a bottle or two of the excellent claret and burgundy which it contained. If one of our little number was an army officer we would make him tell us his experiences at the front, and listen with awe and eager interest until the bugles of the fire department outside sounded the “all-clear” signal. Then the old portier, whom we used to call “Papa Joffre,” would come down and, with the sweetest smile on his dear old face, assure us that all was safe and we could creep back again to our beds.

In the meantime I began to investigate the conditions under which to carry out our plan of giving orchestral concerts for our soldiers at their rest camps and in the hospitals, and soon discovered that the recent developments at the front would make it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Paris was in a state of great depression. The enemy were threatening the city, our rest camps were empty, and our soldiers were being drilled furiously in order to put them as soon as possible either in the line or behind the line as reserves. Every available inch of space on the railroads had to be used for military purposes, for the transportation of men and material, and to have intruded an orchestra of fifty men with cumbersome luggage, musical instruments, etc., would have been a nuisance instead of a service.

The French Government, through its various departments with which I came into contact, especially the Ministry of Fine Arts and the French High Commission, received me with the greatest courtesy and kindness. M. Cortot, at the Beaux Arts, had taken steps to procure an orchestra for me and I was already getting the full benefit of the friendliness for everything American which, after the first entry of our troops into the fighting-line at Seicheprey, Belleau Wood, and Château-Thierry developed into an enthusiasm, the like of which cannot be imagined. I saw the change from deepest despondency to greatest optimism come over the city like a wave, and especially after the heroic stand of our men at Château-Thierry there was nothing which an American could possibly want that a Frenchman was not willing to give to him with both hands.

For the morning of the Fourth of July a Franco-American demonstration had been arranged which was to culminate in a parade of French and American troops from the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs-Élysées to the Place de la Concorde. I was naturally among the crowds of eager spectators who lined the avenue to greet our troops, which included a company of our marines who had fought at the front but a few days before. This was literally the first time that I had seen a crowd of people in Paris, and it marked in significant fashion the change from the gloom that had hovered over the city when I first arrived.

Paris had been decorated as only the French know how, and the noble vistas of the city looked their best under a glorious sky of blue slightly flecked with white clouds. In the waiting crowd there were no young men, not even middle-aged, for all these had been at the front for four years, but there were old men, boys, and women of all ages down to a charming little girl of twelve, evidently of the poorer class, who was standing by my side on tip-toe with excitement. She could speak a few words of English and every now and then, with the sweetest and shyest glance at me, she would demonstrate her knowledge of our tongue, and then supplement it with more voluble French, as she pointed out to me the various wonders of the day.

Overhead some of the most expert of the French airmen were flying backward and forward, looping the loop, dipping the dip, and executing marvellous manœuvres as they swooped down, sometimes almost brushing the trees on either side of the magnificent avenue, all to the great delight of the crowds awaiting the coming of our soldiers. As the mounted police of Paris, a splendid body of men, came down the avenue, the excitement became intense, and when our khaki-clad boys swept into view the enthusiasm exceeded all bounds. Young girls, with their arms literally banked with flowers, ran across the empty spaces cleared by the police, and began to distribute them among our soldiers who, looking straight ahead, awkwardly grabbed the flowers, stuck them into the tunics, or held them in the hand not occupied with the rifle, all the time keeping their alignment with the most rigid discipline, just as if they were ignorant of the sweetest tribute that one nation could offer another. The whole scene was so indescribably touching that every one in the crowd, including myself, stood there with the tears rolling down his cheeks.

On my other side stood an American bandmaster who recognized me, and while we were waiting for the parade he implored me to do something for the bandsmen in the American army in France. He told me that he had drilled his little band of twenty-eight men for six months before being sent overseas, that they had continued to work faithfully during their stay in France, and that they had achieved a good standard of efficiency. But, according to old American army custom, they had been sent into the firing-line at Seicheprey as stretcher-bearers, and in consequence so many had been either killed, wounded, or shell-shocked that his band had become completely disorganized. His regiment was in consequence without music, and he had been detached and sent to Paris as general purchasing agent for musical instruments. He said: “It takes at least six months to train a good bandsman, while a stretcher-bearer can be trained in as many hours. We serve a real purpose, while the men are in camp, in taking their minds away from the drudgery and monotony of army life. Our music cheers them; a silent camp is almost unendurable. Can’t you persuade General Pershing to change this custom, just as the British and other nations have done?” I told him that I sympathized with his views, that it seemed to me wrong to use the band for any other purpose than music, except in case of absolute military necessity, but that I was without any official connection with the army and so did not think that I could be of much service to him.

When the parade was ended and the crowds dispersed, the little French girl on my right said “Good-by” to me in English, ever so prettily, and then very shyly pressed into my hand as a parting token a tiny little American flag that she herself had painted on a bit of cotton, the stars and stripes on one side and the French tricolor on the other. Needless to say I still possess this charming symbol as a porte-bonheur.

I had arranged to conduct two concerts in Paris, one on July 13 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, exclusively for our soldiers and Red Cross nurses stationed in and near Paris, and the other on the following afternoon, Sunday, July 14 (the Fête Nationale of the French), the entire proceeds of which were to be given to the Croix Rouge Française. For the latter concert the French Government immediately offered their historic Salle du Conservatoire, a courtesy that had never been extended to a foreign conductor before. This was to be a symphonic concert, entirely devoted in honor of the day to works of the great French composers, but at the first rehearsal it looked as if the concert would have to be cancelled because it seemed impossible to collect a first-class orchestra of eighty men. The four years of war had called almost every male citizen of France into military service, and the recent evacuation of Paris had drawn with it many of the musicians who had until then remained in the city. At my first rehearsal only forty-three men appeared, and these were divided in most abnormal fashion. There were five first violins, ten seconds, two violas, one violoncello, and three double-basses. There was no oboe or English horn; only two French horns, one trumpet, etc. Of the forty-three men assembled seven were members of the Garde Républicaine, the famous Paris military band, but which unfortunately for me had to attend an official celebration of the Fête Nationale at the Trocadéro on the Sunday afternoon. The President of the republic was to be present with various other dignitaries and a chorus of three thousand school-children.

I was in despair, and finally made an appeal to the orchestra in very voluble but ungrammatical French, the gist of which was that America had gladly sent one million soldiers to France and was getting ready to send two millions more; all I asked in return was an orchestra of eighty men! Could they not help me to supplement their thin ranks with a sufficient number of trained musicians to complete the orchestra? My little speech was received with an agitated enthusiasm. They immediately began to gather in excited groups and swore to me that the orchestra could and would be obtained. One assured me of a fine oboe, another of a trumpeter, another of a first violin, and so on. M. Cortot also got busy. He sent for Captain Ballay, the conductor of the Garde Républicaine, and represented to him in what seemed to me an eloquent oration worthy of the Chambre des Députés, that after Seicheprey and Château-Thierry France could not and would not refuse an American anything he asked for. Captain Ballay enthusiastically agreed, and promised to send the seven members of his band whom I needed for my concert—in the swiftest taxi-cabs he could procure—from the Trocadéro, where the governmental celebration was to begin at three o’clock, immediately after they had played his opening overture, to the Salle du Conservatoire at which my concert was scheduled for four. He thought that the President of the republic was not musical enough to notice the absence of these seven men, and that he would manage to get along without them for the rest of his programme.

At the same time, noted French soloists who ordinarily did not play in orchestras, offered their services—Captain Pollain, famous violoncellist from Nancy and M. Hewitt (whose great-grandfather had been an American but whose family had lived in France for three generations), solo violinist of the Instruments Anciens. And at the second rehearsal, whom should I see, but dear old Longy, for thirty years celebrated oboe player of the Boston Symphony, who said to me most touchingly: “I see you have no second oboe. I have no instrument in France as I left mine in Boston, but I will borrow one and play for you if you need me.”

At my second rehearsal an excellent orchestra of seventy-seven men assembled, and at the third the orchestra was complete, including many French soldiers in uniform, four or five distinguished virtuosi who played in orchestra only for this occasion, and even one of my own first violinists from the New York Symphony Orchestra, Reber Johnson, who, having been rejected for the army as physically not fit, had immediately volunteered in the American Red Cross, and turned up at the rehearsal in his uniform in the most natural way, as if this had been one of the regular daily rehearsals of the New York Symphony.

My first trumpeter was a young French soldier who had played clarinet before the war. His arm had been shot off only a year before, and as soon as he left the hospital he studied the trumpet and with his one arm not only held but fingered it with remarkable facility.

I do not think that in all my long career I have ever conducted concerts or rehearsals in which both conductor and players were enveloped in such an atmosphere of emotional excitement. Our young, handsome boys in khaki seemed like demigods to these tired and worn people who had fought with such incredible tenacity for four terrible years. The members of the orchestra received every criticism which I made during the rehearsals with a quick nod or an engaging smile, and every now and then some remark of mine regarding the proper interpretation would be followed by a murmur of approval, which would spread through the orchestra and sometimes even vent itself in applause. I hope that my criticisms, as well as my interpretations, pleased them, but I know that even if they had not, it would have made no difference. I was an American and that was enough.

At the Saturday-night concert, which was more popular in character, I gave our American soldier audience Victor Herbert’s clever medley on American airs, and those Frenchmen played as if they had known them all their lives. The huge audience in khaki fairly seethed with patriotic excitement, which of course found its climax when we turned into “Dixie.” All jumped to their feet and cheered and cheered, so that for ten bars or so literally nothing of the music could be heard, and only by the waving of my stick and the motions of the players could one tell that the music was going on.

The following afternoon the programme was one of real symphonic proportions, and included Saint-Saëns’s great “Symphony No. 3” for orchestra, organ, and piano, Debussy’s “L’Après-midi d’un Faune,” and the “Symphonic Variations” for piano with orchestra, by César Franck.

The organ part in the symphony was played by Mlle. Nadia Boulanger, without doubt the greatest woman musician I have ever known, and the Franck “Variations” were superbly interpreted by Alfred Cortot. M. Casadesus played an exquisite concerto for the viola d’amour by Laurenziti.

The little Salle du Conservatoire, its quaint architecture dating from the time of Louis XVI, with its tiny boxes and balconies, was jammed to the doors—the janitor told me that it was the largest audience he had ever seen there. Every available space was filled twice over and the walls literally bulged outward. The audience was a very interesting one. The French Government, with its usual politeness, had sent official representatives from the Ministère des Etrangères, the Ministère des Beaux Arts, and the French High Commission—many of them in uniform. There were also many French musicians of distinction, among them dear Maître Charles Widor, the Secrétaire Perpétuel de l’Institut de France, and, of course, many French, British, and American soldiers. A New York fire commissioner would have gasped at the way in which all precautions were disregarded, and the excitement in the audience, when at the end of the concert we played the “Marseillaise” and the “Star-Spangled Banner,” can be imagined.

To add to my pleasure my daughter Alice, who was doing war work away down in Brest, had received permission to come up to Paris for the great occasion. My old friend, Paul Cravath, vice-president of the New York Symphony Society, who was at that time at the head of our Finance Commission in London, had flown over in an English airplane, and smiled upon me from a centre box in all his splendor of six feet four as I turned around to make my bow to the cheering audience.

I think we gave them an exceedingly good concert. The orchestra were delightful in their keen desire to carry out my intentions; but I think if we had played less well the enthusiasm would have been just as great, for while we were playing, the names of Seicheprey and Château-Thierry were vibrating in the hearts of all listeners, and their enthusiasm was poured out upon me as if I, single-handed, demonstrated the valor of our American troops.

At the end of the concert, the president of the Musical Orchestral Union of Paris presented me with a large bouquet of roses tied with the American colors, and in a very eloquent speech voiced the gratitude of the French musicians for the assistance which had been given them by our Society of American Friends of Musicians in France. I was able to supplement my words of thanks with a further substantial check, which had been sent by Mr. Flagler and which was to be devoted to the families of orchestral musicians serving at the front.

The week had been fully occupied with the preparations for these two concerts, but notwithstanding the attendant excitements and elations I had periods of great despondency. The possibility of continuing my mission in France seemed less and less capable of fulfilment, partly owing to the tense military situation and partly because I did not seem to get the proper assistance from the Y. M. C. A. Mr. McLane and Mr. Sloane, at the head of affairs in New York, had given me their enthusiastic support, and I had sailed at their urgent request. They had cabled and written full instructions to the “Y” in France, and on my arrival Mr. Ernest Carter, the head worker, whom I liked exceedingly, had promised me the fullest co-operation. But he was evidently harassed and overworked and did not get the efficient help which he should have had in the running of so large an organization in war time. Many of the heads of departments were ex-clergymen or church and Sunday-school workers who were evidently inexperienced in the management of practical affairs. I am told that later on this condition was much improved and that the men who were subsequently sent out from America were chosen more for their business ability, but at the time I mention, the confusion at the headquarters in the Rue d’Agesseau was often great and there seemed to be insufficient co-operation between the different departments. In order to be able to travel around France unmolested I had to have a carte rouge, and this card it seemed impossible to obtain for me, notwithstanding all my proper and complete credentials as an American, as a musician well known all over our country, and, above all, as a persona grata with the French Government.

A few days before my first concert I was informed that it was impossible to procure this card for me, and that therefore I could not be permitted to leave Paris. When I asked for an explanation, it was refused by a rather sanctimonious person who put his arm around me, called me brother, but expressed his regret at the unfortunate fact of my having been born in Germany. I swallowed my rage as best I could, but my chagrin was all the greater because in the meantime M. Casadesus and four other distinguished French artists had offered me their services to travel around with me in a motor-car and give concerts in our camps and hospitals. I finally obtained the information from a very nice young man who was in charge of the entertainment division of the “Y” that he understood that the objections came from the Intelligence Department of the A. E. F. I immediately called on Major Cabot Ward, the head of the Intelligence Division in Paris whom I had known in New York for twenty-five years. I showed him my various credentials, and he assured me that: “As far as the United States army is concerned, you are as free as air.” I returned with this information to the Rue d’Agesseau and was met by the same impenetrable wall of ignorance or ill-will; and, as my friends at the French High Commission had already assured me that as far as they were concerned all France was open to me, I seemed to be at my wit’s end how to unravel this riddle.

I finally called on my friend, Robert Bliss, counsellor of our embassy in Paris. I can never forget his kindness and helpfulness during this period. He and his charming wife had made their apartment the very centre of American life during those trying times. Mrs. Bliss had resolutely refused to leave Paris, and dispensed a generous hospitality at their apartment in the Rue Henri Moissan. When I told him of my troubles and that I, who had lived in America forty-seven years, should now be thus treated, he smiled and said: “We can do nothing for you at present, as you are still a part of the organization of the Y. M. C. A., but as soon as you get that uniform off, you will find every road open to you.”

That wretched uniform! It had annoyed me from the first moment I had put it on because the tailor to whom the “Y” had sent me had made a miserable job of it. It was too narrow between the shoulders, which is fatal for an orchestral conductor, and the trousers were a tragedy. But there was no time before sailing to order a better-fitting uniform, and as I had been told that I could not move an inch in France without it I had literally taken no civilian clothes with me! I had ordered some new clothes in Paris, but there was a tailors’ strike on and I was therefore, for decency’s sake, compelled to hold on to that uniform, much as I longed to divest myself of the symbol of the sacred triangle. However, I began to see daylight, and as I hoped by the following Monday or Tuesday to get my new civilian clothes, I decided to conduct the two concerts on Saturday and Sunday and then magnificently hand in my resignation. But I was not spared a last drop of bitterness, for on Saturday morning I received a visit from a very stupid and exasperating officier de liaison of the Y. M. C. A., who proceeded to inform me that as I had been “born in Germany” and therefore could not obtain my carte rouge, the committee of the “Y” thought that I should not conduct the two concerts in their uniform. Again that accursed uniform! I was so enraged that I said I would either conduct in it or in my underclothes, that my resignation had already been written and would be presented on Monday, and that I insisted on an interview with Mr. Carter and his executive committee, as I wished them to know how I had been treated. I knew that Mr. Carter, poor man, had no knowledge of the entire affair, as he had been zigzagging around France all this time to the various posts and supply centres of the “Y,” trying to bring some kind of order out of chaos. He immediately accorded me a meeting, and when I told my story, made me an apology so ample and generous that I left him with none but the kindliest feelings and really regretted that he, a man of high ideals and spiritual power, should through the exigencies of war have been so overburdened with practical affairs. For a few of his aides I have nothing but absolute contempt, but there were many among the men workers and certainly the majority of the women who gave wonderful service and gladly suffered all kinds of annoyances and deprivations in order to help the soldiers, who were not all angels by any means.

But my real triumph was to come on the very Sunday morning of my concert when General Charles Dawes, of the American army, called on me at my hotel and, to my amazement, asked me whether I could come to the general headquarters of the A. E. F. at Chaumont, and confer with General Pershing regarding the possible improvement of our army bands. I could not believe my ears that so suddenly after my bitter experiences with the “Y,” the commander-in-chief of the American army in France had personally sent for me.

General Dawes was at that time at the head of the army supplies, with headquarters in Paris. A great lover of music, he had contributed largely to its cultivation in his own city of Chicago. He was an old and valued friend of General Pershing and I think that it was he who had suggested my name to him. I can never thank General Dawes enough for giving me, a musician and over fifty years of age, this wonderful opportunity to touch even the outer hem of the robes of the war goddess.

Needless to say, my despondent mood immediately changed to one of elation. I accepted the invitation with alacrity and arranged with General Dawes to go to Chaumont on the following Wednesday, July 17.

In the meantime the air had been full of rumors regarding the “Big Bertha” who had been conveniently silent ever since my arrival in Paris. It was persistently said that on Monday morning seventeen of these ladies bearing the same name would again begin a bombardment of Paris, and I confess that it gave me something of a shock, when, on the Monday morning after my concert while I was still luxuriating in bed—thinking with pleasure of the triumphs of the day before and with eager anticipation of my approaching trip to Chaumont—I suddenly heard a curious reverberation, different from the explosions of the Gothas or of the answering air-guns. It was the first greeting of Madame Bertha, and this greeting was repeated punctiliously every fifteen minutes throughout the day, the shells striking in Paris in different quarters.

It was interesting to watch the French people. After every shot, crowds of them would run into the streets, talking, gesticulating, and speculating where that particular shell had fallen. This would go on for thirteen or fourteen minutes and then all would scoot back into their shops and houses as they knew that the next shell was about due.

That evening I had been invited to dine at Mrs. Edith Wharton’s, at her lovely apartment in the Rue de Varennes. Just as I got to her door a Frenchman stopped and said to me that he had been at the concert on the preceding day. He then added: “I see that you are making the acquaintance of ‘La Grosse Berthe.’ ” Thinking that he referred to the return of the bombardment, I smiled assent, and then proceeded to Mrs. Wharton’s apartment. I found our great novelist with two other ladies, an American officer, and an American composer, my dear friend Blair Fairchild, who had been living in Paris for several years and was acting most ably as distributing agent for the money which our “Society of American Friends of Musicians in France” was sending over. The dinner proceeded as if we lived in times of deepest peace. It was served with punctilious efficiency, the flowers were charming, and the conversation delightful, and it was only when dinner was half over that I found out, quite casually, that what my French gentleman at the door had referred to was, that only two minutes before my arrival the last shell of the Big Bertha had fallen on the roof of the house opposite, demolishing it and parts of the upper story.

On the following Wednesday, July 17, I took the morning train for Chaumont, again comfortably clad in civilian clothes. I was met at the station by a young officer, Lieutenant Wendell, nephew of my old friend Evart Wendell, who took me to general headquarters and introduced me to Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, secretary of the General Staff, who explained to me in detail various points on which General Pershing desired information and assistance. I was then most comfortably put up at the guest-house, formerly a large private residence in the town, which had been taken over by General Pershing to accommodate his visitors. I was to dine at his château that evening, and spent a great part of the afternoon walking through the quaint old hill town situated on a high cliff overlooking the valley of the Marne. It was during this walk that I saw the only drunken American private during my three months’ stay in France. I was following a picturesque road leading out of the town into the country, when a colored boy in khaki reeled toward me and said: “ ’Scuse me, sah. Are you a Frenchman?” I said “No,” and he replied: “Then foh Gawd sake, will you please tell me whar ah can get a drink?” I answered: “No. You have evidently had enough already.” He tried to follow me and I, seeing two white soldiers approaching, turned to them, and said: “I think you had better take care of this boy. He has had too much to drink.” They briskly answered: “Certainly, sir.” But as they went up to him he kept peering at me and said: “I want to talk to that gen’leman. That’s Mr. Damrosch!” I laughed out loud, for here I was, over three thousand miles from home, and this boy, who perhaps had musical inclinations and had heard me conduct in some concert, recognized me even through the alcoholic vapors which surrounded him so thickly that one could have cut them with a knife.

One of the other visitors at the guest-house was General Omar Bundy, who commanded the first division and had come to Chaumont to receive the congratulations of the commander-in-chief on the splendid work of his division. He proved a delightful gentleman, and we chatted together very amicably as a motor-car took us that evening about five miles beyond Chaumont through most lovely country to the château surrounded by exquisite gardens and woods which General Pershing had taken for his personal residence. A scene of greater peace and tranquillity could not be imagined, and literally the only sign and symbol of war was the solitary sentry pacing up and down before the entrance, with bayonet fixed.

As this happened to be the first day of General Foch’s great attack in which he pushed the Germans back six miles, General Pershing, who had been at the front all day, had not yet returned, and General Bundy and I walked through the grounds in the lovely evening twilight for perhaps half an hour, when a motor-car drove up and our great commander-in-chief, accompanied by his aide, immediately came over to us and made us welcome in hearty and simple fashion. He reminded me that we had met at the Presidio in San Francisco during the great exhibition of 1915, and indeed I remembered it well, for shortly afterward he had been sent to the Mexican border in command of the troops, and while there had been overwhelmed by the terrible tragedy of the death of his wife and children, who were suffocated in a fire at night which destroyed their home at the Presidio.

So much has been written regarding the wonderful impression which General Pershing made in Europe on all who came in contact with him that it is not necessary for me to more than echo the general chorus of praise—soldierly, dignified, courteous, and simple in his bearing, wearing a uniform as only a man can who has been a soldier all his life.

We entered the house and shortly after sat down to dinner. The party consisted of the commander-in-chief, General Bundy, and a most delightful staff of eight officers—I being the only civilian. As such I expected and half hoped that the talk would be all about the wonderful success of the first day’s push by Foch, of which I had already heard enthusiastic rumors in the town, or of great military secrets, affairs of strategy, monster guns, thousands of airplanes, and new, mysterious machines of destruction. But, to my surprise, the conversation during almost the entire dinner was of music, of its influence in raising the spirits of the soldier, in giving him the right kind of recreation and the necessary relief from the monotony of camp work or the horrors of battle. General Pershing told me that after hearing some of the crack military bands of France and England he had been so overwhelmed by the consciousness of our inferiority that he was eager to know if something could not be done to improve the general standard of our army bands, and, more particularly, whether it might not be possible at least to take out the best players from among the bands then in France and to form a headquarters band of superior excellence, led by the best bandmaster among them, and in this way form a model which the others could endeavor to copy. This suggestion seemed to me excellent, and I asked how many bandmasters there were at present in France, as I would like to examine them as to their fitness. General Pershing said, with a smile, that there were over two hundred, but this did not phase me and I agreed to examine them all, provided that proper arrangements could be made for a fitting test of their qualifications. Various plans for such an examination were discussed and General Pershing finally decided to send them all to Paris in batches of fifty every week, together with a military band which should be stationed there for the following four or five weeks, thus giving me abundant opportunity to test their efficiency in conducting as well as in harmony and orchestration. It seemed to me at the time remarkable that, in the midst of war and with all its many immediate necessities weighing upon him, General Pershing should have had the acumen to perceive the value of music in war time and to interest himself in its improvement.

As I sat there, the memory of the hollow-cheeked Bandmaster Tyler who had stood next to me at the Fourth of July parade in Paris suddenly came back. I thought to myself that here I was, the only civilian at the table, and that therefore I might say anything I pleased without being put up against a wall at sunrise and shot, for at the worst they could only consider me as very ignorant of army customs. Therefore I watched for my opportunity and suddenly plunged in and spoke of my conversation with Bandmaster Tyler while we were waiting for our marines to march down the Champs-Élysées. I said that in my humble opinion it was a great mistake to use musicians as stretcher-bearers in battle, not that their lives as soldiers were any more valuable than those of any others in the army, but that a stretcher-bearer could be trained in a very short time while it took many months to train a bandsman; that the Canadian regiments had followed the same custom during the first months of the war, but the results had been so dire in destroying the bands and their usefulness, that the soldiers themselves had implored their commanding officers not to let their bandsmen be sacrificed in this way, as there was nothing so terrible as coming back after battle to a silent and therefore desolate camp. After I had finished my rather impassioned peroration, General Bundy and others heartily agreed with me, but General Pershing said nothing at all, and I felt that I had perhaps talked too much and mal à propos. But the following morning, as I was seated with Colonel Collins at general headquarters arranging the details of my examinations, he smilingly handed me an order from the commander-in-chief which had just arrived and which was to be sent to the division commanders, to the effect that “from now on bandsmen are not to be used any longer as stretcher-bearers except in cases of extreme military urgency.”

One of General Pershing’s remarks during the dinner is so characteristic that I repeat it here. He said: “When peace is declared and our bands march up Fifth Avenue I should like them to play so well that it will be another proof of the advantage of military training.” Subsequent developments and meetings with this interesting man further deepened the impression which he made upon me.

I returned to Paris and proceeded to make all necessary arrangements for the examinations of the two hundred bandmasters. Our army had leased a large hotel near the Bastille on the banks of the Seine, and a large room on the ground floor served admirably for my purpose. The band of the 329th infantry soon arrived and was quartered in this hotel, and every morning at 9.30 the examinations began and continued from Monday to Thursday at the rate of about fifty bandmasters a week, who arrived from all quarters of France—from the seaport towns, from the training camps, and some even from the very front line of the trenches. Fridays I would usually return to headquarters and report on my findings and begin recommendations, which gradually assumed greater and greater proportions as the magnitude of the work developed.

To assist me in this prodigious work, I engaged the services of M. Francis Casadesus, brother of Henri and a splendid musician. He examined the men as to their qualifications in instrumentation and in their general knowledge of the various instruments, while I examined them in the actual process of conducting and drilling a band. I would first let them bite their teeth into an overture like the “Oberon” of Weber, or a movement from a classical symphony, and then would let them conduct a composition of their own choice. I found very soon that while most of these young bandmasters were musically talented and ambitious, they had had no or but little opportunity for acquiring what we may call the technic of the baton. They had had no intensive disciplinary training such as our young officers from civilian life had received at Plattsburg and similar camps. Many of them did not know how to beat time properly, much less train a band in phrasing or rhythmic accuracy; and I soon saw that unless some opportunity was given them to learn at least the rudiments of their calling, the effort toward improving our bands would be useless. It therefore seemed to me that the quick formation of a bandmasters’ school was the only solution of the problem, and as our army had had the help of French military and aviation officers as instructors, loaned to us by the Ministère de la Guerre, I thought that a similar arrangement could be made, under which we might obtain the necessary musical instructors also from the French army, as nearly all the musicians of France were at that time in uniform.

I also discovered that some of the most important musical instruments which give mellowness and nobility to the tone of a band were almost utterly lacking. We had hardly any oboes, bassoons, French horns, or flügelhorns. I knew that some of the greatest masters of these instruments, first prizes of the Conservatoire of Paris, were serving in the French army, and immediately, through the Ministère des Beaux Arts, obtained their names and the regiments to which they belonged. On the following visit to Chaumont I proposed to General Pershing that we form a music-school at which fifty bandmasters could get the most intensive musical training and discipline for eight weeks, to be succeeded by a new batch of fifty, etc., and at the same time forty pupils each in oboe, bassoon, French horn, and flügelhorn could get a similar training of twelve weeks on their respective instruments.

General Pershing and his staff were delighted with the plan and I offered to procure the necessary instructors from the French army, promising General Pershing that the school would be in complete running order by October 1, provided a proper building could be obtained. The general asked me where I wished to place the school and offered me Longres, where several schools on the strategy of war were already in progress, but I claimed that the surroundings for my music-school should be of a more “peaceful and even academic character,” and suggested Chaumont. General Pershing smiled, but insisted that it was already overcrowded and that I would not be able to find a building large enough to house so great a number of instructors and pupils. He gave me full power, however, to see what could be done, and I set forth immediately with a French liaison officer—member of the French Military Commission at Chaumont, and in G-5, general headquarters, under which department the proposed music-school would come—who proved a most remarkable and valuable assistant in my work. He was Lieutenant Michel Weill, nephew of the owner of the well-known White House in San Francisco, and an enthusiastic musical amateur who, through his long residence in America, had acquired a knowledge of English and a sympathy for America only second to that for his own native land. He belonged to a delightful French officers’ mess at Chaumont, and they immediately made me a kind of honorary member and in most hospitable fashion invited me to their Lucullan repasts. As they were all enthusiastic lovers of music, I endeavored to repay them by pounding out Wagner, their supreme favorite, to their hearts’ content on an old upright piano placed in a little sitting-room next to their salle à manger.

Lieutenant Weill and I first paid a visite de cérémonie to the Maire of Chaumont and explained to him our desire. The idea of what he called “un petit conservatoire de musique pour les Américains” in Chaumont appealed to his fancy immensely, and he immediately picked up his telephone and called up an old friend of his, a fellow citizen and mill owner. He explained to him the great honor that was about to befall their town if a proper building could be found, and exhorted him to show himself as a really patriotic citizen of France and friend of the Americans by giving the mill which he owned just outside the city and only a few minutes’ walk from our headquarters for this noble purpose. We motored to this building and met there an elderly, dignified, and courteous Frenchman who told us that anything he had was at the disposal of “les Américains.” We found a huge mill with walls two feet thick, the machinery in disuse, and with large empty spaces that our army engineers could easily turn into sleeping-quarters, practising-rooms, and other needs for a music-school. In one large wing we found a few women and many children playing about. I said: “Of course, we shall need this wing also.” “Then I regret,” answered the owner, “but this wing you cannot have, because I have given it to forty-eight refugees from Verdun with the promise that they shall occupy it until the end of the war.” Naturally Lieutenant Weill and I reconsidered, and concluded that a large tent could be put up in the meadow as an eating-place, and that we could get along without the extra wing. I then asked the owner what rental he would demand. “Oh,” he said, “anything that the American army wishes to pay.” But when Lieutenant Weill informed him that he should fix a fair price, he asked timidly: “Would the American army consider five hundred francs a month reasonable?” I tell this to offset the tales of those people who keep harping on the commercial greed of the French in anything that concerned the needs of the American soldier.

We returned to general headquarters jubilant, and, after a satisfactory interview with the officer in charge of building operations, it was decided to place the school in Chaumont, and I returned to Paris to complete my plans.

My brother Frank had recognized the lack of good schooling for our army bands and bandmasters many years before the war, and had very patriotically placed the entire machinery of his Institute of Musical Art at the disposal of the secretary of war. An arrangement had accordingly been made by which a bandmaster’s school at Governor’s Island, New York, was placed under my brother’s control, and for several years before the war a small number of bandmasters were graduated from it who ranked well on a par with those of other countries. But when we entered the war and our army was organized on a scale of millions these were but a drop in the bucket, and heroic measures were necessary to bring some semblance of order into this musical chaos of hundreds of uneducated bandmasters and thousands of still less educated bandsmen.

During these five weeks in Paris and Chaumont I worked very hard and, while my life has been crowded with affairs of all kinds relating to my profession, I cannot recall any time when the work was so constant day and night or when I was more jubilantly happy in the doing of it. During the forenoons Casadesus and I would examine the bandmasters, discover what they could and could not do, give them, so to speak, “first aid to the wounded” by pointing out their worst failings or their greatest weaknesses. In the afternoons Lieutenant Weill and I would run around to the various French government departments on the track of this or that musician whom we wished to corral as professor for our school. At night I would sit propped up in bed and work out the entire tuition plan of the school, down to the minutest details.

My general recommendations to general headquarters, all of which were subsequently carried out, included classes for the bandmasters’ instruction in the technic of conducting, in harmony, and in orchestration. These classes were put in charge of M. Francis Casadesus and M. André Caplet. The latter was later on succeeded by Lieutenant Albert Stoessel, a highly talented bandmaster in our army, who has returned to civilian life and has now become my successor as conductor of the New York Oratorio Society.

Captain Ellacott, of the A. E. F., became the military head of the school to which he gave most sympathetic assistance.

There were two professors each for oboe, bassoon, French horn, and flügelhorn, all of whom were graduates and first prizes of the famous Paris Conservatoire. I also recommended that the beautiful B-flat bugles of the French army be adopted by us and that a French drum-major, proficient on this instrument, be appointed as instructor to drill successive classes of fifty for one month each, the graduates to become first buglers of our regiments, in order that they might, in turn, instruct other buglers in their respective drum and bugle corps.

At the examinations I also asked the bandmasters certain questions regarding their position in their respective regiments, the attitude of their colonel toward music, their general treatment, and the hours allowed them for musical practice, and here I came on all kinds of conditions. Some of the commanding officers had no sympathy with music or with the bandsmen, and instead of making them practise their six hours a day, they were put to work as kitchen police and on other fatigue duties. I therefore urged that the commanding officers be impressed with the fact that the primary object of the band is not to fight, but to cheer the fighters, and the better their music, the greater its beneficial effects upon the spirit of the soldiers, and that therefore all bandsmen should be compelled to devote at least five or six hours every day to the practice of their instruments and to rehearsals, and that other duties should be made subsidiary to their musical work and should not be of a character to unfit them for a proper performance on their respective instruments.

I also discovered that there was a terrible wastage as regards musical instruments and that in several instances, preparatory to going into action, the instruments had been thrown away or simply left behind, nevermore to be recovered, and that therefore it might be wise to appoint a travelling inspector of musical instruments whose duties should be to attend to the speedy replacement of missing parts, the repairing of instruments, and the supplying of new music.

A really excellent headquarters band was formed at Chaumont, which became a source of much gratification to the commander-in-chief and his staff, accompanying him on many of his ceremonial visits and functions.

One of my most important recommendations for the school was that every week at least one concert should be given by the professors and such of the bandsmen as were really competent musicians. The programmes should be made up only of the great master composers, in order that the students—many of whom had come from isolated communities in our country and had had but little opportunity to hear good music—should become sensitive to the finer and more spiritual qualities of music as an art. This was carried out in most remarkable fashion during the entire existence of the school, and the programmes and their performance were worthy of a place in any highly cultivated musical community.

When I returned to Chaumont on a visit of inspection the following year, I heard one of these concerts, which included a quintet of Mozart for oboe and strings and a sonata for violin and piano by César Franck. I sat in delighted amazement as I saw the happy faces of over a hundred students in khaki who were listening to this divine music in rapt silence. What a pity that such a school cannot be founded in every State in America now that the war is over and our soldiers have returned home! This would speedily result in an excellent band for every town and lay a real foundation for the musical development of the people at large.

During these weeks in Paris I also saw a great deal of some of my French musician colleagues, all of whom had refused to leave Paris in spite of the Gothas and Berthas.

When I first called on Charles Marie Widor, the famous old organist of Saint Sulpice, I found him installed, by virtue of his office as Secrétaire Perpétuel of the Institut de France, in a charming Louis XVI suite of rooms in that building. He showed me a hole in the window of his workroom and told me that a few days before he had just stooped down to pick up a musical score from the floor when a shell from the Big Bertha burst in front of his apartment and a piece of it hurtled through his window, missing him only because he was in a stooping position.

His Gallic wit and versatility make him a delightful companion, and I am grateful for the opportunity the war gave me for more intimate acquaintance and friendship with him. Indeed, this applies to all the friends made during that eventful summer. The war brought us more quickly and closely together than would have been possible otherwise, and as I was an American I reaped the full advantage of all the intense gratitude which the French felt for us, some of which was hardly deserved, as our government certainly had shilly-shallied and waited until it was almost too late before they threw our great weight of men and treasure into the balance.

I have already spoken of Mlle. Nadia Boulanger, who played the organ for me at the performance of Saint-Saëns’s “Third Symphony” on July 14. Among women I have never met her equal in musicianship, and indeed there are very few men who can compare with her. She is one of the finest organists of France, an excellent pianist, and the best reader of orchestral scores that I have ever known. Again and again I have seen her take up a manuscript orchestral score, sit down with it at the piano, and brilliantly read it at sight, transcribing it for the piano as she played along. When we first met, she and her dear mother were in the greatest grief. A younger sister, Lili, had died only a month before at twenty-four years of age. Beautiful, exquisite, and marvellously talented, she had won the much-coveted Prix de Rome three years before—the first woman to have gained it. A mortal illness had slowly sapped her strength, and as she had been the idol of her mother and sister, her loss was to them a tragedy almost beyond endurance. Nadia, besides keeping up her professional duties—she was substitute organist at the Madeleine during the war—hurled herself into war work and more especially the care of the students of the Conservatoire who were at the front. She knew all their names and the numbers of their organizations and founded a kind of musical gazette, mimeographed copies of which were sent out every month to the students. All kinds of musical news and musical questions were published in it, so that these boys, in the midst of their military duties or while convalescing from their wounds in the hospitals, could have something to think about more immediately connected with their own profession. It is interesting to note that, in answer to the question, “Should German composers like Brahms and Wagner be played at our concerts during the war?” out of fifty-eight, forty-seven answered unequivocally “Yes” for Wagner and Brahms, three “Yes” for Beethoven and the classics, two were undecided, and six said “No.” These answers were accompanied in many cases by highly interesting essays on art and nationality of art, and, altogether, the judgments thus expressed reflected the high intellectual standard of these young French artists at the front.

I saw many instances of how keenly the French separate their artistic from their political convictions. One night my friends of the French Military Commission at Chaumont had come to Paris and one of them, Captain Guegnier, invited me to dinner at his apartment. His wife and the wife of one of his colleagues had come to Paris from the country especially for the occasion. We sat down, a very jolly party of six, to a most delicious dinner such as only the French can devise and properly execute. As all the party were musical we naturally had a good deal of music after dinner. The ladies sang charmingly and I had to play excerpts from their beloved Wagner—“Tristan,” “Meistersinger,” “Parsifal,” and the “Trilogy.” My hostess sang songs of Fauré, Chausson, and Debussy, and just then the sirens boomed out their disagreeable message that the Gothas were taking advantage of the moonlit night to make one of their raids over Paris. At the same moment the taxi-cab man, who had come to take me back to my hotel, announced that he had arrived. Would he like to come up-stairs? Oh, no, he would just sit inside the cab and wait till I got ready. “Then let us have some more music,” said my hostess, and simply drew the curtain over the windows. And, while the Gothas were scattering their shells over Paris, she turned to me and said: “Now let me sing for you this lovely song of Schubert.” There was my French hostess singing German songs, and it was not until about one o’clock in the morning that Lieutenant Weill and I turned homeward.

The vast difference in attitude between the French and certain of my compatriots regarding the proper stand to be taken in time of war toward the art of an enemy nation was very striking. I had myself decided that the New York Symphony Orchestra should not play the works of living German composers, and that the German language should not be sung at our concerts during the war. There seemed to me good and valid reasons for such a course. But Beethoven, Mozart, and Wagner I considered as classics, belonging to us just as much as to Germany, and their divine message had naught to do with the political and military leaders of Germany who had plunged the world into this horrible bath of blood. There was, however, in New York a small but noisy group led by a few women who sought to demonstrate their “patriotism” by hysterical outbursts and newspaper protests against the performance of all music composed by Germans, no matter how many years ago. Some of these women, through the curious psychosis of war, really thought that they were serving their country by their protests. In the winter of 1918 the orchestra of the Paris Conservatoire made a tour through America under their conductor, André Messager. When I called on him the day after his arrival he showed me a letter he had just received from one of these women protesting against his performing a Beethoven Symphony during his stay in America. He was white with anger, and when I asked him how he would answer it, he said: “I will answer it as a French artist should.” I said: “The best way to answer would be to put Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony on your first programme.” “I will,” he said; and he did.

The opposition to Wagner was based on very amusing premises. Because some of his heroes were wont to appear on the stage in very blond wigs and beards, these lady sleuth-hounds seemed to perceive some evil and subtle connection between Siegfried in the “Nibelungen Trilogy” and Nietzsche’s “blond beast,” which, according to his prophecy, was eventually to control the earth. Their studies of Wagner were too shallow to enable them to realize that the whole philosophy of life as expressed by Wagner in the “Nibelungen Trilogy” was in direct contrast to the desire of the modern militaristic German to rule and control the world by force. Wagner depicts a prehistoric world in which the gods of greed, lust, and power rule, carrying, however, the seed of their own destruction within them because of the materialistic quality of their desires. As their power wanes and the old gods perish, a new religion is born, the religion of self-sacrifice through love, as symbolized by Brunhilde in her self-immolation on the funeral pyre of Siegfried.

But all this is already ancient history, and I for one confidently believe that the racial spirit which created the Germany of Bach, Beethoven, Goethe, Kant, and Wagner will soon return again to brighten and ennoble the world.

In five weeks all necessary arrangements for the school were completed and notices were sent by the General Staff to the bandmasters of the entire A. E. F. who had not come up to the necessary qualifications during the examination which I had given them, to report to the Chaumont School in batches of fifty every eight weeks, beginning on October 1, and to start their studies. Students for oboe, bassoon, French horn, and flügelhorn were also selected from the hundreds of applicants. At first we had great difficulty in finding the necessary instruments for them. France is famous for its wood-wind instruments, but the various factories had long since ceased operations, as all the workmen were in the army. The ever-ready and ingenious Lieutenant Weill, however, succeeded in scraping together enough oboes and bassoons to start the classes, and I cannot say enough for the willing assistance which was accorded me by every United States army officer with whom I came in contact. From the commander-in-chief down to Lieutenant Kelley, who sat in the anteroom of General Dawes’s office in the Champs-Élysées, and whose principal duty seemed to be to ward off disagreeable or tiresome callers who wished to rob General Dawes of his valuable time, all made me feel as if the improvement of the army bands was the one thing necessary to win the war. It was high time for me to leave France and “get back to earth,” as I no longer walked on anything but air and with my head projecting far above the clouds.

During my last visit to Chaumont I motored down to Domrémy, the birthplace of Jeanne d’Arc, and found the little village in just about the same state it must have been when she was born in the little house next to the church, both of which have been carefully preserved for the worshippers of to-day. The open space in front of her house, the trees surrounding it, and the monument in the centre seemed to me to form a natural stage on which a peace pageant could well be enacted, and as I sat there and the bell began to toll from the little church in which Jeanne had whispered her prayers, I began to dream of a possible peace celebration in which a company of American soldiers, a company of French soldiers, an American and a French military band, singers from the Opéra Comique, and a children’s chorus should take part; the climax to be the joyous meeting of the military forces around the monument and the awakening of Jeanne from her sleep of centuries, opening the door of her little house and standing there looking with astonishment at the unwonted sight of American soldiers in khaki as brothers of her beloved countrymen.

On my return to Chaumont I outlined this idea to several officers of the Staff and of the French Commission, who received it with enthusiasm and promised every assistance, but, alas, nothing ever came of it. When I returned to France the following spring the armistice had been arranged and the Versailles Conference was dragging its weary and dreary deliberations toward an unsatisfactory conclusion. There did not seem to be enough illusion or enthusiasm left to celebrate anything international connected with the war.

On my last visit to Chaumont I gave a little dinner to Colonel Collins, secretary of the Staff, whose constant interest had been invaluable and whose mind seemed to be capable at a moment’s notice of turning from the consideration of some intricate military problem to the great advantages to be derived from the introduction of the French B-flat bugle into our army. Over a very good magnum of champagne I rose and made him, Colonel Boyd, and Lieutenant Weill solemnly swear that for the rest of the war and as long thereafter as necessary the bandmaster’s school at Chaumont should be to them as the apple of their eye, and this oath they faithfully kept. The school flourished from October, 1918, until June, 1919, when it was discontinued owing to the return of our army to America. The relations between the French professors and our boys, all living together like a happy family, became so sympathetic and intimate that the results may truly be said to have been remarkable. The soldiers realized that they were receiving an education in music equal to that of the foremost schools of France or America, and the French professors entered into their duties with an enthusiasm which was touching. Casadesus told me that many of his pupils worked at their musical problems twelve hours a day and I urged him, in some way or other, to continue these pleasant and important international musical relations by founding a summer school somewhere in France, preferably near Paris, to which American men and women, already sufficiently advanced in their study of music, could repair for three months every summer in order to acquaint themselves with French art and French methods of teaching. Until the war began, hundreds of American students had gone to Germany every year, and it seemed a pity that, owing to the Frenchman’s lack of propaganda for what his country could offer to our students, some of this stream could not be diverted to France. Our talks eventually led to the founding of the Conservatoire Américain at Fontainebleau, of which details are told in another chapter.

By the courtesy of General Pershing I received permission to leave for home on the army transport America. This ship sailed from Brest, and I was anxious to go there in order to see my daughter, Alice Pennington, once more. She and her friend, Miss Letty McKim, had been there for a year and had founded the naval Y. M. C. A., to the great satisfaction of Admiral Wilson and our navy stationed there. My daughter’s enthusiasm and vitality, together with that of her equally able friend, had created an atmosphere which our sailors greatly relished, and I was keen to see some of her work.

My train was to leave Paris in the evening, and my faithful friend and companion of the last five weeks, Lieutenant Weill, came to the station to bid me good-by. There were no regular sleeping-cars on this train but only what the French call “couchettes”—four bunks in each compartment, two on each side. The names of the occupants were carefully written on a slip of paper and pasted on the outside of each door, and Lieutenant Weill informed me that a French general occupied the lower bunk opposite mine. Sure enough, a handsome, youngish-looking general presently appeared and, politely touching his cap, entered our compartment and seated himself in his bunk. Weill, in French fashion, kissed me good-by on both cheeks, and as I had still ten minutes to spare, I stood outside and saw an American naval commander coming toward me with rather unsteady steps. He told me that he had had thirty-six hours’ leave and that he and his two aides had decided to spend it by going to Paris. As the train took twelve hours each way this gave them only twelve hours in the city of delights and he had evidently taken full advantage of every minute of it. He told me that his two aides had not yet turned up, that they had all the tickets and all his money; he also confided to me that one of them was so rich that he could have bought the entire train. I finally found his name on the list of our coupé, his bunk being directly over the French general’s, and as it was getting late, I advised him to enter. Just at that moment two handsome young naval lieutenants rushed up, and he received them with enthusiasm, for they had his railroad tickets. I helped him into our compartment, where he presently sat down right next to the general, who wrapped his cloak about him and cuddled up into his own corner. I said to my compatriot: “I think you are in the French general’s bunk. Yours is the one above.” Whereupon he said: “The French general can go to hell!” I was frightened out of my wits, as I expected an immediate international encounter which might have the most serious consequences. Luckily the general understood no English, and I finally induced my new naval friend to climb up into his own bunk, but I made a solemn vow that I would never again try to interfere where the army and navy of two different countries were concerned.

I turned into my own bunk and slept well until next morning, when I found the commander also awake and possessed of a thirst which knew no bounds. There was, of course, no drinking-water on the train, but I rushed him to the restaurant of the next station where we stopped, and he seized a carafe of water and put it to his lips with such avidity that you could almost hear the water sizzle as it passed down his throat. He turned out to be a delightful fellow. He was commander of a destroyer and had spent dreary and terrible weeks in his little craft watching for submarines. The monotony and discomfort of such a life cannot be imagined, as these ships are so small that their motion is incessant and they have to go out in the dirtiest of weather. There is hardly ever a chance to cook meals, and those on board must eat what and how they can. For weeks and weeks nothing happens, but my commander had had the good luck on his last trip to get a sub, and had received his thirty-six hours’ leave in consequence. Small wonder that he and his colleagues sought some relief in honor of the great event!

At the next station my French general and I got a cup of coffee. Sugar was at that time taboo, and as, thanks to my army friends, I had my pockets full of this precious stuff, I offered him some in place of the awful saccharine, which he accepted gratefully and then told me that he was going on his first vacation in two years to spend with his family in a little watering resort this side of Brest. Sure enough at the next station, as he got out, a charming boy and girl, browned by the sun, rushed up to him and fairly smothered him with kisses. It looked for all the world like a scene at a Long Island station in August, when the various New York fathers commute on a Friday afternoon to spend Saturday and Sunday with their families by the sea.

I found my daughter Alice waiting for me at the station in Brest, and on the way to the little apartment which she and Miss McKim occupied together, she told me that Admiral Wilson wanted to meet me before my departure on the transport the same evening. She begged me to support her if he denounced jazz music, against which he had a particular hatred, for she had always insisted to him that the sailors loved it and that in time of war they certainly should have anything they wanted.

In the afternoon the admiral’s band gave a concert in the public square, and I, of course, attended it and met the bandmaster and his players, who did very good work, several of them having been members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They begged me to conduct them in one of the numbers, and I took up the stick and solemnly played through the “William Tell Overture” with them. At the end I saw Admiral Wilson on the balcony of his apartment applauding vociferously, and he presently came running, bareheaded, across the square to greet me. Almost the first thing he said was: “Doctor, don’t you think jazz music is horrible? It destroys all taste for real music.” “Indeed I heartily agree with you,” I answered. Whereupon my daughter Alice turned on me and said, “Coward!” implying that as the admiral was the autocrat of Brest I did not wish to brave his wrath even in order to please my daughter. But indeed I was thoroughly in accord with him; and I wish that either some popular substitute could be found for the interminable jazz that is ravaging not only our country but all Europe, or that a genius would come along who would pour into this very low form of art some real emotion which, welling from the very heart of man, might give life to what is at present but a nervous excitement.

That evening I went on board the transport America, and sailed for home. I found the voyage exceedingly interesting. The ship had been a Hamburg passenger liner, the Amerika, taken over after her internment by our navy; the “k” having been carefully removed and an American “c” substituted. Various German signs had been scratched out, but the table and bed linen, as well as the knives and forks, still bore the mystic initials, H. A. P. A. G.—Hamburg Amerika Paketfahrt Actien Gesellschaft.

I was the proud occupant of a cabin and bathroom of the so-called “Roosevelt” suite, which the ex-President had occupied during his trip around the world, and the faucets over the bathtub still bore the signs “Kalt,” “Warm,” and “Gemischt.” The various luxurious furnishings of the ship showed the wear and tear of army-transport usage. The marble was cracked and the electric bells did not ring.

The first-class cabins were occupied by several hundred officers, a curious mixture of men, some returning on leave or to become instructors in the officers’ camps, or being mustered out of service, either for ill health, drunkenness, or incompetence. For days I was pursued, even into my cabin, by a man from a Western city who had enlisted as a dentist. He was evidently out of his mind and was to be mustered out of the service on his return home. He had conceived the mysterious idea that I could influence the powers that be to have him reinstated, and I finally found the glitter in his eye so ominous that I reported him to the colonel in command and he promptly had him put under medical observation. Two days later his companions in the hospital ward, whom he had already annoyed and frightened by suddenly grabbing their legs at night, found him in the bathroom with his throat partly cut by his razor; and I confess that I was glad when I heard that he had been put into a cabin by himself, with a soldier guarding the door.

We were, of course, under army regulations and in many respects life was much stricter than on the passenger liners. We were compelled to wear life-preservers almost the entire voyage and no lights were permitted after sundown. We were not told at which American port we were to land, and I was much astonished one morning to find our ship anchored in Boston Harbor alongside the old 1812 frigate Constitution, whose broadside-guns looked delightfully picturesque and inefficient compared with the modern monsters I had seen in France.

During the following winter my wife and I often received visits from navy officers and sailors bearing greetings from our daughter Alice in Brest, and I remember one red-cheeked youngster who made so agreeable an impression on my wife that she invited him to return the following day, which was Sunday, for luncheon. On that morning the telephone rang. It was our old friend, Admiral William Rodgers, who asked whether he could come to luncheon. My wife said we would be delighted, but my youngest daughter Anita, who was well versed in the etiquette of the navy, called out: “Oh, we can’t have the admiral lunching with us to-day. An admiral can’t sit down at the same table with a gob!” My wife repeated this to the admiral, who insisted that it made no difference and that in war time everything was possible; that he certainly wanted to come and would be very glad to meet the “gob” who had brought greetings from Alice, of whom he was very fond. The sailor boy arrived first, and when we told him that our other guest was to be an admiral he grew pale as death, but when Rodgers arrived he was so kind to the boy that luncheon passed off fairly well, except that the boy became rigid at attention whenever the admiral spoke to him. During the luncheon Admiral Rodgers said to him: “You have just seen Mrs. Pennington in Brest?” “Yes, sir.” “And what was she doing when you saw her?” “She was selling postage-stamps, sir,” was the answer. And I have no doubt this was true, as Alice in her capacity of naval “Y” worker not only took the sailors out to picnics with swimming contests, arranged vaudeville entertainments and concerts, but in between times sold them chocolate, cigarettes, postage-stamps, picture postal-cards, lemon-drops, and ginger ale.

After luncheon my daughters discreetly took the young sailor into the front parlor in order to relieve the tension a little, and Rodgers asked me about an orchestration of the “Star-Spangled Banner” which I had made at the beginning of the war and which had aroused some attention. I had always felt that this good old English tune had a fine ring to it, provided it was played in the proper tempo, and I had given it an orchestration which developed into quite a climax on the last two lines of each verse. I sat down at the piano and played it for him, explaining the difference between this version and the old one which had been generally used before the war. He was much interested and wanted to introduce it in the navy.

The sailor boy finally took his departure, and my daughters came smiling into the music-room and told us that while they were sitting talking with the sailor, he suddenly jumped up from his chair and stood at rigid attention. He had heard the strains of the national anthem coming from our room and, remembering the admiral, knew his duty! Who shall, after that, deny the power of music in peace or in war?

LIEUTENANT WALKER BLAINE BEALE
Killed in the St. Mihiel drive, September 18, 1918