With a little box of clothing, his violin, and a bundle of posters announcing a concert by “Master T-T,” Theodore set out alone to try his fortune with the world. For a year he wandered through the Southern states, giving his concerts in hotel dining-rooms, in schoolhouses, or wherever he considered it possible to gather an audience. As the people arrived, Theodore would stand at the door and take in the money; then, when he thought that all who were coming were present, he would hurry to the front of the hall and begin the concert.
A year later he was back again in New York, poor in pocket but rich in experience of the world. “I was then fifteen years old,” he later wrote, “and somehow had recognized the necessity of studying if I expected to accomplish anything in this world. But what? I did not know, of course, that a general education was needed, or even what it meant. My first idea was to become a virtuoso, so I began to practise and play in concerts.”
Shortly after his return to New York, the fifteen-year-old boy was engaged as the leading violinist in the orchestra of a German theatre. But this experience gave him more than an actual living; for here he became acquainted with the plays of the great German poets and masters of literature, and he also widened his musical horizon far beyond the rather limited boundaries which had up to that time confined it.
During the next two or three years his musical education prospered. Great singers and musicians began occasionally to visit America: Jenny Lind, Sontag, Mario, Grisi, Bosio, and Alboni. Thomas played everywhere in concerts and operas, and this gave him constant opportunity to hear these artists under the best of conditions. “The pure and musical quality of their art,” he has said, “was of great value in forming the taste of an impressionable boy at the outset of his career.” The influence of this experience did much to prepare him for his own triumphs in coming years.
There were at that time no real orchestras in America. An orchestra meant to Thomas a selected organization of skilled musicians “sufficiently subsidized to enable it to hold the rehearsals necessary for artistic performances, its object and aim to be to attain the highest artistic performance of master-works.” Of the existing orchestras of the time all were of negligible quality, and their leaders mere “time-beaters,” instead of true musicians.
But at this time such a leader appeared for a short period in the circle of Thomas’s life. Karl Eckert, the leader of the orchestra accompanying Mademoiselle Sontag, appeared in New York, and Thomas secured a position as one of the first violinists in the orchestra, a position from which he was soon promoted to leader of the second violins. Thomas gave his best effort to his new work. It was a place of responsibility, and the boy was young, but he saw his opportunity, grasped it, and held it.
The following year Thomas won promotion to Konzert-meister, or leader of the first violins; and here his extreme genius became the more apparent, for he was now the leader of men many of whom were old enough to be his father. This was the definite beginning of his career, for the experience of playing in a well-organized orchestra gave him a thorough schooling, not only in his duties as Konzert-meister but—and this was of particular value to him—in the practical business side of orchestral management.
In 1853 his education was further broadened by a year in the orchestra of Jullien, a famous European conductor. This was the first time that he had heard or played in a large and complete orchestra, and the result was that he was now ready to step out from the ranks and begin to develop his ability as an individual and a leader.
For about twelve years the New York Philharmonic Society had struggled, against popular indifference, to create a source of real music in the community. In 1854 Thomas was elected a member. He was nineteen years old. For thirty-six years he was destined to hold a more or less close association with it, first as violinist and later as its leader.
In the year 1855 William Mason, “a refined, sincere and highly educated musician,” organized a quartette of string players. Thomas was invited to play first violin, although he was the youngest member of the quartette. Mason played the piano, and the other members were Carl Bergmann, J. Mosenthal, and G. Matzka. It was an association of true artists, and its influence was of great consequence to Thomas in the opportunity which it afforded for the expression of his art and in the lasting friendships which it formed.