During the summer of 1880 my father conceived the idea of giving a monster music festival in May, 1881, which was to last a week and for which a chorus of one thousand two hundred, of which the Oratorio Society should be the nucleus, was to be trained in sections during the entire winter. He conferred with some of his friends, outlined his project to them, and a Music Festival Association composed of the directors of his Symphony and Oratorio Societies was formed. Other prominent New York citizens were added and a guarantee fund was provided, ample to protect the project financially.
Although I was only eighteen, my father deemed sufficiently advanced to intrust the drilling of a great portion of this chorus to me, a confidence of which I was very proud.
The entire summer of 1880 I spent in the little New England town of Amherst. A very remarkable Frenchman, Doctor Sauveur by name, had perfected a new system of teaching French and Latin, and Amherst College had turned its buildings over to him for a summer course. It seemed to my father and me that this was an excellent opportunity for me to acquire the rudiments of these two languages.
I accordingly arrived in Amherst armed with a grand piano, reams of music paper, and the orchestral score of the great Berlioz’s “Requiem,” which my father had selected as one of the works to be performed at the Festival. There was no piano score in existence and, to my joy, my father intrusted me with the task of making one from the original orchestral score.
I obtained a lovely bedroom from a farmer on the main street for the opulent price of two and a half dollars a week, and my grand piano was installed in the parlor, of which I had the entire use for four hours a day to practise. My meals I got at the principal little hotel for six dollars a week and when the genial proprietor saw me consuming my first dinner he said:
“Ef I had known you et that hearty I would have charged you more. I won’t make nothin’ out of you.”
The meals were certainly delicious, and at eighteen one’s capacity in that direction is unlimited.
When I arrived in May the college was still in session and I was made welcome by several of the students, among them Lawrence Abbott, now editor of The Outlook, and John Cotton Smith, now rector of St. John’s in Washington.
My days were certainly busy ones. In the morning I attended the sessions of Doctor Sauveur in French and Latin and in the afternoon I practised piano and worked hard at the arranging of the piano score of the Berlioz “Requiem.” Incidentally, I seemed to find plenty of time for games and fun of all kinds with a delightful family who had a country place there and where I got my first real glimpse of American country life, which is indeed unique and with which no other country can compare.
As fast as the different numbers of my arrangement of the Berlioz “Requiem” were finished, I sent them on to my father who, after revising them, gave them to the publisher in order to have the piano scores ready for the rehearsals in the fall. He was well pleased with my work, especially the “Tuba Mirum,” in which he thought that I had condensed quite cleverly the four orchestras which Berlioz intended placed at the four corners of the stage to represent the trumpets of the last judgment.