Two summers ago, after an absence of thirty-eight years, I revisited Ems with my wife and daughters. We had motored from Paris to Coblenz on a visit to General Allen, then in command of our Army of Occupation in Coblenz, and from there to Ems was but a short motor ride. We found the town occupied by French troops from Morocco, and our officer guides pointed out with some amusement the stone which marks the place where Benedetti and King William had met in 1870.
In July I went to Bayreuth in high expectation, to hear the first four performances of Wagner’s “Parsifal.” To a young musician from America such an experience was especially new and exciting. I arrived there a week or two before the first performance, hoping to gain admission to some of the rehearsals. I found this impossible, but I met scores of artists by whom I was cordially received because I was my father’s son. Many of his old friends were there for the “Parsifal” performances and I remember with much pleasure the kindly, refined and gentle Herman Levi, General Music Director of the Munich Opera, who had been chosen by Wagner to conduct the Bayreuth performances.
I received an invitation for the first reception held by Wagner and his wife, Cosima, at Wahnfried and dutifully presented myself there with some nervousness, which was allayed somewhat when I found Liszt almost at the door as I came in. He immediately recognized me and not only introduced me to Cosima, but when she said, “Father, you must introduce this son of our old friend, Doctor Leopold Damrosch, to the Meister,” he took me into Wagner’s workroom where I beheld Wagner surrounded by musicians and in front of him the giant tenor, Albert Niemann, well known later on to Wagner lovers in America as a member of the German company at the Metropolitan for a number of years, and also as the creator of Tannhäuser in Paris at the tragic and disastrous performances of 1861.
As we came in, Wagner was joking Niemann unmercifully, saying:
“Look at this man! I invited him to create the part of Parsifal for me and he refused because I told him that Parsifal must be a beardless youth and he said he would not cut off his beard for any man.”
“Why, Meister,” answered Niemann, “you know that is not true; I would cut off my nose if it were necessary to sing one of your rôles properly.”
Wagner greeted me with kindness, asked about my father, and a few days later sent me, through his publishers, for my father, a manuscript copy of the finale from the first act of “Parsifal” (no orchestral score was at that time engraved) for performance in New York by the Symphony and Oratorio Societies. This was a remarkable act of friendship on his part and I was very proud to be able to carry the precious score back to my father.
It was to me indescribably touching to note the way in which Liszt sought to efface himself at Wagner’s house, in order that Wagner’s glory should stand forth alone. When I first saw Liszt there I, following the custom of the young musicians at Weimar and elsewhere, sought his hand in order to kiss it; but, with a force incredible in so old a man, he pressed down my hand, saying with his gentle smile: “No, no, not here.”
I doubt whether there ever was a musician who worked so incessantly for the benefit of other musicians as he. He was constantly seeking, either with his ten magic fingers as pianist or with his pen as musical critic or propagandist, or with his own money, to save others from want or to help them to obtain the recognition which he thought they deserved. It is impossible to name the hundreds whom he thus benefited—Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, César Franck, Schumann, Cornelius, and so on, and of course above all Wagner himself, whose friendship with Liszt has become historic. Like most friendships, the one gives much more than he receives, and that one was Liszt, who, in his admiration for Wagner’s genius minimized himself and what he had accomplished as composer to an exaggerated degree. In those personal qualities that make up a man’s character, Liszt was infinitely the superior. Wagner’s genius as a musician was the greater, but this brought in its trail an overwhelming egotism and a vanity which made many of his relations with his fellow men unfortunate. Liszt gave up all worldly glories and honors and riches which he might have acquired if he had continued his career as perhaps the greatest piano virtuoso that ever lived, in order to devote himself absolutely to composition and musical propaganda, without any thought of pecuniary rewards. He literally, like his patron saint, Francis of Assisi, took the vows of poverty. When I saw him he lived in most simple fashion, always travelled “second class” and gave what little money he had to others who seemed to him to need it more. Without his never-ceasing support and encouragement, his absolute faith in the eventual triumph of Wagner’s music, and without continual financial support from Liszt and from those he constantly urged to help, Wagner could never have carried on his struggle toward the triumphant completion of a Bayreuth and an almost complete realization of his ideals.
The first performance of “Parsifal” made a tremendous impression on me. I was much moved by the noble allegory and the music accompanying the sacred rituals of the Christian Church as presented upon the stage in the scene during the uncovering of the Holy Grail. But I must confess that with each succeeding performance this feeling lessened. The fact that it was not a devotional ceremony but an imitation of one which had been carefully drilled and trained into the performers whose gestures of devotion repeated themselves each time with automatic regularity, gradually began to affect me disagreeably. I was at that time too young to analyze this feeling properly, but, as the years went by, I gradually arrived at the belief that such ceremonials should not be presented on a stage, for if we see a group of Christian Knights partaking of the Lord’s Supper, we should have the full conviction that it is a real ceremony and not an imitation. The foot-washing scene between Parsifal and Kundry also affected me disagreeably. It was too direct an imitation of Magdalen washing the feet of Christ. On the other hand, the Good Friday scene between Parsifal and Gurnemanz moved me and many others in the audience to tears because it was a lovely and lovable presentation of the divine mercy through the self-sacrifice of the Saviour. Old Scaria, the Vienna bass, who took the part of Gurnemanz, sang and acted this scene with convincing tenderness.