Bayreuth, 6 Juli, 1903.
Conried, however, obtained his parts elsewhere, and gave a stage performance that winter. Since then the copyright on “Parsifal” has run out and it has been produced all over the world.
During my search for modern works I endeavored also to keep alive the interest in the old oratorios. I owed much to them, and their dignity and genuine expression of religious feeling had been a most important factor in my early and earliest education. As a boy I sang alto in the Oratorio Society chorus and at sixteen was promoted to the dignity of accompanist at rehearsals. At this work I became quite an expert, and if my father stopped at a certain place to correct the chorus, I would, of course, know beforehand what he wanted, and would hammer out the right note for the altos or the tenors—it was usually the tenors—or would resort, even while they were singing, to all manner of expedients, such as playing the critical intervals an octave higher in order to keep up the pitch or to define them more clearly. As both my mother and Tante Marie sang in the chorus, there would be the four of us going home together after a rehearsal, discussing this or that point which needed more drilling, or a weakness that needed bolstering up, or we would express mutual enthusiasm over some chorus particularly well sung that evening. Naturally the refrain after almost every rehearsal was: “How can we get ten more first tenors?” America did not seem to grow them, and as even basses were not as plentiful as they should have been, it seemed almost as if the future American composer should write choruses for women only. If at the voice trial of new applicants, which usually took place before or after rehearsal, that rara avis, a tenor, was found, we glowed with delight and speculated as to whether he would really turn up at the next rehearsal and become a regular member. It cannot be claimed that tenors are to be found in profusion even to-day, but there has been an immense development in the quality of choral singers. Their voices are better trained, they read better at sight, and the general increase of interest in music manifests itself very strongly in this direction.
In 1892 I gave a Handel festival in honor of the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the first performance of Handel’s “Messiah” in Dublin under his own direction, in 1742, followed by the one which King George II and his court attended, and when the crowd was so great that the management requested the gentlemen not to wear their swords nor the ladies their hoop-skirts, in order to enable as many as possible to hear the work of “Mr. Handel.” At this performance, when the Hallelujah chorus began, with its mighty climax, “King of Kings, Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” King George, overcome with emotion, arose and remained standing until the end. Naturally the entire audience rose in imitation of their royal master, and Great Britain has continued this custom ever since. As this was a fitting homage both to the Almighty and to the composer who in this chorus so marvellously voiced man’s adoration for him, my father introduced the custom at his own first performance of the “Messiah,” in 1874, and the Oratorio Society audiences have followed it to this day.
An interesting account of the kind of orchestra Handel may have employed is given in a description of a memorial service of the “Messiah,” sung in Westminster Abbey shortly after his death. I decided to reproduce such an orchestra as far as possible at our festival performance. The main characteristics consisted in the doubling up of the string parts in the choruses with oboes and bassoons and in duplicating the trumpets and kettledrums in the choral climaxes. The effect of this was most remarkable. I had placed an additional oboe with every three violins and an additional bassoon for every three violoncellos, with a few contrabassoons and contrabass clarinets to strengthen the double-basses and to take the part of the serpent—an instrument which has become obsolete. The doubling up of trumpets and kettledrums in the climaxes did not make them sound louder, but more full. For the first time in my experience the sound of the orchestra was not completely buried in the avalanche of tone from a large chorus of three hundred and fifty voices. The orchestral accompaniments supported and supplemented the chorus in a way that perhaps only a very large and mellow church organ might.
In Handel’s time he himself usually sat at the organ and filled in with masterly improvisations many of the harmonies for which in his score he had written only the bass, with figures indicating the harmonies which the organist should improvise. Since then various musicians have endeavored to supply these harmonies in permanent fashion by writing them for other instruments in the orchestra, principally for clarinets and bassoons. As most concert-halls are but poorly supplied with organs, these arrangements offered a kind of substitute, and the one most in use was that of Robert Franz. He was a German composer of very lovely songs, and a great admirer of Handel, but, curiously enough, his arrangements were very bad and not in keeping with the Handelian spirit. Mozart also had written accompaniments to supply the missing harmonies for a performance of the “Messiah” in Vienna at a hall in which there was no church organ. His additions, especially in the air “The people that walked in darkness,” are of such transcendent beauty that when I proceeded in my work of restoring the Handelian orchestra to its original form my courage failed me completely as I came to this air. It was as if one master had found a painting by another and had encircled it in a frame of such beauty as to enhance the value of the original picture. I could not bear to disturb it, but the clarinets and bassoons of Robert Franz were thrown out by me with great gusto.
Another novel and interesting feature of our festival was a scenic stage performance of a charming pastoral of Handel’s “Acis and Galatea.” This proved to have dramatic qualities which in their appeal seemed way beyond that of the many Italian operas which Handel has written. The cast was excellent. The part of Galatea was sung by Madame de Vere, a charming coloratura singer; the shepherd Acis by William Rieger, one of our best young concert tenors; and Polyphemus, the giant, by that master artist, Emil Fischer. The scene represented a landscape of classic beauty, and all the participants were clad in very charming Greek shepherd costumes. The scene in which Polyphemus, coming upon the shepherd lovers, lifts a huge rock and in jealous rage kills Acis, was done with such dramatic intensity as to thrill our audiences. The performance was a real event, as this work had perhaps not been given in its dramatic form since the time of Handel; but, curiously enough, it roused but little interest, for, whereas all the other performances of the festival were crowded to the doors, we had but half an audience at our two performances of the pastoral. It came about twenty years too early, and I think that to-day, especially if given under the auspices of the Metropolitan Opera, it would arouse wide-spread interest.
This spring (1922) I was in Munich and the town was in great excitement over the approaching performance of Handel’s “Acis and Galatea” in dramatic form. Their conductor, Bruno Walter, said to me: “We are very proud of this stage performance, as it is the first since Handel’s time.” He was amazed and, as he told me, much chagrined when I informed him that I had given it in New York nearly thirty years ago. He gave it a beautiful performance. I had costumed my singers in classic Greek, but the Munich stage director had given the work an additional and rather piquant flavor by dressing the singers and dancers as in Handel’s time, when all performers, in no matter what age their plays were supposed to take place, wore the costumes and huge periwigs of their own period.
In the summer of 1898 we were much excited by the dramatic accounts of Admiral Dewey’s victory in Manila Bay, and it seemed to me fitting to celebrate it by composing a “Te Deum” for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. In order to give my “Manila Te Deum” an appropriate character, I used several of the bugle-calls of the American army and navy as a cantus firmus, around which I wove the fugal developments of the voices of the chorus. In the last chorus, “O Lord, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded,” I used the “Star-Spangled Banner” in similar fashion.
The work received its first performance at a concert of the Oratorio Society, December 3, 1898, and marked the introduction of my brother as regular conductor of the society. The following spring I was invited to conduct it at a Dewey celebration in Chicago, and on February 6, 1900, I directed it again at a special performance given in Carnegie Hall, the proceeds of which were to be used toward the building of an arch in honor of Admiral Dewey. This arch, however, was never built, and the several thousand dollars which resulted from our concert were finally donated by the Dewey Arch Committee to a philanthropic purpose. Our two guests of honor at this performance were Admiral Dewey, in a box on one side of the hall, and Theodore Roosevelt, at that time Governor of New York, in a box on the other side. Roosevelt was to make an appropriate address, and as the victor of Manila Bay was present and the entire occasion was one of jubilant admiration for our navy, we expected one of Roosevelt’s most flaming patriotic addresses on the glories of the American navy. But, alas, that evening his mind was completely occupied with things nearer home, and after a few very courteous remarks about my music, he launched forth into a terrific speech on the Street Cleaning Department of New York and the “duty of every citizen to vote at the primaries”!