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.