Mr. Flagler listened to me and said: “I do not see how we can possibly postpone the acceptance of these official invitations from four countries to a later period. Now is the psychological moment to do it. How much do you think the tour will cost?”
I had made a kind of general calculation and mentioned the amount, which seemed to me large.
“Isn’t that curious?” he answered. “That is exactly what I thought it would cost. Go right ahead with your preparations.”
I was naturally delighted at his decision. I knew that American orchestras had achieved a perfection of ensemble which but few, if any, European orchestras could equal. I was proud of our organization and anxious to demonstrate it as a standard of American musical culture.
The members of the orchestra were wild with excitement at the marvellous news. Many of them had been born in America and had never seen Europe. It was the wonderland of their imagination. Others had been there as soldiers during the war, and still others had left Europe years before to found their fortunes and families in the New World and had not been back since. They immediately appointed a committee to agree upon a minimum salary schedule which, while giving them a fair recompense for their time, would yet make that part of it not too difficult for us. To this sum, however, Mr. Flagler later added ten dollars a week more for each player, as he thought that their hotel expenses might be greater than we had calculated.
The managerial work of constructing the tour was beset with many difficulties, as the war had disorganized many of the regular concert organizations in Europe under whose auspices we would have played under normal conditions. The railroads, also, made much slower time than formerly. But gradually the tour began to assume shape and the first concert was scheduled to be given on May 6 at the Grand Opera in Paris, which the Ministère des Beaux Arts had offered to us, and the last concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 20. In order that this tour might be representative in every way of the best in American music, Mr. Flagler suggested that we take along two young American-born soloists of distinction—Albert Spalding, violinist, and John Powell, composer-pianist. I immediately set to work to prepare a series of appropriate programmes which should serve the double purpose of demonstrating the fine qualities of our orchestra and soloists, and also pay proper tribute to the great composers of the countries we proposed to visit.
We were to open with three concerts in Paris, and as I was conversant with all the details in connection with Paris especially, I preceded the orchestra and arrived there April 22. At my hotel, the “France et Choiseul,” I found a letter from my old friend, Robert Underwood Johnson, who had just left Paris to go to Rome as American ambassador to Italy. He said:
Dear Walter:
It is pleasant to think that, within a few days, you will be occupying the “ambassadorial suite” in which I am writing these lines (Davis of London had it also). We leave day after tomorrow and shall be very happy to see you all when you come to Rome. We are looking forward with pride and agreeable anticipation to the invasion of Italy by the Symphony and its director and the assisting artists. We have no Embassy, alas! being “all dressed up (or nearly so) with no place to go to” and so we shall slum it at the Grand Hotel until the money seems to be giving out.
Don’t let any of your party perish by stumbling over the torn carpet at the entrance to this apartment. I have tried to have it mended, but my failure shows that I am no diplomat—yet.