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Since her performance at Carnegie Hall several years ago of the Liebestod from Tristan, which Walter Damrosch hailed as an extremely interesting experiment, she has attempted to express something more than the joy of melody and rhythm.
Of these works three have been produced with marked success: the "Christmas Overture," at one of the public concerts of the Manuscript Society, under the direction of Walter Damrosch; the overture "Im Frühling," at concerts in Brooklyn and New York, under the baton of Theodore Thomas; and the American overture, "Hail Columbia!" at the Boston Peace Jubilee under Patrick Gilmore, at the Columbian Exposition under Thomas, and in New York under Anton Seidl.
Where, now, could be seen such an audience as Dr. Damrosch had gathered for his first season of German opera? Not, certainly, at the performance he had heard with Mariana two, no three, winters ago. A vulgarized performance in the spirit of a boulevard café. The whole present air, he told himself, was wrong. He looked at his watch, and was surprised to see that it was past ten.
Damrosch was accordingly appealed to at the eleventh hour, and he hastened to Germany and brought over a company that scored an immediate success, surprising even to those who had long advocated the establishment of a German opera in New York. And this success became still more pronounced in the following seasons, when a better company was secured, with Herr Seidl as conductor.
The manly ways of "Young Damrosch" and his superb skill as a conductor made an impression on Mr. Carnegie then and there that bore speedy fruit. In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-one, Mr. Carnegie built the Carnegie Music-Hall at the corner of Fifty-seventh Street and Seventh Avenue in New York City, especially with Walter Damrosch and the Damrosch needs in mind.
Thence I travelled to Breslau, where the concert director, Damrosch, had arranged a concert for me. I had made his acquaintance on my last visit to Weimar, and had also heard of him through Liszt. Unfortunately the conditions here struck me as extraordinarily dismal and desperate. The whole affair had been planned on the meanest scale, as indeed I might have expected.
It is the feeling of loneliness I mind here of being lost and no one to search for me. I miss the cheery garrison life the delightful rides, and it may sound funny, but I miss also the little church choir that finally became a joy to me. Sergeant Graves is now leader of the regimental band at Fort Snelling, and Matijicek is in New York, a member of the Damrosch orchestra.
Walter Damrosch as concert-master for the New York orchestra, but during his stay in this country he appeared in many of the most important concerts, and was considered one of the best violinists who had ever come to live in America.
Even here, after so long, he vibrated again to the exquisite beauty of Lenore's constancy and love. Then Dr. Damrosch dead, the sonorous funeral in the Opera House ... That had been changed with the rest; the baignoires were gone, the tiers of boxes newly curved; gone the chandeliers and Turkey red carpet and gold threaded brocade that had seemed the final expression of luxury.
My friend Damrosch, who was very much upset, had to promise me that at least he would have the horrible reek of tobacco in the place neutralised. As he could offer no guarantee as to the amount of the receipts, I was only induced in the end to go on with the enterprise by my desire not to compromise him too severely.
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