And There I Stood with My Piccolo

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f2. MR. MENGELBERG, AS I HAVE SAID somewhere before, was at this time the conductor of the Philharmonic. One of his most annoying characteristics was a habit of putting special signs in all the music. Considering the many times we had played Tschaikowsky's "Fifth Symphony," the famous horn solo was marked up so badly you couldn't see the notes any more. There was a crescendo or diminuendo of ff or pp or something marked over, above, around, or beside every single note on the page. Mr. Jaenicke, the horn player, was a very patient man, but just before the rehearsal began one morning he went to Mengelberg. "Mr. Mengelberg , I bought a new horn part for the Tschaikowsky 'Fifth Symphony' which I have here in my hand because I cannot read the other part any more because I can't see the notes for the marks. Would you be good enough to put on this clean part exactly the expression marks you would like me to observe?" 83 Mr. Mengelberg said, "You haflf ze old part?" Mr. Jaenicke handed him the old part. After studying it for a few moments Mr. Mengelberg said, "Zis old part is pairfectly fine, except you must can add a crescendo here and a diminooendo at zis blace, one more forte in ze next measure, and two more pianissimos by ze end." When I first joined the Philharmonic there were two symphonies in New York, the Philharmonic and the Damrosch orchestra. The Philharmonic boys felt, of course, very superior to the Damrosch gang, and vice versa. Some years before, these rivals of ours started a story about a venerable old gentleman named Stransky who had conducted the Philharmonic early in the century. The story was about Stransky having a dream that he was strapped in the electric chair. The warden came in and released him, saying, "It's no use, boys. Don't you know Stransky is a non-conductor ?" As reprisal, any little insights into the penurious side of Dr. Walter Damrosch were whispered into existence and started on their rounds, you may be sure, by the dear fun-loving lads of the Philharmonic . It became, thus, generally known that this world-famous dean of conductors always left a five-centtip in the Carnegie Hall restaurant. He was supposed to have extracted this gratuity from 84 his person in somewhat the involved way that Jack Benny visits his sub-cellar vault on the radio, with a great fluttering of moths and clanking of chains. Also it was said that the rented limousine that brought Dr. Damrosch to the concerts did not collect him at his home but picked him up, top hat and all, at the Columbus Circle subway station only three blocks from Carnegie Hall. And unkindest of all, it became whispered behind fans that the blue denim rehearsal shirt this great American conductor invariably wore daily was not a different edition for each appearance but was always one and the same shirt. Of course the favorite story was to the effect that the famous Leopold Damrosch, father of Walter and Frank, was said to have remarked at some time during their youth, "The deepest regret of my life is that neither of my sons has evidenced any talent for music whatsoever." It was also well known, particularly among the symphony musicians of the town, that you did not under any circumstances ever answer Dr. Damrosch back if he made a critical suggestion to you during rehearsal. Getting in an argument with that lightning intellect and rapier tongue was like backing south into a McCormick harvester going north. My flute teacher, Georges Barrere, who played with the Damrosch Symphony, obituaried a brace of tuts for a foolhardy colleague who at85 tempted to parry a Damrosch thrust one hapless morning. After they had swept up the body Mr. Barrere said, "Poor fellow, he lost a great chance to shut up." New York having two symphonies meant that the Philharmonic had to share Carnegie Hall with the Damrosch orchestra and take turns every other week rehearsing upstairs in the small hall that we called the "torture chamber" on account of it was an old-fashioned little chamber-music hall, built without any windows, to accommodate something like a string quartet and an audience of about seventy-five polite and restrained ladies-of-theWednesday -Music-Club members. It was a pretty miserable...