Jubilee

The programs at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House were done in gold one night last week. On either side of the stage hung laurel wreaths topped by the dates 1885 and 1935. What happened there in 1885 has long been a matter of history: Dr. Leopold Damrosch was mortally ill with pneumonia and his 23-year-old son saved two performances by conducting for him. Last week Walter Damrosch was in the Metropolitan's pit once more, not to say farewell but to celebrate a golden jubilee.

The handsome white-haired oldster was hailed for what he is: a grand old man of music, whose record has been rich, whose friends have been many, whose position in the limelight has never once dimmed since he slipped into his father's big boots a half century ago. For his jubilee performance he chose to conduct excerpts from Fidelio and from Die Meistersinger, for which he made his own English translation. On a different occasion critics would have commented lengthily on Baritone Lawrence Tibbett who was stalwartly enacting his first Hans Sachs. But the evening was Walter Damrosch's and the time one for testimonials. Applause reached its peak after Mrs. August Belmont had spoken of his "unsurpassed influence in developing among the American people a love for great music." Excessively modest was the hero's reply: He felt like a beggar made king for a day. He owed everything to his father "who emigrated from the land he loved so that his children should grow up in a free country."

The emigration from Germany took place in 1871 when Son Walter was nine. His father was greatly respected as conductor of the Breslau Orchesterverein. As his friends and often as his guests the elder Damrosch had such great musicians as Liszt, Wagner, von Bulow, Joachim, Auer, Rubinstein. In Manhattan he quickly established himself as Wagner's most ardent champion. He founded the New York Oratorio Society, then the New York Symphony. In 1884 he gave the fashionable new Metropolitan its first taste of German opera. Death came before he could finish the season.

Son Walter had been a diligent pupil from childhood. He was a capable pianist. He had played second violin in his father's orchestra. At 18 a Newark (N. J.) choral society engaged him as conductor. When his father died suddenly, young Walter, a little dazed, assumed all his responsibilities. Railroad accommodations were poor and a hazardous blizzard was raging but under Walter Damrosch the Metropolitan played its scheduled engagement in Chicago. Later in Boston he pacified angry orchestramen who threatened to strike because their passage back to Manhattan was booked on the Fall River steamship line.

Hard-working Walter Damrosch toured the U. S. for years thereafter, with nis own Damrosch Opera Company and with the New York Symphony which played in scores of towns where great orchestral music was completely unknown. While still in his 20's the young conductor learned the value of diplomacy, the power of a bouquet. He kept peace among his jealous singers. He made friends with Andrew Carnegie who built Manhattan's big concert hall. When visiting Carnegie in Scotland he met Maine's James G. Elaine and soon after married Elaine's Daughter Margaret.

The Damrosch name grew strong and so did the clan. When Walter had his hands full with his orchestra. Brother Frank took over the Oratorio Society, relinquished it in 1912 to head the Institute of Musical Art, now a part of the Juilliard School of Music. Brother Walter kept his programs consistently fresh and enterprising (even to the extent of sponsoring the first serious efforts of the upstart George Gershwin). But he was besieged by financial worries until 1914 when his friend Harry Harkness Flagler took over the Symphony's deficits, bore them single-handed until the merger with the Philharmonic in 1928.

To observers then it seemed that Damrosch's day was done. After 42 years on the same stand, his performances grew routine and his players seemed lazy. But as a musical educator Conductor Damrosch was not to be defeated. National Broadcasting Co. begged him to teach school children, and he was again ready to pioneer. The Damrosch "Appreciation Hour" began by reaching a million youthful listeners. Last week it was estimated that through benign "Uncle Walter" some 6,000,000 children are learning to know great music. Proceeds of last week's Manhattan Jubilee went to the Musicians' Emergency Fund, now Damrosch's pet project. When on the same day NBC feted him on behalf of his school children he was again too modest, too "undeserving."

-Well-known throughout social Manhattan are the four Damrosch daughters: Alice, a famed ski-jumper and the divorced wife of Architect Pleasants Pennington; Gretchen, who writes plays and is married to Lawyer Thomas Finletter (Coudert Bros.); Leopoldine, who plays the piano and is wife to Playwright Sidney Howard; Anita, who married Robert Littell, able author and critic.

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