CHAPTER IX

THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY

Anniversaries are times for reminiscences and a general survey of affairs.

The Corporation known as “The Philadelphia Orchestra Association” today consists of four parts:

First, the Association:[40] comprising the subscribers to the Endowment Funds of $25.00 or more, and the yearly subscribers to tickets for the regular series of concerts; and a Board of Directors elected by them (one-third annually), who in turn elect the officers;

Second, the Philadelphia Orchestra; Third, the four Women’s Committees; Fourth, the Business Management.

[40] By-laws, 1920.

It is hardly necessary to mention the interdependence of this quartette of activities, or to explain how many people have worked to procure an orchestra for Philadelphia.

In 1900-1901 the Philadelphia Orchestra, composed of 85 musicians gave six evening concerts. In 1925-26 this orchestra, composed of 106 musicians, will give performances as per the following schedule:

[41]ACADEMY OF MUSIC, PHILADELPHIA Regular Series, 29 Friday afternoons, 29 Saturday evenings 58 Special Series, Monday evenings 10 Children’s Concerts, 2 series 8 Philadelphia Forum 3 Philadelphia Award 1 Out-of-town Concerts: New York City 10 Washington 5 Baltimore 3 Pittsburgh, Dayton, Chicago, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Princeton, one each 7 —— TOTAL 105

RECORD OF PERFORMANCES Total number of concerts, twenty-five years 2017 Number postponed 6 Number cancelled (Ottawa, 1924) 1

[41] For full list of performances, see Appendix E.

A more perfect fulfillment of obligations would be hard to find.

The regular series of symphony concerts in Philadelphia has been the primary object and main concern of the Association. Other performances have been included when the Philadelphia demand did not consume all the time of the orchestra. Now a third series is being built up, consisting of ten Monday evening concerts, at which the programmes are identical with those of ten of the regular series. More and more this city is absorbing its own orchestra.

During these twenty-five years much traveling has been done. The first journey was to Reading in 1900. The next year concerts in five Pennsylvania cities were added as well as in Trenton and Wilmington. In 1902-03 the first concerts in Baltimore and Washington were attempted and the first New York appearance was made. Growing bolder with advancing years appearances were made in new cities each year, of which the following are the most important: Boston (1903-04); Baltimore and Washington, five each (1906-07); Pittsburgh, one (1911-12), five pairs (1916-17); New York City, five afternoon concerts (1918-19); Toronto, three concerts (1919-20); New York City, ten concerts (1922-23).

The orchestra has traveled as far east as Portland, Maine; as far west as Detroit and Ypsilanti, Michigan; as far south as Richmond, Virginia, and as far north as Toronto, Canada. During the coming season Chicago will be added to this list.

Traveling has been tinged with adventure. In 1908, when returning from Wilmington, the special train carrying the orchestra was wrecked near Chester. Mr. Pohlig and six musicians were injured, when the cars were derailed and rolled down a steep embankment. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries and all the instruments were unhurt.

Ten years later the orchestra reached Kalamazoo, Mich., with difficulty during a severe blizzard, en route for Grand Rapids, where a concert was to be played. The thermometer fell to 27° below zero in a sixty mile gale. The concert was postponed but later given.

The last experience of winter weather was in Canada in 1924, when the Ottawa concert was cancelled after the audience had waited in perfect good humor for three hours, hoping that the train carrying the orchestra could push through the snow.

In the past special trains were almost invariably used. Since railroad transportation has more than doubled, and since the charge for a special train has also been raised, the management wherever possible has availed itself of regular trains, generally running as a second section. Since the party now constitutes upwards of one hundred and twelve people, five twelve-section drawing room cars and one baggage car make up the equipment for night trips. Going to New York, two coaches are attached to an early afternoon train, and a special train home is provided after the performance.

* * * * *

The labors of the officers and directors have been continuous. The Executive Committee, chosen from the Board in the early days; a sub-committee composed of Dr. Keffer and Mr. McCollin; the Committee of Three, consisting of Mr. Norris, Mr. Wheeler, and the late Mr. Charles A. Braun, who with the president, met daily from 1908 until 1920, shouldered most of the responsibility. Under the new By-Laws the Administration Committee composed of Messrs. Edward W. Bok, James Crosby Brown, Samuel S. Fels, Charles D. Hart, Effingham B. Morris, William Jay Turner, Alexander Van Rensselaer, and Andrew Wheeler, perform the arduous task of meeting every week regularly to dispose of the business of the Association.

In the early days Mr. Henry Whelen, Jr., made it possible to carry on the orchestra under financial difficulties, from 1900 until his death, which, coming so soon after the loss of Fritz Scheel, was a double blow. On May 22nd, 1907, this resolution was passed by the Board of Directors:

“The death of Mr. Henry Whelen, Jr., has deprived this Board of a most capable and efficient officer, and its members, of an esteemed and highly valued friend. To an artistic temperament, he added rare qualities of judgment and discretion inherent in a disciplined mind, and coupled with a sense of duty and habit of industry that continually and cheerfully placed his valuable services at the disposal of the community. The positions of member of the Board of Directors, of the Executive Committee, and of Treasurer of this Association, are but a few of the positions in which he stood in an unselfish relation to his native city, in an effort to discharge what he conceived to be his duty in the development of Music and Art in the community in which he lived.

“It is also with an acute sense of personal loss that this minute is ordered in the sincere hope that it may beguile those nearest and dearest to him from something of the grief of so great a bereavement and also serve to perpetuate his memory in a community that has profited so much from his useful and unselfish citizenship.”

* * * * *

Mr. Thomas McKean, for many years Vice-president, was one of the officers who was always ready to assist in a financial crisis. Mr. Richard Y. Cook and Mr. Theodore N. Ely were especially devoted members of the Board, but all the membership should be included in this category.

The social end, besides many others, has been taken care of by Mr. Van Rensselaer, who has constantly given entertainments.

* * * * *

Of the many friends outside of the officers and directors, Mr. Philip H. Goepp has worked as hard as any man. From 1901-1902 until 1920-1921 inclusive he was annotator of the programme and well fitted for the task, as he is a musician, composer, and author of the series on “Symphonies and their Meaning,” authoritative works on this subject. He gave his time and his knowledge to the Association, at first without remuneration, so great was his enthusiasm over the continued development of the orchestra. Many days and nights through the years were devoted to the study of the works performed, and the Association is greatly in his debt.

* * * * *

During the period of his leadership Mr. Stokowski has had various honors bestowed upon him. After the second performance of the Mahler Symphony he was presented with a bronze wreath; on the completion of ten years as conductor in 1922, by the Women’s Committees with a set of twelve silver plates, and with a silver tankard by the Association; the University of Pennsylvania conferred on him the Honorary degree of Doctor of Music in 1920; and in 1922 he was the first recipient of the Philadelphia Award of Ten Thousand Dollars. His appearances in Europe in January 1923, when as guest conductor he led orchestras in France and Italy were greeted with enthusiasm and with press notices of a laudatory nature.

* * * * *

Although it is a rented building, the Academy of Music is the only dwelling place the orchestra has known, and the auditorium with its architectural beauty and perfect acoustics is a marvelous place for orchestral concerts. Having been built in 1857, its traditions link the past with the present and cast a spell over the music.

The present stage setting, which replaces the gift of the West Philadelphia Women’s Committee, is from the design of Mr. Huger Elliott, and was executed as a labor of love by the students of the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art for the Association.

* * * * *

A possession of the Association is the orchestral library that has gradually been accumulated. Beginning with the purchase, for $600.00, of the library of the Philadelphia Symphony Society and augmented in 1911 by Fritz Scheel’s collection, and by the constant addition of new works, it is now suited to the needs of the orchestra and valued as a great asset. It contains twelve hundred works with scores, and orchestral parts for one hundred and ten men, besides four hundred and thirty scores without orchestral parts.

* * * * *

Advantage is often taken of modern musical inventions. For some years much care has been given to the making of Victor Records, which are popular the country over. There is now a list of forty-six, all exceptionally good, and they have brought the orchestra many friends. Radio transmitters are not used at performances. The Board of Directors feels that it is unfair to patrons of the orchestra, who pay for tickets and take the trouble to attend the concerts in person, to broadcast the music throughout the country.

Mr. Stokowski recently secured the rights for the first presentation of the new Hammond Pedal, invented by John Hays Hammond, Jr. The first public performance on the piano with this attachment was at the Philadelphia regular series of concerts, on October 30th and 31st, 1925, when Lester Donahue played the Rachmaninoff Second Concerto. The invention will also be used in Washington, New York City and on the Western tour.

* * * * *

In looking back over the years, details come to mind. Much anxiety used to be felt about Saturday nights, as bad weather meant a poor audience and knocked the box office receipts. Now, the audience is anxious for fear of uncomfortable delays on the steps during a storm, on account of the crowd.

Another detail was the efforts that the women made long ago to brighten up the appearance of the Saturday evening house, by asking their friends in the boxes to wear gay clothes.

* * * * *

The policy of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association has always been to sell tickets at moderate prices. Tickets for the best seats for the first regular series of six concerts sold for $8.00. Students could buy tickets for the amphitheatre for $1.75 for fourteen rehearsals and $2.00 for fourteen concerts. The price of tickets has increased seventy per cent and operating expenses have increased five hundred per cent in twenty-five years, but considering this, the tickets are still moderate. A story is told by Mr. George T. Haley, of the Academy of Music Ticket Office, loyal friend to the orchestra, of how as a young assistant agent he was in charge of the window on the first day of the first sale for the Philadelphia Orchestra. He opened promptly at 8.30 a. m.; the first sale was about ten and the next about four in the afternoon. Now, his principal business in connection with the orchestra is to placate the people who cannot get the seats they want or get any seats at all.

* * * * *

The Business Management of the Association has been since 1915 in the hands of Mr. Arthur Judson, whose ability and that of the Assistant Manager, Mr. Louis A. Mattson, is well known. Mr. Judson manages, likewise, the Philharmonic Orchestra of New York and the Cincinnati Orchestra. Mr. Mattson manages the summer concerts in Fairmount Park, for which a number of Philadelphia Orchestra men are engaged. The ease with which a large amount of business is conducted, and one in which there is much detail, is due to the organizing talents of Mr. Judson and to the devotion and long training of the office staff under him. The Association is fortunate in having a manager of such rare business acumen, whose talents have developed as necessity arose; until it is safe to say that there is no more ably managed musical organization in the country than this. To Mr. Mattson falls the task of distributing the seats, no easy one in 1925, when there are almost none to dispose of. No mention of the business end of this enterprise would be complete without the names of Miss Ruth O’Neill, Miss Elizabeth M. Russell and Miss Margaret E. Pringle, not to forget Mr. Stokowski’s private secretary, Miss McGinty, who eases the thorny business path of an artist.

* * * * *

Speaking of business, the Endowment Funds of the Association were at first in the hands of three trustees but now are in the care of a Corporate Trustee, the Girard Trust Company.

But enough of details! Many forces have combined to make it possible to maintain an orchestra.

Some years ago Peggy Shippen wrote:

“This remarkable performance (Mahler Symphony), which attracted music connoisseurs from many cities, and which will remain a lasting credit to our town, was the result of a combination of forces patiently brought together by the will, power and genius of one man—Leopold Stokowski.

* * * * *

“Such triumphs of art scored in this city do more than all the advertising in the world to place Philadelphia in the lead of the great American centers. The Mayor has spoken of advertising this city; these things do this legitimately by adding to its opportunities. The sooner we realize that it is by honest work and the real thing well done that we can impose respect for our city and State, the better.

* * * * *

“It is in the last decade or so that those interested have realized the necessity for ‘coming together.’ This policy seems to have been adopted since Alexander Van Rensselaer accepted the presidency of the Board of Directors. No one could be selected in this entire city better calculated to bring together the elements indispensable to the success of such an undertaking. Himself a musician, all his life identified with musical interests, he is one of the most widely popular men in this community.

* * * * *

“As the audiences grew and became critical, exacting a higher quality of music, Mr. Van Rensselaer and his board rose to the occasion and met the requirements of growth.

“The Women’s Committee, besides developing the interest in the success of the orchestra, has helped with the Guarantee Fund, which, of course, is the pivot upon which turns the success of the undertaking. Without the backing of money, to pay for the best procurable talent, even the greatest genius is helpless to produce adequately a great work of art.

“It was the combination of Mr. Van Rensselaer’s patient and broad policy, of the women’s inconspicuous but telling work of years upon the musical intelligence of the community, first under Mrs. A. J. Dallas Dixon’s direction and then under that of Miss Frances Wister, that provided the fertile ground upon which the genius of Mr. Stokowski brought out the almost superhuman result of last week.

“The same success will attend similar methods in other fields. The theory of ‘splendid isolation’ does not apply to our epoch.”

* * * * *

The Philippine Concerts which occurred on March 29th and April 5th, 1900; and which were the forerunners of the Philadelphia Orchestra, were commemorated at the concerts of March 27th and 29th and April 3rd and 4th, 1925, by a notice in the programme and by the playing of certain numbers played at those concerts. They marked the first appearance of Fritz Scheel with an orchestra of professional musicians in Philadelphia.

The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the first concert on November 16th, 1900, is being celebrated at the concerts of November 13th and 14th, 1925, by simple ceremonies and a repetition of the first programme. It is a long way from the total of seven concerts in 1900, to the one hundred and five concerts arranged for this season. The road has been discouraging and difficult, but the twenty-fifth anniversary is a cause for rejoicing to all lovers of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Little did the small group of men in 1900 dream that the orchestra they founded would twenty-five years later be known throughout America and Europe.

The “Road One Hundred and Fifty Years Long” has been worth traveling to Philadelphians, to reach the present milestone in the symphonic succession, so far the most important achievement in the city’s musical history. If Baedeker were to write a “Guide to Music in America” he would put three stars against the Philadelphia Orchestra.

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