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At Furtwängler’s first Philharmonic Concert in October1922 1922, I sat in a box with Marie von Bülow, the widow of the former conductor of these concerts. It was she, his second wife (his first was Cosima Liszt), who had edited his letters and writings to provide nine valuable volumes of great musical history. She seemed deeply moved on this occasion, and said to me, “Not since Bülow’s day has music been so conducted to give me that thrill down the spine.”

Furtwängler’s appointment as the successor to Arthur Nikisch was also the turning point in my own work. He had given up the State Opera concerts and the direction of the Frankfurt concerts, but he had to move about continuously between Berlin, Leipzig, and Vienna. Each of the musical organizations of those towns had its own management, but the core of Furtwängler’s whole work, the arrangement of his year’s activity, the coordination of his concerts and programs were worked out with me. The amount of work Furtwängler had to cope with was considerable. Although the war was just over, the Berlin Philharmonic and Gewandhaus concerts played an important part in European musical life. There was an endless number of soloists, composers, publishers, music agents, and other visitors from all over the world who had continually to be dealt with. Life was fascinating and full to overflowing. The young successor to Nikisch was, of course, of interest to the international musical world, and so negotiations soon began to develop with concert institutions abroad.

Except for a series of concerts in Stockholm, the first venture of this kind was a visit to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, an engagement which, in a way, was decisive to my whole career. The Berlin Philharmonic concerts had been founded by Hermann Wolff, the director of the noted concert agency, Wolff und Sachs. Wolff had not only been an impresario but also a friend of his artists and had been intimately connected with Hans von Bülow, Anton Rubinstein, and others. After his death his widow, Louise Wolff, carried on the business with her daughters until Hitler’s day. Louise Wolff was an exceedingly capable woman and a dynamic personality. She was a most popular figure in Berlin’s social life, and was to be found in every salon, political or artistic. She was equally at home with Reichspräsident Ebert as with the Hohenzollerns, and every Embassy was open to her. There were innumerable tales of the strings she pulled, and the people with whom she had her regular telephone conversations early in the morning before she went to her office.

Yet, in spite of all her cleverness, she failed to see in which direction1923 the tide was turning. The firm and the family came first with her, and her consideration of everything solely from the point of view of Wolff und Sachs was gradually becoming incompatible with public interests. It was impossible that a private enterprise should pocket seventy-five per cent of the profit of an orchestra like the Berlin Philharmonic which had to count on public support.

Not only the orchestra but also its new conductor had to face this situation of monopoly. The Wolffs of course had had their say in Furtwängler’s election as Nikisch’s successor, but the orchestra had cast their vote too. Yet, in the beginning, Furtwängler was considered as a kind of private property of the Wolffs and was expected to do all his business through them. The first important outside offer, however, these Concertgebouw concerts, came through me, as executive of the Artists’ League. Furtwängler expressed a doubt as to whether he would be free to sign the contract through the League. He had no “sole right” contract with the Wolffs but felt that it was taken for granted. I, of course, objected. I had gotten the engagement, I wanted to sign it, and I declared that if things were going to be like that I did not care to work in Berlin at all. Furtwängler, probably secretly amused and possibly wishing to dampen my ambitious ardor, said he was going to think it over, and next morning told me over the telephone that perhaps I was right, but he did not sound wholly convinced. I had thought it over too, and said, “Please leave the matter to me and wait.”

Frau Wolff had always been extremely kind to me, and when I telephoned her, she agreed to see me immediately. I remember that she produced some marvellous Russian cherry brandy, an unheard-of luxury in post-war Germany. I sipped a little of the lovely golden-red stuff and then plunged in medias res. “I want to ask you something, Frau Wolff,” I said, and then proceeded to recite the case without mentioning names. “But there’s no question at all about this,” she declared, “the person who made the offer must conclude the business.” “That’s just what I thought,” I replied, and told her that it was she, Furtwängler, and myself, who were involved. At first her consternation was evident. But she was a superior woman, remarkable in many ways, and at the moment may have felt that she could not maintain her privileged policy forever and that I represented a young generation and a new era. She put her arm round my shoulders and said, “You are a wonder! I am going to tell Furtwängler about this conversation myself.” She did, next day. Furtwängler never referred to the incident, but he casually instructed me to sign the Concertgebouw contract. Although my heart leapt, I behaved as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and from then until Hitler parted us, almost always acted as Furtwängler’s intermediary. I was dubbed “Louise II.” It was an important step to break this monopoly, and later, the monopoly on the Philharmonie hall itself, which was shared by its proprietor Landecker and Wolff und Sachs, and excluded the orchestra from direct transactions.

But a powerful new monopoly was in the making—that of Hitler1924 and the Third Reich.

I accompanied Furtwängler on this first tour abroad, and on a subsequent one which I had arranged in Switzerland with the Gewandhaus Orchestra.

He was to marry at the end of May. His future wife was Scandinavian and was only to arrive from Copenhagen on the day before the wedding, so I helped him to prepare his home, and even went along to buy the wedding rings. The salesman, naturally assuming that I was the bride, proceeded to try the ring on my hand, to the utter dismay of Furtwängler!

I then left for Mannheim, and Furtwängler was married. Directly after the wedding, he had to attend a Congress of the Allgemeine Deutsche Musik Verein at Kassel. A few days later at 3 a.m. my telephone rang. It was Furtwängler, who had arrived in Mannheim from Kassel, and informed me that he was on his way to our house. He had to leave for Italy the next day to conduct there for the first time. I had always gone with him on important journeys, but this trip to Italy was a kind of honeymoon, and I certainly had not anticipated accompanying him. However, he had taken it for granted that I would, so I had to get ready quickly. We left for Stuttgart, where we were joined by his wife.

The visit to Milan proved most interesting, for among other things, I met Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini was then director at La Scala, and lived in Italy surrounded by the veneration and love of the Italian people. His operatic performances were famous all over the world, and people from everywhere, especially musicians, flocked to attend them.

My visit to Toscanini was arranged by his right hand and secretary, Anita Colombo, who later on became director of the famous Opera House. While I waited for him in Signorina Colombo’s office at La Scala all sorts of people went in and out, and I—still a greenhorn—noted with envy the respect with which they talked to her.

Quick steps outside, the door opened, Colombo introduced me, “La signorina, Maestro,” and the great Italian led me in to the adjoining room. Nobody who has talked to Toscanini can ever forget the extreme intensity of expression in his strikingly handsome face. His brilliant, flashing eyes are full of fire and temperamental intentness, of vitality mixed with a strange obsessed wistfulness. He has an intense manner of speaking and he accompanies his words with quick and decisive gestures. The conversation did not last long, and centered round musical matters. Toscanini seemed interested to hear about the different conductors working in Germany at the time—but he did not discuss Furtwängler.

Toscanini’s memory is famous: since his vision is poor, he conducts and rehearses without a score, relying entirely on his knowledge of the piece. Apparently his memory for other things is just as acute, because when I met him again at Bayreuth during the great season of 1931 when he and Furtwängler both conducted, the first thing he did was to remind me of what must have been to him a trivial incident—my visit to La Scala so many years ago.

Toscanini, when not speaking Italian, generally spoke English, hardly ever German. That summer in Bayreuth while rehearsing the orchestra, he used to convey his wishes by gestures rather than by words, and when a passage was not yet as he intended it to be, made hypnotic movements with his hands, accompanied by repeated exclamations of “No! No! No!” The orchestra called him “Toscanono.”

The first concerts of Furtwängler’s in Italy provided the initial meeting of the two conductors. During one of the innumerable rehearsals that Furtwängler, according to the Italian custom, had to conduct, Toscanini, who had been sitting unnoticed at the back, suddenly rushed forward and shook him warmly by the hand. Throughout the entire visit Toscanini and his family were extremely friendly, and the following year, Furtwängler visited La Scala to attend some of Toscanini’s own operatic productions.

In the winter of 1924, Furtwängler made his English debut conducting the Royal Philharmonic Society. From his first performance, the English public took him to their hearts, and only Ernest Newman, the dean of British musical criticism, raised a dissenting voice. His unfavorable review in the Sunday Times was delivered to me on our way to the train, and knowing how amazingly touchy Furtwängler was about press criticism, I sat on it throughout most of the journey just to keep peace. After that first success, Furtwängler appeared regularly in England until the gulf between Germany and the rest of the world grew too wide.

Times were difficult as far as finances were concerned, and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra did not know how they were going to get through that summer of 1924. “Let’s try a tour,” said Furtwängler, and we forthwith sent telegrams to several towns in Germany and Switzerland. They all accepted. Everywhere we went the orchestra was asked to repeat its visit, and so began the Berlin Philharmonic tours with Furtwängler.

At the end of June, Furtwängler went to Mannheim. It had become his custom to conclude the season with some concerts there, combined with a visit at my mother’s house. During that time we finished up his remaining correspondence and went over the scores sent to him for approval. Then he proceeded to his house in Switzerland.

I was to go to the Engadine with him that year to help plan for the coming year, as was our habit on our tramps through the mountains. Just as we were leaving for the station I received a letter from Otto Müller, charter member and chairman of the Berlin Philharmonic. In his sprawling hand, he wrote that the orchestra had decided to entrust the management of its tours to my “proven hands”; he hoped I would be willing to accept the task. I was indeed. Not only was this token of confidence a source of tremendous personal pride, but working as I would be with both Furtwängler and the orchestra would permit me to unify my activities as well.

For many years following there was uninterrupted activity. With our unique team we all served the cause with zest. Times were hard but we were free to work as we liked and with whom we liked. In those days orchestras had not started their extensive tours of Europe. Beyond an occasional visit to a neighboring town there was no large-scale traveling at home or abroad. The idea came to me as a sort of inspiration and I sat down and thought it all out. But it was only gradually that I developed my technique for an orchestral tour. It was like the invention of a new battle strategy, and as the years went by I made more and more improvements which added to its smooth running.

I always began work on a tour a year ahead. First I listed towns to be visited. Then the sequence was planned. The first draft of programs—often for thirty to fifty concerts—had to be made by Furtwängler. That was always a complicated task because, although an orchestra on tour has little time for rehearsing, Furtwängler disliked repeating a work too often; nor could he always play just what he wanted for various cities had various requests, and local taste was always a major consideration. To simplify it, from 1924 on I kept a program book for reference.

Besides the business and musical sides of the tours there were other considerations. The itinerary had to be planned in detail. I was hopeless at looking up trains but Lorenz Höber, a viola player and also one of the executives, was a genius with a timetable. I may have invented and organized the tours, but without Höber I could never have carried them out successfully. For not only did we have to plan railroad transportation for the personnel of the orchestra, but we had to arrange for the transportation of their luggage and instruments as well—seventy-seven cases which required a van all their own. Often it could not be coupled to the express on which we traveled and had to be sent on in advance immediately after the concert. Lists of the contents of the well-designed instrument cases and the huge specially constructed wardrobe trunks full of the numbered dress suits of the players had to be forwarded to the customs with an indication of when we should pass their frontier. Two members of the orchestra were responsible for the luggage, assisted by Franz Jastrau, the attendant, who managed to make friends wherever he went even if he occasionally did not understand the language. It was a strenuous job for it was of vital importance that each player find his clothes with his instruments on arrival.

There were fairly good halls all over the Continent, but the different sizes, and especially the varying acoustics, required different seating arrangements for the orchestra. At first a short “seating rehearsal” was held two hours before each concert. But then one of the players with a special talent for that sort of thing began to make a platform plan for every hall in which we appeared. We kept the diagrams on file and, when the orchestra returned again, the seating could be quickly settled.

At first the billeting of the orchestra in each town was also a complicated problem, but in that, too, experience led to efficiency. Snorers and non-snorers had to be well separated. It was important to get the players quickly settled when they arrived.

But it was not I who did all the organizing. The orchestra members themselves became very ingenious. Often they had to travel for weeks in railway carriages, and so they started to organize a seating plan to which each member had to submit. There were the smokers and the non-smokers, there were the skat players and there was the Rummy Club, there were the readers, and there were the talkers. They were all placed according to their various interests. Occasionally I was invited by a particular group, a welcome honor on those long and often tiring journeys.

The organization and building up of these tours was for me a wonderful combination of friendship and of work. I knew to what Furtwängler aspired, and I knew the orchestra’s ambitions. The relation between the orchestra and their conductor, in whom they had absolute faith, was the basis of my own position with them. From the moment that they had confided to me the management of their tours they gave me their complete confidence. This perfect relationship between Furtwängler, the orchestra, and myself lasted until I had to leave them all and they were forbidden to have any more to do with me—when, under Hitler, I became persona non grata.

When I first took over, the orchestra had no offices. The three executive members divided their different duties among themselves, and dealt with them at their respective homes. Otto Müller, the chairman, always carried everything in his wallet, in which he fumbled as soon as a question arose. I had no office either, merely a combination bedroom sitting-room and a typewriter. Eventually I was given a typist on three afternoons a week—the beginning of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s office.

Step by step the orchestra organization was built up, and one of the first milestones of its road to glory was a special agreement between Furtwängler and the orchestra—they would always give each other the first option on their time. This “marriage” of orchestra and principal conductor was for many years the core of the orchestra’s life, and around this they grouped their engagements under other conductors, and with soloists, and their popular concerts.

Meanwhile, Furtwängler had received several invitations to visit America. Tied up between Berlin, Leipzig, and Vienna, he had little time to spare, yet finally it was agreed that he should accept four weeks as a guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at the end of December 1924. We went on a Hamburg-Amerika liner, and nothing was left undone in Furtwängler’s honor.

Germany was poor in those days, while the United States was flourishing. The hospitality of the Americans was indescribable. From the moment we landed, when an unknown person packed us into a magnificent car to sweep us away to our hotel, until we left, and could hardly enter our cabins for presents, this first American visit was a unique experience. How interesting it was to hear the magnificent American orchestras—the Boston and Philadelphia Orchestras, as well as the New York Philharmonic; or to sit in the Golden Horseshoe of the Metropolitan and hear the performances of that famous Opera House.

Furtwängler was conducting exclusively for the New York Philharmonic. His first appearance was one of the great successes which are milestones in an artist’s life, and after it there was not a single ticket to be had for his New York concerts. The orchestra took to him, and so did the public. Furtwängler was immediately offered the directorship for the whole season of the following year, but because of his European commitments he could not undertake more than two months’ activities in America. Many of the great international artists were in the United States at that time, and we saw them frequently. At the house of Frederick Steinway, the venerated chief of the famous music firm, such a galaxy of musical genius and brilliance used to assemble as I have never seen elsewhere. I remember a dinner where Casals, Furtwängler, Gabrilowitsch, Landowska, Kreisler, Rachmaninoff, Stokowsky and other famous people were present. Mr. Steinway’s hock was memorable too! Our stay in New York was exciting and strenuous but rushed past us like a dream, and on a quiet and peaceful English boat, where we were treated as “ordinary folk,” we slept our way back to Europe.

For the next two years Furtwängler worked intensely hard. There1927 was an annual visit to America, and the Berlin Philharmonic made several successful tours on which I accompanied them.

Then in the winter of 1927 the Berlin Philharmonic went to England for the first time. The orchestra and I had frequently discussed our aspirations and desires, and once I suggested, “Why don’t we go to England?” They all laughed at me, and said that I might as well propose a visit to the moon. That was challenge enough, my determination stiffened, and in due course I arranged the tour. We had two concerts in London, and between them went to Manchester. The enthusiasm of the British public was enormous; there was no feeling against the orchestra of their former enemies. Long paragraphs appeared about the wonderful Berlin Philharmonic and great interest was shown in the organization of the tour. For the second London concert Albert Hall was filled to the last seat. I think that except for the Paris success one year later, it was the orchestra’s greatest triumph. After that they went to England every year, their English tours becoming more and more extensive, until Hitler at last estranged the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra from its British public.