I have written elsewhere of the great musical festival which was projected and conducted by my father in May, 1881. For the great chorus of twelve hundred, which was its outstanding feature, the four hundred singers of the Oratorio Society formed the backbone, and I was intrusted with the drilling of two other sections of the festival chorus. As I had been the accompanist and organist for years at all the rehearsals of the Oratorio Society and had officiated as conductor of the Newark Harmonic Society for three years after the festival, I was technically well equipped to take over the directorship of the Oratorio Society when it was offered to me after my father’s death in 1885. I conducted the last concert of that season, Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion,” and found that the affection and reverence which the chorus cherished for my father made them help me devotedly in my difficult beginning. For the following season I cast about to find a new work to mark my entry into this field, and decided that a concert performance of Wagner’s “Parsifal” would interest the New York public. The sacred character of the work, the importance and beauty of its choral portions, and the fact that as yet its music was almost unknown seemed to me to invite such a performance, even though Wagner had conceived it for dramatic representation and with a stage-setting. He had intended the work for performance only in Bayreuth, but in 1882, when it was first produced there, he himself had given me an orchestral score in manuscript of the choral Finale from the first act to present to my father, so that he might produce it in concert form in New York. During a visit to London in the spring of 1886 I called on the London representative of the publishers of “Parsifal” and asked whether an orchestral score of the complete work could be purchased. He told me it could, but that its purchase would not entitle me to a performance of the work, and that if I used it for a performance I would have to pay a fine of fifty pounds. I told him I was quite ready to pay such a fine as I wanted it for a concert performance in New York, and promptly bought an orchestral score and had the orchestral parts copied from it. Owing to my connection with the Metropolitan Opera House I was able to give the work an exceptional cast. _Kundry_ was sung by Marianne Brandt, who had sung it in Bayreuth at one of the first performances. Max Alvary was cast for the title rôle, and Emil Fischer for _Gurnemanz_. Alvary became ill shortly before the performance and his part was taken by another young tenor of our company, a Mr. Kraemer. The choral portions were sung by the Oratorio Society with thrilling effect.