There were, of course, serious discussions and sometimes good-natured raillery. At that time Rudolf Rissland was the leader of my second violins and had charge of the orchestra during the long tours. He has been with me a great many years and I value him highly as a man of character and loyalty. He is of German birth, and, although he had become a patriotic American, he always wore his blond moustache combed upward in German fashion. We had been informed before our Canadian tour that no players of German birth would be admitted into Canada, but, thanks to the British ambassador, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, an old friend of my wife’s family, we received a special permission for the few German-born who had not yet received their second citizen papers, to enter Canada, as I gladly made myself responsible for them. We were the only orchestra that gave concerts in Toronto and Montreal during the war. On this particular trip, after our train had left Toronto, the orchestra began to twit Rissland unmercifully, accusing him of having in most cowardly fashion combed his moustache downward before coming on the stage for the concert. At first he denied this absolutely, but finally confessed that he had combed down the side turned toward the audience, but had kept the other side defiantly turned upward! The idea of venting their feelings against a nation by maltreating the music of its composers at rehearsals or concerts never entered the minds of our players. Our Frenchmen would play a symphony of Beethoven or an excerpt from a Wagner music-drama with the same care and enthusiasm as a work by one of their own composers. The same was true vice versa of our German-born members. To the good musician art is international, although each nation has its own standards and traditions of interpretation, and it is interesting to note how sharply opposed these sometimes are. There is often a curious racial antagonism between the French and Italian musicians. The Frenchman will insist that the phrasing of the Italian is sloppy and hypersentimental, while the Italian will retort that the Frenchman’s is academic and rigid. Every nation has its excellent qualities, and the finest orchestra in the world is one composed of the best of the different nationalities moulded into one harmonious whole by a master conductor without racial musical prejudice.