This year marked my real beginning as a professional musician, and I enjoyed my weekly rehearsals in Newark immensely, although horse-cars, ferry-boats, and trains made the trip in those days a cumbersome one. But after each rehearsal Mr. Schuyler Brinkerhoff Jackson, the president of the society, Mr. Shinkle, the secretary, my dear old friend Zach Belcher, enthusiastic tenor and music lover, Frank Sealey, my pianist and since then for so many years accompanist and organist of the New York Oratorio Society, used to go with me to a nice German beer saloon near the railroad station where, over a glass of beer and Swiss-cheese sandwiches, we waited until train time and discussed the welfare of the Harmonic Society and music in general. Alas, the Volstead Law has ended all such simple and happy foregatherings and the soda-water counter with its horrible concoctions is but a poor substitute for the gentle and soothing beer of Pilsen and Munich. [Illustration: DOCTOR LEOPOLD DAMROSCH AND HIS SON WALTER AT EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE] V LISZT AND WAGNER In the spring of 1882 I sailed for Europe. My father wanted me to know his old friend, Liszt, and to hear the first performances of “Parsifal” in Bayreuth. My throat was also still bothering me and the doctor thought that a cure at Ems would be a good thing. I was naturally overwhelmed at the idea of seeing the great Liszt face to face. His name had been, ever since I could remember, a household word in our family. My father and mother had told me so much of his friendship for them, his genius and his triumphs as a piano virtuoso, and of his voluntary relinquishment of all this to devote himself exclusively to creative work, and toward helping the entire modern school of young composers. My father had kept up a desultory correspondence with Liszt during the years he had spent in America, and as soon as I arrived in Weimar I went to the little gardener’s cottage in which he lived to pay my respects to the old master. I entered his room in great trepidation, and when I managed to stutter a few words to tell him that I was the son of Doctor Leopold Damrosch, I was amazed at the kindness of his reception. He immediately spoke of my father and mother with such love that I forgot some of my timidity. He asked me about an opera on Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” which my father had composed in the old Weimar days but which he had subsequently destroyed as he was dissatisfied with it. He then asked me how long I expected to stay in Weimar. I said two days and that I was then going to Ems for a cure and then to Bayreuth to hear the first “Parsifal” performances. A curious change came over Liszt as I spoke. He repeated several times, “Two days, ha, yes, ‘Parsifal,’ of course, Bayreuth.—‘Parsifal,’ of course,” and then he picked up a box of cigars. “Well, at least you’ll take a cigar before you leave Weimar?”