Page:Century Magazine-69-604-000.png

 desired; but he has never interfered with the absolute authority of his conductors, and he has always upheld their hands and met their wishes in a way that has often entailed great and sometimes extravagant expense. Indeed, the price of the Boston Symphony Orchestra has never been measured by the guarantee of salaries and rentals. There was once one of Mr. Higginson’s conductors who thought that the tone of the violins—the greatest glory and strength of the organization—would be improved if all the players had instruments of the same make and quality, instead of such as each individual had chosen or been able to possess himself of. Nothing would do, therefore, but that he should send to Germany and import for the score or more of his violinists a set of violins by one maker. The experiment was tried for a time, but the results were not what were expected, and most of the instruments are now packed away in the store-room, gathering dust. Again, that the orchestra should have the assurance of a home from season to season and from week to week, it was necessary to secure control of the old Music Hall, and Mr. Higginson found himself a real-estate owner by virtue of possessing an orchestra. But even ownership did not bring peace and quiet. The Boston elevated railroad was projected, and one of its surveys took its line directly through the sacred statue of Beethoven, threatening the demolition of the ancient, barn-like, and drafty, but acoustically excellent, auditorium. An immediate movement toward the erection of a new hall was necessary; and though the proposed line was changed and the hall was left untouched, the movement, after some years, resulted in the erection of the new hall in another quarter of the city—a hall erected, to be sure, by a company, but one whose financing approached in one way or another close to Mr. Higginson’s pocket.



An orchestra is a kind of microcosm, a miniature of the outside world, in which there are the leaders, the aristocrats, and the followers, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, though a spirit of civic unity must inform them all. And, as in the outside world, the material rewards vary with the powers and the position of