DEBUT IN VIENNA
[Illustration: Quill pen.]
Now that Paderewski had his diploma, he determined that he would no
longer be an expense to his father. Much as the young man disliked
teaching (a dislike from which he never recovered), he knew he had no
choice in the matter. If he intended to eat, he would have to teach. But
at least he did not have to look very hard for pupils. Immediately after
graduation he was offered a position on the faculty of the Conservatory.
Among the students that year was a beautiful young girl named Antonina
Korsak. Although Paderewski's future was uncertain, Antonina had
complete faith in it. It did not matter in the least to her that at the
moment he was only a struggling, poorly-paid piano teacher. In 1880,
when Paderewski had just turned twenty, they were married.
He found a small apartment where the two talented young musicians lived
in complete happiness and made glowing plans for the future. Paderewski
would look back on it as though he were recalling a brief but
unforgettable dream. One year after her marriage the beautiful Antonina
was dead, leaving her young husband with an infant son.
During her last conscious hours, Antonina, knowing that she was dying,
had made her husband promise to take some of her small inheritance and
use it to continue his musical studies. Her faith in his future was as
bright and untroubled at the moment of her death as it had been during
her life.
Now that he had a son to support, Paderewski knew that he must be
practical. Nearly everyone who knew anything about it assured him that
although he could never make a career as a pianist, he would be a
success as a composer. Since no one in Warsaw could teach him any more
than he already knew about composition, he decided to go to Berlin to
study with a famous teacher named Friederich Kiel. Antonina's mother
happily agreed to take care of little Alfred for him.
Professor Kiel was greatly impressed both by Paderewski's talent as a
composer and by the young Pole's enormous capacity for work. Too
saddened by his wife's death to enjoy the boisterous student life of
Berlin, Paderewski devoted himself entirely to his studies. Ten or
twelve hours a day of uninterrupted work was not the least unusual.
Although most Berliners were automatically anti-Polish, Paderewski made
some good friends among German musicians. His warmest affection was for
the great composer, Richard Strauss, whose family accepted the young
foreigner as a member from his first appearance in the house. Of all his
kindnesses to Paderewski, the greatest favor Strauss ever did for him
was a completely unconscious one.
Paderewski knew that he had the habit of making faces while he played
the piano. The more complex the music, the more tortured the grimaces
that distorted his handsome face. He had never given the failing much
thought, however, until he realized that Strauss had the same bad habit.
As he watched the great man play--his face almost as busy as his
hands--Paderewski thought, "Good Heavens! That is how I look!" He
determined to reform at all costs and did so, but only after months of
practicing with a mirror propped up on the music rack of the piano.
Although he did not forget his promise to Antonina to continue his
studies, he worried more and more about earning money for his little
son. The music he published brought him a great deal of praise but
little money. But he soon found a way to increase his earnings. He was
in great demand as an accompanist for violinists and singers, since he
could sight read music so brilliantly that the performers who hired him
did not have to spend much time or money on rehearsals.
One of his closest friends was a violinist named Gorski. He had arranged
a short tour of resort hotels, and he asked Paderewski to come with him.
The pianist smiled to himself, remembering an earlier tour he had once
made. But since this one was on a much sounder financial footing, he
gladly agreed to go. There was a marked resemblance, however, in the
matter of pianos!
At the very first hotel where they were booked, the piano proved to be
of such ancient stock that half the hammers had resigned from active
duty. When he struck the keys attached to the afflicted hammer they
would fly up, but once up they would not return to place. This meant
that each note with a bad hammer could only be used once during the
evening.
"I can probably play your accompaniments by faking!" he said to Gorski,
"but I can't possibly get through my solos!"
"What can we do? It's the only piano in town."
One of Gorski's young pupils was making the tour with them.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, stepping up timidly. "I think I can help
you."
"Impossible!" Paderewski said gruffly.
"Suppose I stand by the piano and push the hammers down just as fast as
you hit them. I don't think the audience would notice, do you?"
The two artists looked at each other and shrugged. It was worth a try,
since there was nothing else to do. In later years, Paderewski loved to
tell this story. "Ah! You should have seen him!" he wrote. "His hands
went like lightning. They flew like birds from side to side. He had to
lean way across the piano--back and forth he weaved and darted in
constant motion.... What an experience!"
The concert was a huge success. The clever hammer-pusher had been wrong
in only one respect: his modest belief that the audience would not
notice him. After the concert as Paderewski was walking through the
lobby, he heard a man say to his wife, "How did you like that young
pianist?"
"Oh, he was all right," came the answer, "but the other one, you know!
The second pianist who was playing at the back of the piano! He was the
best, I thought. He worked much harder than the other one. He was the
real artist!"
Paderewski worked nearly two years in Berlin, interrupted only by a
short period of teaching in Warsaw. There, in addition to a heavy
teaching program, he began taking private lessons in Latin, mathematics,
literature, and history. He did not want his education to be completely
one-sided. He had, at the time, no way of realizing how wise a decision
this was.
Paderewski's studies in composition had been brilliant, and the piano
pieces he published were unusually successful. One of the first pianists
to play his work in public was the popular Madame Essipoff. She included
his Variations in A minor on many of her programs. To Paderewski,
however, Essipoff's greatest attraction was not her success as a pianist
but the fact that she was married to the great Theodore Leschetizky.
Leschetizky lived in Vienna, but he was a fellow Pole. He was, in
addition, the most famous piano teacher in the world.
The thought of a piano career had remained at the back of Paderewski's
mind during every minute of his years in Warsaw and Berlin, although
reason told him to abandon the idea. (So had every teacher with whom he
had ever studied.) The turning point in his thinking came about quite
casually.
One night his publisher invited him to dinner to meet Anton Rubinstein,
a brilliant and famous concert pianist. (He occupied much the same
position in his day as his namesake, Artur Rubinstein, occupies in
ours.)
The famous pianist was charming to the relatively unknown composer and
asked to hear some of his piano compositions. When Paderewski had played
several pieces, Rubinstein said, "How very fine they are! You must
compose more for the piano!"
Paderewski smiled diffidently. "Oh, I can't do too well writing for
piano," he said modestly, "because I play so little myself."
Rubinstein's eyebrows lifted. "Nonsense!" he said. "You have an inborn
technique. You could have a splendid piano career, if you wanted one.
I'm sure of it!"
For a moment the young man was too stunned to mumble a polite reply. It
was true that this opinion was only one against many others in the
opposite direction. But it was Anton Rubinstein's opinion, and that gave
it a few extra votes. In any case it was all that was needed to decide
the young man's future. Somehow he would manage the impossible task of
raising the money to study the piano seriously. It was his last chance,
if indeed it was not already too late, so he could not afford to settle
for anything but the best. He would go to Vienna and study with
Leschetizky.
Before he could even think about the future, though, he knew that he
needed a rest. The years of intensive work, compounded by a constant
uneasiness about his little boy's delicate health, had exhausted him. He
decided to spend a few weeks in the beautiful Tatra Mountains. There he
could think things out--and start adding up figures. What would a few
months in Vienna cost? How much did Leschetizky usually charge per
lesson? What was the quickest way to raise the money? The last question
was a tricky one, since there was no quick way to raise money. It would
have to be done piecemeal.
In the village of Zakopane where he stayed, there lived an old doctor
who was an expert on the folk music of the region. Paderewski tramped
happily through the hills with his new friend, jotting down notes as
fast as the good old man could whistle them. One day the doctor said,
"Guess who arrived in the village to open up her summer home? Helen
Modjeska! Would you like to meet her?"
Paderewski gasped. "Modjeska? Here? Certainly I'd like to meet her!" Who
wouldn't? How many times he had cheered himself hoarse over a Modjeska
performance in _Hamlet_ or _Othello_! Poles all over the world loved
Modjeska, not only because she was a great actress, but also because she
was dedicated heart and soul to the cause of a free Poland. Since she
was one of the most famous actresses in the world, she had done as much
as anyone alive to remind the world that there was such a place as
Poland.
Modjeska and her husband were delighted with the handsome young
musician, and when he played the piano for her the actress was
enchanted. "You will have a great career!" she predicted. "You will do
great honor to your country. But you must start at once!"
Paderewski smiled. Non-musicians simply did not understand these things!
"You are kind, Madame! But I am not ready to start. Not until I have
studied much more. And that is not easy to do."
"Studying costs money." She frowned. "I understand that."
He nodded. "I'll raise it somehow. Maybe if I give a few hundred
concerts! Next month I'm giving a little recital in Cracow. It might
even fill about one quarter of a hall--if the hall is small enough."
The actress's beautiful dark eyes flashed. "Nonsense! The hall will be
filled! Sold out! There will not be an empty seat!"
"Thank you, Madame." Paderewski laughed delightedly. "You are very
flattering, but I'm afraid the people of Cracow won't quite turn out _en
masse_ to hear me."
"Perhaps not. Not yet--but they might just turn out to hear _me_. We
shall make it a double bill. Paderewski plays, Modjeska recites! What do
you say?"
For a moment he was too stunned to say anything at all.
The hall was indeed sold out and the box-office "take" was at least five
times greater than the poor pianist had expected. Modjeska's name on the
program was the greatest endorsement he could have had in Cracow. People
flocked to hear her recite from the beloved Polish poets. They stayed to
hear the unknown pianist play his persuasive brand of Chopin. In one
evening he had earned enough to live in Vienna for at least three
months. The "right person at the right moment" pattern was once more in
evidence.
In 1886 Vienna was the heart of the musical world. The great composer,
Johannes Brahms, lived and worked there. The Vienna Philharmonic was the
oldest and finest symphony orchestra in the world. The Vienna State
Opera was producing its almost flawless productions under some of the
world's finest conductors. Johann Strauss was writing operettas such as
_Die Fledermaus_ and "The Gypsy Baron," while the whole country waltzed
to the "Beautiful Blue Danube" and "Tales From the Vienna Woods." To the
hopeful young Polish pianist, however, the center of Vienna's musical
life was the studio of Theodore Leschetizky.
From the phenomenally early age of fifteen, Leschetizky had been
recognized as a remarkable teacher, and while he himself played publicly
until he was past fifty, his greatest gift was the ability to make
superb pianists out of the advanced students who came to him from all
over the world.
[Illustration: "_Play something for me._"]
When Paderewski called on Leschetizky, the great man received him
cordially. "Of course! You are the young man whose music my wife so
admires! Many young composers are kind enough to bring me their new
compositions. You have some pieces to play for me?"
Paderewski gulped. Now that he had to put it into words, his mission
suddenly looked a bit ridiculous. As clearly as he could, he explained
to Leschetizky that he had not come to him as a composer but as a piano
student, since he wanted to have a career as a concert pianist.
The older man's bushy eyebrows flew up. "Are you serious? But--how old
are you, young man?"
"Twenty-four."
"And at twenty-four you intend to start studying to be a virtuoso? Do
you realize what you are saying?"
Although a man is still very young at twenty-four, he is far too old to
begin a new career as a pianist. Either he should be well on his way to
an established reputation by that age, or he should forget the whole
thing. Paderewski knew this as well as anyone.
Leschetizky was now pacing up and down the room nervously. "It is
impossible, I tell you! Impossible!"
Paderewski felt as though the world were crumbling into bits and pieces.
Seeing the look on his face, the good-natured professor said more
kindly, "Well, well--since you are here, play something for me. It does
not matter what."
With what desperation Paderewski must have poured into his playing the
emotions that were surging through his head at that moment! He played
his own compositions, since he knew little else. When he had finished,
Leschetizky, who had stopped pacing, said quietly, "You have a great
many qualities as a pianist. You have a natural technique, but it lacks
so much. Still, you have the principal quality--that is tone." He
frowned and shook his head sadly, "But I am afraid there will be too
much to do with your fingers. They absolutely lack discipline. Besides,"
he added, cutting directly to the heart of the problem, "I am afraid you
do not know how to work!" This was the thing that Paderewski had known
all along. It was, in fact, the reason he had decided he must study with
Leschetizky. "If I decide to give you lessons," Leschetizky was saying,
"you must start with finger exercises and with Czerny studies." This was
where all well-trained beginners started. But it was also the way that
every Leschetizky pupil, no matter how advanced, had to begin working
towards his lofty goals: absolute mastery of each finger, and a
beautiful, singing tone.
Now Paderewski knew how someone feels who must begin learning to walk
all over again after a leg injury. As he thumped out his scales and
exercises, he realized more clearly than ever how slipshod his playing
really was. "I could not improve in a few weeks or months even, because
bad habits were already deeply rooted in me, an amateurish way of
treating the piano, just play the piano, fingering--anyhow!" No wonder
poor Leschetizky almost gave up hope during the early days. "No, no,
it's impossible!" he would say, tugging nervously at his beard. "It's
too late! It's too late! You have wasted your time on pleasant things
like orchestration!" And here he would add the most heart-breaking
judgment of all: "Ah, but if you had begun to study earlier. Then you
could have become a great pianist!"
But Leschetizky had not reckoned with Paderewski's stubborn
determination to work. He practiced seven or eight exhausting hours a
day. By the end of each session he felt as though his arms would drop
off at the shoulder. There was no time in his life now for anything but
work. He who had such a gift for friendship now found that his closest
friend was a little spider who ran down a thread and sat on the music
rack while he practiced.
In spite of his Spartan existence, Paderewski was completely happy. He
knew that he had, at last, found exactly the man he needed. "He opened
up another world to me," he wrote later. "After those groping,
struggling years, even in a few lessons things became clear. I began to
see, to understand, to know how to work. And my thankfulness to
Leschetizky is as great today as it was then!"
But life in Vienna was expensive, and although the generous Leschetizky
refused to take any money at all for these priceless lessons,
Paderewski's small supply of cash finally ran out. Through Leschetizky's
influence he was offered a decently paid post at the Strasbourg
Conservatory. During that year, he played five important public
concerts. The more he played, the more he could see not only how far he
had come but how far he still had to go. When the school term was over,
he left Strasbourg, determined to get back to Vienna and Leschetizky at
all costs. But how?
Once more it was Edward Kerntopf who came to his rescue. He insisted on
giving his friend the necessary money. Much as Paderewski hated to
impose his problems on anyone else, he felt a strong conviction that
some day, in some small way, he would be able to repay Edward's
kindness.
And so back to Vienna and Leschetizky, and those driving hours of work.
But this time it was different. This time both student and teacher knew
that the impossible was actually going to happen.
Before Paderewski had been in Vienna many months, Leschetizky came to
his room one day and said, "I have a suggestion to make to you. Would
you not like to make your first appearance here in Vienna? Pauline
Lucca--she is such a beautiful singer!--is doing a charity concert. She
wants to have a pianist on the program too. It's a good opportunity. I
think you should take it."
"Yes, I shall be glad to," Paderewski said, his eyes shining. What
delighted him to the point of dancing was not the idea of the concert
itself. That was just a matter of playing a few pieces during the
program so that the singer could rest her voice. What filled his soul
with joy was the fact that Leschetizky himself believed he was ready for
his debut in Vienna!