THE LION BEGINS TO ROAR
[Illustration: Statue.]
Nearly all the musicians in Paris came to the piano recital given at the
Salle Erard on the evening of March 3, 1889. The French composers
Gounod, Massenet, and Saint-Saens were there. So was their famous
Russian colleague, Tchaikovsky. It was the sort of audience that is
usually described as "small but distinguished." It included many members
of the Polish aristocracy in exile who lived in Paris, their "second
capital." And they had brought with them whatever friends among the
French nobility they could round up for the occasion. It made no
difference to them that they had never even heard the name of the young
man who was playing. The fact that this Ignace Jan Paderewski was a
Polish artist was all they needed to know about him.
From Paderewski's point of view, however, the two most important people
in the audience were two Frenchmen named Edouard Colonne and Charles
Lamoureux. Both men were conductors of highly successful orchestras
bearing their names. And each man was not only constantly on the alert
for new talent, but was eager to be first in bringing it before the
public.
Paderewski sat in his dressing room before the concert, completely
alone, as was his habit. He was not thinking about the audience or
anything else in the world except the music he would soon be playing:
Beethoven's Thirty-Two Variations in C minor; some Chopin (whose music
he loved above any other and which he felt that he, a Pole, could play
as Paris had not heard it before), and one of the most brilliant and
fiery of the Hungarian Rhapsodies by Liszt.
The manager of the hall had been surprised when the young visitor had
asked to have the lights lowered to about half their usual brightness.
So was the audience, accustomed as it was to recitals played with the
gaslight blazing at full power. But early in his concert career
Paderewski had found that a bright light on the keys of the piano made
it almost impossible for him to play.
What happened that night in the Salle Erard?
We have a report about it from a man who was himself one of the world's
greatest pianists, and no tribute can be held in higher regard than that
spoken by one artist about another. Alfred Cortot said of Paderewski's
Paris debut, "He appeared with the suddenness of a lightning stroke,
making a blurring, an eruption in our hearts. Instead of a pianist, an
inspired poet took possession of the keyboard."
The listeners, charmed from the first moment by the romantic appearance
of the newcomer, grew more and more enthusiastic with each succeeding
piece. But after the last encore--the encores lasted for nearly an
hour--the audience was on its feet thundering its approval.
Two men in the audience had better things to do than shout and applaud.
The minute the last note had died away, conductors Colonne and Lamoureux
leaped to their feet and began a race to the platform. Each man was
determined to get there first. Lamoureux, by a masterpiece of broken
field running around cheering Polish counts, French dukes, and assorted
musicians, won the race. "Monsieur," he puffed, hearing Colonne slide to
a stop behind him, "I have the honor to invite you to appear as soloist
in three weeks with the Lamoureux Orchestra!"
Lamoureux and other new friends pressed the young pianist to arrange
several additional solo recitals at once. "You must strike again while
this enthusiasm lasts," they told him. "You must reinforce this first
success, or people will quickly forget you." All professional artists
are aware of the fickleness of the public. Paderewski knew what good
advice his friends were giving him. The night's triumph, therefore,
instead of making him happy, plunged him into absolute misery.
Why? Because the modest young man, encouraged to try his luck by his
success in Vienna, had come to Paris with exactly one program prepared.
And he had just finished playing it! He could have postponed his Paris
debut until he had a larger repertoire, but it had never once occurred
to him that he would be called upon to play anything in Paris but his
one recital. And now!
"It's impossible," he told himself on that triumphant evening of March
3. The first program--the _only_ program--had taken him eight months to
prepare to his satisfaction. Now he was asked to prepare a second
program in three weeks! "It's absolutely impossible! I can't even think
about it!"
On the morning of March 4, he said, "Well--maybe I could try--"
On the evening of March 23 he appeared with the Lamoureux Orchestra in
the Saint-Saens Piano Concerto in C minor. He played it, said the city's
toughest music critic, "in a superb and masterful manner." Critics
should be embarrassed, the writer added, to praise Paderewski, because
they had been so free and easy in using superlatives to describe other
pianists. As a result, there was now a shortage of new words by which to
describe the particular genius of the Polish artist. Another newspaper
promptly labelled him "the Lion of Paris."
The faster Paderewski's career gathered speed, the harder he worked,
"always struggling for perfection, pushing on and on to that
ever-receding faraway peak of attainment," he would write of those days.
"All work is like that.... The summit of the mountain is always farther
and farther away." He went back to Vienna and prepared more and more
programs, and added concerto after concerto to his growing list. He
accepted more and better engagements with bigger and bigger box office
receipts to show for them. He toured the French provinces--Lyons ...
Nantes ... Bordeaux ... Tours.... Then on to Antwerp ... Brussels ...
Liège ... and Vienna again. And always Paris. After three successful
seasons in Paris he felt like a real veteran of the concert stage.
The financial rewards of success were important to him because of
Alfred, who was now nine years old. It had been evident from the time he
was a year old that the little boy, mentally so alert, was not
developing well physically. In those days doctors could do very little
to improve or even to diagnose his condition. It would seem that he
suffered from a congenital weakness of the spine, and possibly of the
heart. "Always in the foreground," his father wrote, "was the menace of
his illness, a constantly increasing problem to be met. He had his
tutors at this time and he was intelligent and gifted. He had a
brilliant, clear mind; he loved music too. It was difficult to take him
to concerts, but he often went to recitals at the Salle Erard which we
could manage easily and he was very happy to go, and touchingly proud of
me at these concerts. It was a great excitement to him, a stimulant to
his mind. Poor child, he was completely cut off from everything in life
except intellectual things, by his great infirmity."
Father and son were together at last. And Paderewski had accepted the
fact that the boy would never walk. In Paris Alfred was cared for in the
home of the beautiful Mme. Helena Gorska, a friend who gave great love
and kindness to the motherless boy and therefore much peace of mind to
his father.
Paderewski's reputation made possible another long-awaited opportunity.
In 1889, a great exhibition--a sort of World's Fair--was held in Paris.
It included a display of pianos from all over the world. Paderewski
arranged to have some Kerntopf pianos, up to then known only in Poland,
shipped to Paris and exhibited. They won a gold medal (after Paderewski
had happily and cleverly used every ounce of influence he had with every
one of the judges). The fact that his pianos--Polish pianos--had come
out so well in international competition was one of the greatest events
in Edward Kerntopf's life. It would never be possible to repay Edward's
kindness, Paderewski thought, but at least he had been able to do
something. Many people who reach sudden, dazzling success find it all
too easy to forget the people who helped to bring it about. It was one
of Paderewski's principal characteristics, from his boyhood to his old
age, that he never forgot his friends at home.
The road had led him from Warsaw to Vienna to Paris. To continue his
conquest of the musical world, Paderewski now turned to London. As his
ship pitched its way across the Channel, the seasick artist was in no
mood for optimism. The conquest of one city, he knew, did not guarantee
success in another city. London in particular had always maintained a
chilly "show me" attitude toward artists who came supplied with flowery
reviews from foreign critics. Naturally anyone who arrived in the
British capital preceded by rave notices like Paderewski's would be
under high suspicion.
It came as a nasty shock to Paderewski to find that his London manager,
Daniel Mayer, a beginner in the field, had plastered the city with
posters advertising the appearance of the "Lion of Paris." Paderewski, a
Pole, knew better than the English Mr. Mayer that Londoners simply did
not care for this sort of thing. "You make me sound like an incoming
circus," he roared at his overeager manager.
Paderewski's gloomy predictions about his first London appearance turned
out to be one hundred percent correct. The night was wet and foggy; the
hall was half empty; the audience was chilly. The artist, so sensitive
to the emotions of the audience, was appalled. And the reviews were
ghastly. "Vulgar," "violent," "much noise and little music," "the clay
and the jangle of metal," he read about himself in the London papers.
The critics seemed determined to cut the lion down to the size of a
small tabby cat.
Today we have our own opinion about the cautious critics who complained
so bitterly because Paderewski's playing was "utterly at variance with
the traditional methods." In England the "traditional methods" of
playing certain unfortunate composers often meant rather spineless,
languishing, ladylike performances. Paderewski's intense vitality and
virility startled the conservative critics of that Victorian era. It
would take some getting used to!
After two slightly more successful London concerts, Paderewski went on a
tour of the smaller cities. Poor Mr. Daniel Mayer set out on the road
with a heavy heart, for he looked forward to financial disaster. To his
horror, Paderewski had firmly insisted that his publicity circulars for
the provinces should reprint all his London reviews complete! Mr. Mayer,
like every other manager in the business, believed in picking out the
best and kindest remarks from reviews and cleverly stringing them
together with "..." and "...," thus giving the impression that all the
critics had thought everything was wonderful. Yet Paderewski had vetoed
this simple business procedure for a reason that appalled his poor
manager. He said it was dishonest. Dishonest! Who cared about honesty in
publicity releases, Mr. Mayer moaned to himself. Results at the box
office were what counted! And who had ever heard of a rising concert
artist with a conscience. It was a luxury he could not afford.
[Illustration: _The admiring lady was Queen Victoria._]
To Mr. Mayer's vast surprise, Paderewski's honesty turned out to be the
best policy, financially as well as morally. The people of the smaller
English towns felt--quite correctly--that Londoners looked down on them.
For this reason they leaned over backwards to avoid following the lead
of the big city in making decisions about anything, even the abilities
of an unknown artist. The very fact that the London critics had given
him rough treatment was a point in his favor. And the fact that he had
circulated all of his reviews, good and bad, piqued their curiosity as
nothing else could have done. Curiosity and sympathy are a powerful
combination at the box office.
Paderewski finished his tour with the sweet sounds of success ringing in
his ears. By the time he returned to London, his complete triumph all
over the rest of England had been duly noticed. The lines formed at dawn
outside the box office of St. James Hall on the days of his concerts.
His appealing personality and flawless manners quickly made Paderewski a
popular figure in London society. He made friends among British
statesmen as easily as he did among British musicians. The former
gentlemen were surprised at his grasp of so many subjects besides music.
And the authority with which this romantic-looking, golden-haired
pianist discussed international affairs astounded them. The composer
Saint-Saens had, with typical French acumen, already summed up
Paderewski's gifts. "Paderewski?" he had said one evening, shortly after
the Paris debut. "He is a genius who happens to play the piano!"
It was at this time that the most famous of all Paderewski portraits was
made. It was a pencil drawing by the distinguished British artist,
Edward Burne-Jones. The picture came into being in a delightful way. As
Burne-Jones was walking down the street one day, he passed a young man
with a radiant face and a halo of red-gold hair. The artist was so
struck by this apparition that he rushed around the block quickly in
order to pass it again. Then he rushed back home and announced to the
astonished household, "I have just seen an archangel walking on the
London pavement!" He grabbed a pencil and rapidly sketched what he could
remember of the archangel's appearance.
A few days later Paderewski was brought by a mutual friend to pay a call
on Burne-Jones. Much to his surprise he was met by his host not with a
polite British greeting, but with an ecstatic cry, "It's my archangel!"
Before the astonished visitor could say a word, the artist had seized
the unfinished picture and gone to work on it.
A lady who heard him play that year wrote about it this way in her
diary: "Went to the green drawing room and heard Monsieur Paderewski
play on the piano. He does so quite marvelously, such power and such
tender feeling. I really think he is quite equal to Rubinstein. He is
young, about 28, with a sort of aureole of red hair standing out."
The admiring lady was Queen Victoria. Another victory had been won in
his complete conquest of England.
It was time to move on now and the logical world to be conquered next
was the new one. In 1891, the firm of Steinway and Sons in New York
offered Paderewski a contract for eighty concerts with a guarantee of
$30,000. What young artist could refuse such an offer? On November 3,
1891, Paderewski sailed for New York.