(4 of 5)
Even the great pedagogue Leschetizky, with whom he later went to study in Vienna, tried to discourage him from becoming a pianist, advised him to stick to composition. But Paderewski had to keep on. At 20 he had fallen in love with a fellow student at the conservatory and married. A year later his young wife had died, leaving him alone in the world with a hopelessly crippled son* to support. For years he roamed Europe teaching in schools and conservatories, earning enough to keep his son cared for and himself alive. He was always sure, in spite of gloomy predictions, that he would one day become a great concert artist.
His big chance came in 1884 when, at a Polish summer resort, he met the great Polish Actress Helena Modjeska. To Modjeska, then the toast of half the theatres of the world, he confided his ambitions. Graciously she suggested a joint concert in Cracow, at which he would play and she would appear in dramatic recitations. The concert was given. Modjeska's name on the billboards acted like magic, and Paderewski was up the first notch in his laborious climb to fame.
Old-Style. Today, somewhat naturally, crotchety, old-worldly Pianist Paderewski looks back with fussy nostalgia to the times of his greatest triumphs. On the present-day world and its modern customs he wastes little affection. For him civilization has been steadily slipping since Victorian days. The only contemporary composer he cares anything about is Germany's Richard Strauss. Musical modernism he abhors. Says he: "Modern music ended with Debussy."
Though he enjoys movies immensely
(especially old Charlie Chaplin films), he looks back upon his film debut in Moonlight Sonata as an intensely uncomfortable experience. "There were too many repetitions and too many lights. I can only play at ease in subdued light." At the radio, over which he has made only two broadcasts, he practically spits: "It is killing music and musicians. I don't believe it [helps to make people more musical than they are]. It just robs them of any possible personal musical activity and of their musical keenness; it casts a spell of laziness on them." (Nevertheless, Critic Paderewski's first public performance on his coming U. S. tour will be a broadcast over the NBC-Blue network.) About jazz he is more tolerant. Says he: "To be frank, I detest it. But it can be used judiciously." Secretary Sylwin Strakacz, a confirmed swing fan, has long tried to get Paderewski interested in boogie-woogie, but the upshot of his efforts has usually been nothing but argument, long and loud.
Paderewski's real enthusiasms are all for the events and customs of the plush-upholstered '80s and '90s, for the theatre of Sarah Bernhardt, the court life of Victorian England, the restaurants of old New York. A recent indication of modern decadence, in Paderewski's eyes, was the fuss-&-feathers about Sir James Jeans's statement that there is no such thing as "touch" in piano playing — that a pianist will get the same tone whether he hits the key with his finger or the end of an umbrella. Says umbrella-thatched Paderewski: "Art is a question of personality. What kind of personality has an umbrella?"