PADEREWSKY AT HOME
Reproduced from the original sketch by Emil Fuchs by permission of the artist.
The critic who would give a true appreciation of Paderewski as artist must at once admit that he has the power of moving an audience as no pianist since Rubinstein has been able to move it. In the opening chapter I touched on some generalities with regard to Paderewski's position in the world of piano-playing, and I referred to the modifications in the verdict of the general which the critic must make. In the difference between his outlook and the public's will be found his divergence from the critical and popular estimation in which the great pianist is held. I will at once confess that a professional critic is apt to be too theoretical in his judgments: it is, if viewed aright, the defect of his merits. We are compelled to give reasons for our likes and dislikes, and these in turn are apt to proceed too much from the intellect and not sufficiently from the emotions. The public, on the other hand, has no hard-and-fast theories concerning piano playing, singing or conducting. Provided an instrumentalist or a conductor creates a "sensation" no close inquiry is made into a sacrifice of artistic virtue. In the following appreciation of Paderewski as pianist I have been at pains to collate my own opinions with those of men who have, it seems to me, some authority to write on the subject. I may say in passing that it is extraordinary how little of the criticisms penned on the different recitals give the reader any clear and general idea of Paderewski. His interpretations and playing are praised or blamed, but a writer in a daily paper has to take it for granted that the pianist's gifts and limitations are known and understood. Indeed, a journalist who should sit down to pen a general criticism of a celebrated artist would be considered a kind of critical Rip van Winkle. That is a pity, because criticism demands reconsideration every few years. How could we tell of what a pianist's fingers might be capable until we had heard Leopold Godowsky? How judge of the future of opera until we had heard Puccini's "Madame Butterfly"? For this reason contemporary Press criticisms of Paderewski do not tell us very much. But here and there, scattered up and down the pages of weekly periodicals and magazines, I have come across passages which give a good idea of his powers and his limitations. I propose to quote a couple of these as preliminary to my own estimate of the pianist.
A MEMORY SKETCH OF PADEREWSKI, BY ORLANDO ROULAND
Reproduced by the kind permission of the artist.
In all criticism comparison must play an important part. However great may be the natural gifts of a critic his verdict on a particular artist is of not much value unless he has some clear standard of technical and interpretative excellence. Those who remembered Rubinstein at his best were on firmer ground in judging the new star, Paderewski, than those who knew him not. For this reason the enthusiastic estimate of Dr. William Mason, the well-known American writer on music and professor of the piano, has peculiar value. Dr. Mason, it should be stated, studied in Germany under Moscheles, Dreyschock and Liszt. In an interesting critical study of Paderewski, written in 1893, he compared the playing of that artist with the playing of many others, including Pachmann, Rosenthal, D'Albert, and Scharwenka, and, while recognising their worth, came to the conclusion that Paderewski was "an exceedingly rare occurrence, indeed phenomenal."
"As Moscheles played Bach half a century ago, and as Rubinstein played him later on, so does Paderewski play him now—with an added grace and colour which put these great contrapuntal creations in the most charming frames. It is the great, deep, musical playing combined with the calm, quiet repose and great breadth of style. Paderewski has an advantage over Rubinstein, however, in the fact that he is always master of his resources and possesses power of complete self control.... In Rubinstein there is an excess of the emotional, and while at times he reaches the highest possible standard, his impulsive Nature and lack of self-restraint are continually in his way, frequently causing him to rush ahead with such impetuosity as to anticipate his climax, and, having no reserve force to call into action, disaster is sure to follow.
"Of five prominent pianists, in Liszt we find the intellectual emotional temperament, while Rubinstein has the emotional in such excess that he is rarely able to bridle his impetuosity, Paderewski may be classified as emotional-intellectual—a very rare and happy blending of the two temperaments—and Tausig was very much upon the same plane, while Von Bülow has but little of the emotional, and overbalances decidedly on the intellectual side.