The instruments never are set up except under the “doctor’s” personal supervision. Before each concert the pianoforte on which Paderewski is to play is carefully gone over and put in perfect condition—tuned and, if necessary, regulated, and this no matter how recently he may have used it. Defects so trifling that neither an ordinary player nor the public would notice them, would jar on the sensitive ear and nerves of the virtuoso. Sometimes the instrument has been exposed to such a low temperature that frost is found to have formed not only on the lid, but even on the iron plate inside. In such cases the pianoforte is set up and, after the film of frost has been scraped off, is allowed to thaw out slowly and naturally before it is touched for tuning or regulating.
There was an amusing incident in the handling of one of the Paderewski instruments at Columbus, Mississippi, where Paderewski played for seven hundred girls at the State College, although it was more exciting than diverting at the time it happened. The “doctor” relies on local help for getting the pianoforte from the skid to the stage and back again. Usually efficient helpers are obtainable, but at Columbus, where the college hall is upstairs and reached only by a narrow flight of steps, there was no aid to be had save from among the negroes lounging on the public square. The “doctor” went among them.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Nawthin’.”
“Want a job?”
“Naw, too busy,” was the usual reply.
At last, however, a band of twenty “colored gentlemen” was secured in the hope that muscle and quantity would make up for lack of quality. But never before has a high-grade pianoforte been in such imminent peril. It was got upstairs well enough, in spite of the fact that the negroes walked all over each other. But the descent! The “doctor,” Emil C. Fischer, stood at the top of the stairs directing; J. E. Francke, the treasurer of the tour, below. Around the latter fell a shower of fragments from the wall, the rail, the posts; and at one time it seemed as if the whole banister would give way and the pianoforte crash in splinters on the floor. There were other moments of suspense, for the pianoforte as well as for the two watchers, who drew a long breath when the instrument safely was on the skid.
Fortunately such untoward incidents are forgotten in the general atmosphere of good-humor which the pianist diffuses about him. He enjoys his little joke. During the last tour he handed a photograph of himself to Mr. Francke inscribed: “To the future Governor of Hoboken.” At the Auditorium hotel, Chicago, Millward Adams’ brother, about leaving on a trip, asked for an autograph. Paderewski, quick as a flash, wrote:
“For the brother of Mr. Adams on the Eve of his departure from Chicago.”