"Why shouldn't it? Practically, I have been taught how to play it by that great artist." He takes out the roll and brings it over for you to look at. On it you see, reproduced in facsimile this autographed certification:
"The line on this roll indicates the tempo according to my interpretation.
"I.J. Paderewski."
The roll, as the expression goes, has been "metrostyled" by the virtuoso himself.
"I didn't know you had one of these instruments. Why haven't you told me?—How long have you had it?"
"About a week," he answers.
"And you can make it sound like that?"
"Of course I can. Nothing easier. Just stand behind me and watch."
He replaces the music roll and, as he pedals and it unrolls, he shows you how easy it is with the metrostyle to follow the red line marked by Paderewski to indicate how he plays the piece.
"According to my idea," continues your friend, "he plays some parts of the second melody a little too slowly—makes it too sentimental, instead of poetically expressive. You may observe that I don't always follow the line. That's one of the great things about the instrument. You can profit by the directions just as much as you want to, but you can disregard them whenever you have a mind to. It may seem presumptuous to differ, even in a small detail, from a great virtuoso like Paderewski, but every virtuoso has his idiosyncrasies and we, who, after all, have been listening to music all our lives and have heard all the great pianists from Rubinstein to 'Paddy' himself and all the women pianists from Essipoff to Bloomfield-Zeisler, are entitled to some ideas of our own. As I just said, one of the great things about the instrument is that it allows us this latitude. I call it a cinch!