And so back to Vienna and Leschetizky, and those driving hours of work. But this time it was different. This time both student and teacher knew that the impossible was actually going to happen.
Before Paderewski had been in Vienna many months, Leschetizky came to his room one day and said, “I have a suggestion to make to you. Would you not like to make your first appearance here in Vienna? Pauline Lucca—she is such a beautiful singer!—is doing a charity concert. She wants to have a pianist on the program too. It’s a good opportunity. I think you should take it.”
“Yes, I shall be glad to,” Paderewski said, his eyes shining. What delighted him to the point of dancing was not the idea of the concert itself. That was just a matter of playing a few pieces during the program so that the singer could rest her voice. What filled his soul with joy was the fact that Leschetizky himself believed he was ready for his debut in Vienna!
CHAPTER 3
THE LION BEGINS TO ROAR
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?