Very few pianists ever retire from public performance, even briefly, at the height of their careers. Paderewski, however, did so in 1906. From causes he describes as partly physical and partly psychological, he had begun to feel a curious but very real aversion to the piano. Not even the estate in Switzerland, where he could let the sometimes healing forces of farming work on his nerves, helped much. When, in order to earn some money, he returned to concerts for a time, he found the distaste for the piano still strong. Physicians tried their arts on him, one even resorting to hypnosis. By 1909 Paderewski said, “The easiest pieces in my repertoire I could not manage. The touch was strange to me. It was torture.” Perhaps Paderewski’s sudden distaste for his lifelong routine came about because he was beginning to prepare himself subconsciously for a new and wholly unexpected career.
In 1910 an event occurred that was both important in itself and of great significance for the future. 1910 was a year of doubly historic moment in the history of Poland. It was the centenary of the birth of Chopin. It was also the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Grünwald, in which a victorious Polish army had driven out a foreign invader. Paderewski had never once during the past forty years forgotten that a small boy of ten had vowed to build a great memorial in honor of that battle for Polish freedom.
He had commissioned a talented Polish sculptor to design such a monument, and on the 500th anniversary of the battle it was unveiled and presented to the city of Cracow. On the base of it were carved these words:
“For the glory of our ancestors and the encouragement of our brothers.”
As the donor of the new monument, Paderewski made a presentation speech which was marked with the deepest patriotic fervor. Though he spoke quietly, the Cracow speech strongly showed Paderewski’s deep knowledge of political affairs. And at a reception in his honor, after the formal presentation, the voice of the pianist was heard in a piece of peculiarly accurate political prophecy:
“Brothers, the hour of our freedom is about to strike. Within five years a fratricidal war will soak with blood the whole earth. Prepare, compatriots mine, brother Poles, prepare, because from the ashes of burned and devastated cities, villages, houses, and from the dust of this tortured soil will rise the Polish Phoenix.”
It was during these days at Cracow that those in charge of the Chopin centenary asked Paderewski to be present at Lwow for the ceremonies there. At that time, also, his symphony was to be heard for the first time in the country whose story is enclosed in its measures. For the symphony’s first movement is entitled “In Memoriam.” Its second, a song of hope, is called “Sursum Corda,” and the finale is a symphonic poem based on heroic Polish melodies. At Lwow, the composer and the orator spoke with equal eloquence.
Paderewski’s voice rang with determined courage as he recalled Poland’s glorious history, even under long oppression. His words closed with a promise of triumph as powerful as the final pages of the symphony, as he said, “Let us brace our hearts to fresh endurance, let us adjust our minds to action, energetic, righteous; let us uplift our consciousness by faith invisible; for the nation cannot perish which has a soul so great and immortal.
“Let the oppressor hear, I do not fear him!”
Small wonder that the Russian police, when the symphony was played in Warsaw the following year, forbade the printing of any program notes referring to the significance of its themes. But by that time every Pole had heard Paderewski’s words and knew the meaning of his music.