Chapter 2: Debut in Vienna

Now that Paderewski had his diploma, he determined that he would no longer be an expense to his father. Much as the young man disliked teaching (a dislike from which he never recovered), he knew he had no choice in the matter. If he intended to eat, he would have to teach. But at least he did not have to look very hard for pupils. Immediately after graduation he was offered a position on the faculty of the Conservatory.

Among the students that year was a beautiful young girl named Antonina Korsak. Although Paderewski's future was uncertain, Antonina had complete faith in it. It did not matter in the least to her that at the moment he was only a struggling, poorly-paid piano teacher. In 1880, when Paderewski had just turned twenty, they were married.

He found a small apartment where the two talented young musicians lived in complete happiness and made glowing plans for the future. Paderewski would look back on it as though he were recalling a brief but unforgettable dream. One year after her marriage the beautiful Antonina was dead, leaving her young husband with an infant son.

During her last conscious hours, Antonina, knowing that she was dying, had made her husband promise to take some of her small inheritance and use it to continue his musical studies. Her faith in his future was as bright and untroubled at the moment of her death as it had been during her life.

Now that he had a son to support, Paderewski knew that he must be practical. Nearly everyone who knew anything about it assured him that although he could never make a career as a pianist, he would be a success as a composer. Since no one in Warsaw could teach him any more than he already knew about composition, he decided to go to Berlin to study with a famous teacher named Friederich Kiel. Antonina's mother happily agreed to take care of little Alfred for him.

Professor Kiel was greatly impressed both by Paderewski's talent as a composer and by the young Pole's enormous capacity for work. Too saddened by his wife's death to enjoy the boisterous student life of Berlin, Paderewski devoted himself entirely to his studies. Ten or twelve hours a day of uninterrupted work was not the least unusual.

Although most Berliners were automatically anti-Polish, Paderewski made some good friends among German musicians. His warmest affection was for the great composer, Richard Strauss, whose family accepted the young foreigner as a member from his first appearance in the house. Of all his kindnesses to Paderewski, the greatest favor Strauss ever did for him was a completely unconscious one.

Paderewski knew that he had the habit of making faces while he played the piano. The more complex the music, the more tortured the grimaces that distorted his handsome face. He had never given the failing much thought, however, until he realized that Strauss had the same bad habit. As he watched the great man play--his face almost as busy as his hands--Paderewski thought, "Good Heavens! That is how I look!" He determined to reform at all costs and did so, but only after months of practicing with a mirror propped up on the music rack of the piano.

Although he did not forget his promise to Antonina to continue his studies, he worried more and more about earning money for his little son. The music he published brought him a great deal of praise but little money. But he soon found a way to increase his earnings. He was in great demand as an accompanist for violinists and singers, since he could sight read music so brilliantly that the performers who hired him did not have to spend much time or money on rehearsals.

One of his closest friends was a violinist named Gorski. He had arranged a short tour of resort hotels, and he asked Paderewski to come with him. The pianist smiled to himself, remembering an earlier tour he had once made. But since this one was on a much sounder financial footing, he gladly agreed to go. There was a marked resemblance, however, in the matter of pianos!

At the very first hotel where they were booked, the piano proved to be of such ancient stock that half the hammers had resigned from active duty. When he struck the keys attached to the afflicted hammer they would fly up, but once up they would not return to place. This meant that each note with a bad hammer could only be used once during the evening.

"I can probably play your accompaniments by faking!" he said to Gorski, "but I can't possibly get through my solos!"

"What can we do? It's the only piano in town."

One of Gorski's young pupils was making the tour with them.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, stepping up timidly. "I think I can help you."

"Impossible!" Paderewski said gruffly.

"Suppose I stand by the piano and push the hammers down just as fast as you hit them. I don't think the audience would notice, do you?"

The two artists looked at each other and shrugged. It was worth a try, since there was nothing else to do. In later years, Paderewski loved to tell this story. "Ah! You should have seen him!" he wrote. "His hands went like lightning. They flew like birds from side to side. He had to lean way across the piano--back and forth he weaved and darted in constant motion.... What an experience!"

The concert was a huge success. The clever hammer-pusher had been wrong in only one respect: his modest belief that the audience would not notice him. After the concert as Paderewski was walking through the lobby, he heard a man say to his wife, "How did you like that young pianist?"

"Oh, he was all right," came the answer, "but the other one, you know! The second pianist who was playing at the back of the piano! He was the best, I thought. He worked much harder than the other one. He was the real artist!"

Paderewski worked nearly two years in Berlin, interrupted only by a short period of teaching in Warsaw. There, in addition to a heavy teaching program, he began taking private lessons in Latin, mathematics, literature, and history. He did not want his education to be completely one-sided. He had, at the time, no way of realizing how wise a decision this was.

Paderewski's studies in composition had been brilliant, and the piano pieces he published were unusually successful. One of the first pianists to play his work in public was the popular Madame Essipoff. She included his Variations in A minor on many of her programs. To Paderewski, however, Essipoff's greatest attraction was not her success as a pianist but the fact that she was married to the great Theodore Leschetizky.

Leschetizky lived in Vienna, but he was a fellow Pole. He was, in addition, the most famous piano teacher in the world.

The thought of a piano career had remained at the back of Paderewski's mind during every minute of his years in Warsaw and Berlin, although reason told him to abandon the idea. (So had every teacher with whom he had ever studied.) The turning point in his thinking came about quite casually.

One night his publisher invited him to dinner to meet Anton Rubinstein, a brilliant and famous concert pianist. (He occupied much the same position in his day as his namesake, Artur Rubinstein, occupies in ours.)

The famous pianist was charming to the relatively unknown composer and asked to hear some of his piano compositions. When Paderewski had played several pieces, Rubinstein said, "How very fine they are! You must compose more for the piano!"

Paderewski smiled diffidently. "Oh, I can't do too well writing for piano," he said modestly, "because I play so little myself."

Rubinstein's eyebrows lifted. "Nonsense!" he said. "You have an inborn technique. You could have a splendid piano career, if you wanted one. I'm sure of it!"

For a moment the young man was too stunned to mumble a polite reply. It was true that this opinion was only one against many others in the opposite direction. But it was Anton Rubinstein's opinion, and that gave it a few extra votes. In any case it was all that was needed to decide the young man's future. Somehow he would manage the impossible task of raising the money to study the piano seriously. It was his last chance, if indeed it was not already too late, so he could not afford to settle for anything but the best. He would go to Vienna and study with Leschetizky.

Before he could even think about the future, though, he knew that he needed a rest. The years of intensive work, compounded by a constant uneasiness about his little boy's delicate health, had exhausted him. He decided to spend a few weeks in the beautiful Tatra Mountains. There he could think things out--and start adding up figures. What would a few months in Vienna cost? How much did Leschetizky usually charge per lesson? What was the quickest way to raise the money? The last question was a tricky one, since there was no quick way to raise money. It would have to be done piecemeal.

In the village of Zakopane where he stayed, there lived an old doctor who was an expert on the folk music of the region. Paderewski tramped happily through the hills with his new friend, jotting down notes as fast as the good old man could whistle them. One day the doctor said, "Guess who arrived in the village to open up her summer home? Helen Modjeska! Would you like to meet her?"

Paderewski gasped. "Modjeska? Here? Certainly I'd like to meet her!" Who wouldn't? How many times he had cheered himself hoarse over a Modjeska performance in _Hamlet_ or _Othello_! Poles all over the world loved Modjeska, not only because she was a great actress, but also because she was dedicated heart and soul to the cause of a free Poland. Since she was one of the most famous actresses in the world, she had done as much as anyone alive to remind the world that there was such a place as Poland.

Modjeska and her husband were delighted with the handsome young musician, and when he played the piano for her the actress was enchanted. "You will have a great career!" she predicted. "You will do great honor to your country. But you must start at once!"

Paderewski smiled. Non-musicians simply did not understand these things! "You are kind, Madame! But I am not ready to start. Not until I have studied much more. And that is not easy to do."

"Studying costs money." She frowned. "I understand that."

He nodded. "I'll raise it somehow. Maybe if I give a few hundred concerts! Next month I'm giving a little recital in Cracow. It might even fill about one quarter of a hall--if the hall is small enough."

The actress's beautiful dark eyes flashed. "Nonsense! The hall will be filled! Sold out! There will not be an empty seat!"

"Thank you, Madame." Paderewski laughed delightedly. "You are very flattering, but I'm afraid the people of Cracow won't quite turn out _en masse_ to hear me."

"Perhaps not. Not yet--but they might just turn out to hear _me_. We shall make it a double bill. Paderewski plays, Modjeska recites! What do you say?"

For a moment he was too stunned to say anything at all.

The hall was indeed sold out and the box-office "take" was at least five times greater than the poor pianist had expected. Modjeska's name on the program was the greatest endorsement he could have had in Cracow. People flocked to hear her recite from the beloved Polish poets. They stayed to hear the unknown pianist play his persuasive brand of Chopin. In one evening he had earned enough to live in Vienna for at least three months. The "right person at the right moment" pattern was once more in evidence.

In 1886 Vienna was the heart of the musical world. The great composer, Johannes Brahms, lived and worked there. The Vienna Philharmonic was the oldest and finest symphony orchestra in the world. The Vienna State Opera was producing its almost flawless productions under some of the world's finest conductors. Johann Strauss was writing operettas such as _Die Fledermaus_ and "The Gypsy Baron," while the whole country waltzed to the "Beautiful Blue Danube" and "Tales From the Vienna Woods." To the hopeful young Polish pianist, however, the center of Vienna's musical life was the studio of Theodore Leschetizky.

From the phenomenally early age of fifteen, Leschetizky had been recognized as a remarkable teacher, and while he himself played publicly until he was past fifty, his greatest gift was the ability to make superb pianists out of the advanced students who came to him from all over the world.

When Paderewski called on Leschetizky, the great man received him cordially. "Of course! You are the young man whose music my wife so admires! Many young composers are kind enough to bring me their new compositions. You have some pieces to play for me?"

Paderewski gulped. Now that he had to put it into words, his mission suddenly looked a bit ridiculous. As clearly as he could, he explained to Leschetizky that he had not come to him as a composer but as a piano student, since he wanted to have a career as a concert pianist.

The older man's bushy eyebrows flew up. "Are you serious? But--how old are you, young man?"

"Twenty-four."

"And at twenty-four you intend to start studying to be a virtuoso? Do you realize what you are saying?"

Although a man is still very young at twenty-four, he is far too old to begin a new career as a pianist. Either he should be well on his way to an established reputation by that age, or he should forget the whole thing. Paderewski knew this as well as anyone.

Leschetizky was now pacing up and down the room nervously. "It is impossible, I tell you! Impossible!"

Paderewski felt as though the world were crumbling into bits and pieces. Seeing the look on his face, the good-natured professor said more kindly, "Well, well--since you are here, play something for me. It does not matter what."

With what desperation Paderewski must have poured into his playing the emotions that were surging through his head at that moment! He played his own compositions, since he knew little else. When he had finished, Leschetizky, who had stopped pacing, said quietly, "You have a great many qualities as a pianist. You have a natural technique, but it lacks so much. Still, you have the principal quality--that is tone." He frowned and shook his head sadly, "But I am afraid there will be too much to do with your fingers. They absolutely lack discipline. Besides," he added, cutting directly to the heart of the problem, "I am afraid you do not know how to work!" This was the thing that Paderewski had known all along. It was, in fact, the reason he had decided he must study with Leschetizky. "If I decide to give you lessons," Leschetizky was saying, "you must start with finger exercises and with Czerny studies." This was where all well-trained beginners started. But it was also the way that every Leschetizky pupil, no matter how advanced, had to begin working towards his lofty goals: absolute mastery of each finger, and a beautiful, singing tone.

Now Paderewski knew how someone feels who must begin learning to walk all over again after a leg injury. As he thumped out his scales and exercises, he realized more clearly than ever how slipshod his playing really was. "I could not improve in a few weeks or months even, because bad habits were already deeply rooted in me, an amateurish way of treating the piano, just play the piano, fingering--anyhow!" No wonder poor Leschetizky almost gave up hope during the early days. "No, no, it's impossible!" he would say, tugging nervously at his beard. "It's too late! It's too late! You have wasted your time on pleasant things like orchestration!" And here he would add the most heart-breaking judgment of all: "Ah, but if you had begun to study earlier. Then you could have become a great pianist!"

But Leschetizky had not reckoned with Paderewski's stubborn determination to work. He practiced seven or eight exhausting hours a day. By the end of each session he felt as though his arms would drop off at the shoulder. There was no time in his life now for anything but work. He who had such a gift for friendship now found that his closest friend was a little spider who ran down a thread and sat on the music rack while he practiced.

In spite of his Spartan existence, Paderewski was completely happy. He knew that he had, at last, found exactly the man he needed. "He opened up another world to me," he wrote later. "After those groping, struggling years, even in a few lessons things became clear. I began to see, to understand, to know how to work. And my thankfulness to Leschetizky is as great today as it was then!"

But life in Vienna was expensive, and although the generous Leschetizky refused to take any money at all for these priceless lessons, Paderewski's small supply of cash finally ran out. Through Leschetizky's influence he was offered a decently paid post at the Strasbourg Conservatory. During that year, he played five important public concerts. The more he played, the more he could see not only how far he had come but how far he still had to go. When the school term was over, he left Strasbourg, determined to get back to Vienna and Leschetizky at all costs. But how?

Once more it was Edward Kerntopf who came to his rescue. He insisted on giving his friend the necessary money. Much as Paderewski hated to impose his problems on anyone else, he felt a strong conviction that some day, in some small way, he would be able to repay Edward's kindness.

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!