By F. C. Robinson
Most of our readers are familiar with what is known of Paderewski's life and work. He is the son of a gentleman farmer of Podolia, Poland, and from his father inherited an indomitable will and the power and love of work, also his high breeding and fine instincts. From his mother he inherited his love of music but was unfortunately denied the advantage of her care and influence because of her death, which occurred while he was a mere infant.
In the July 1904 issue of Musician, in an article entitled All Manner of Musicians, Miss Edith Lynwood Winn made a few remarks referring to Paderewski with which I for one, heartily sympathized. She referred to the fact that very many musicians play with their best feeling - give to their hearers of the very best and highest - "when under the influence of adversity, disappointed love, and the pain of loss." She takes Paderewski as an illustration, adding, "The richest years of Paderewski's musicianship and artistic development may have been the years of sorrow after his wife's death."
That said, even tragic story comes to one's mind, of the young wife suffering in her last illness for delicacies and attentions that it was impossible for the struggling young artist husband, in his poverty, to provide. In addition to her untimely death, the little child she left to the young father was an invalid. Of Paderewski's loving care and tenderness toward he (physically) afflicted son we all know about.
Finally, death released the poor young fellow and snapped the nerve-tension under which the father suffered. It was while Paderewski was felling these influences deeply and keenly that he poured forth all that was in him in music. We do not feel that Paderewski's is a nature to forget these past experiences. We feel that he deserves the present life he is leading, which Miss Winn assures us is peaceful and luxurious.
She says, "All is placid now. He is rich and he has married the wife of his old friend." She is an excellent businesswoman, relieving Paderewski of financial cares, and thus his life is passed on the beautiful estate he purchased a few years ago. He deserves a goodly share of peace and of happiness, and we therefore rejoice that it is his. But his music? Does "the satisfied" Paderewski equal the suffering Paderewski? To many it does not seem so. I think, with Miss Winn, that he plays, "less emotionally, more intellectually; with no diminution of poetic feeling," but with "the fire of passion" lacking.
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