Death of Paderewski

Death's final cadence this week closed the long career of a frail, wispy-haired Pole, the greatest pianist of his time, and one of the three greatest who ever lived. Patriot, man of affairs, bon vivant, philanthropist, Ignace Jan Paderewski had not played publicly since Poland fell. '"I simply could not stand it," he said.

But to the last he had labored for his beloved Poland. Poland's Premier after World War I, he was now the figurehead President of its parliament in exile. On his 80th birthday, last November, he arrived in the U.S. from his villa in Switzerland. Since then, Paderewski spent himself making public appeals for money for starving Poles. Last week, ill of a cold, against his doctor's orders he made one more appearance in New Jersey. As a result he contracted pneumonia and two days later, in his Manhattan hotel, he died. At the suggestion of President Roosevelt, he will be honored by burial in Arlington National Cemetery until his remains can be transferred to a peaceful Poland.

Fifty years ago Paderewski made his U.S. debut, a glamorous figure with a red-gold mane which excited the Pre-Raphaelite painters of the day. Red-blooded males snorted at "this Paderooski," but everywhere he drew adoring throngs, from whom policemen sometimes had to rescue him.

He traveled up & down the land in a private railroad car, with an entourage to look after him, a cook to provide dishes to his gourmet's taste. Altogether he earned an estimated $5,000,000 in the U.S. alone.

Once he commanded $5,000 for two numbers at William Waldorf Astor's home in London. But Paderewski gave his money away lavishly--$2,700,000 to Poland during World War I.

For five years (1917-22), because of that war, he did not play, "in case the old habit comes back and demands my time." Paderewski put Poland back on the map at the Versailles conference, and Clemenceau told him: "So now you are the Premier.

What a comedown!" Paderewski did not think so. But he was a pushover for hard-boiled Marshal Pilsudski. Embittered, Paderewski resigned in 1919.

Like the best-beloved of fiddlers, Fritz Kreisler, the best-beloved of pianists hated the radio. A Paderewski recital was something to see as well as hear. Even when he was past his prime, showering wrong notes in capricious rhythms, he sat, leonine and imperious, flailed and rippled at the keyboard with his stubby $50,000 fingers. He was lavish with encores, modulating continuously from one piece into the next, sometimes for as long as an hour.

Said Paderewski: "When I miss practice one day, I know it; when I miss two days, my wife knows it; when I miss three days, the public knows it." When Paderewski practiced, he had no peer, and only the late, mighty Liszt and Rubinstein ever equaled him at a piano.

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