HOW PADEREWSKI GETS ON.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 27, 2 April 1907, Page 7

HOW PADEREWSKI GETS ON.

Paderewski has just completed an opera that represents four years of very hard work. Four years seems a long time to spend in writing as much music as can he played and sung in a single evening, but the, Polish pianist is most thorough in everything he undertakes. Several summers ago he took a cottage in a Swiss Alpine village;, intending to spend the hot months in practice. A wealthy American woman who loves music heard of his plans and rented a cottage opposite, thinking tlie rather exorbitant rent a small enough price to pay for the privilege of living within sound of the young master's piano. On the morning after her arrival her gifted neighbour was up and at his instrument with (he sun. but; when the American stepped out of doors to lister she found lhat Paderewski was playing a single measure f"om one of Beethoven's sonatas over and over again. All that morning he, plaved it, and after the noon rest ho took it up again, That afternoon she kept count, and by nightfall he had played the seemingly unimporlant scrap of music more than 1,500 times. Not until a week had passed and he had practiced it many thousand limes did ho lurn to another detail quite as small. By ha"d work of this sort, aJon*? could he play the wonderful compositions that have made him famous, and by just this sort, of drudgery, doubtless, has he written his opera.