PADEREWSKI OFF GUARD

Shannon News, 24 September 1929, Page 1

PADEREWSKI OFF GUARD

One day my wife and I arrived in London from Paris, not knowing what was going on in the musical world. Presently we saw an announcement, in huge letters, of a recital to be given tha't afternoon by Paderewski. We drove up to the music store where the ticket's were sold; I told them who I was and promptly received a present of two guinea-seats. They were in the front row. Of course we went to his room when the recital was over. ''l have invited some friends to dinner to-night," he exclaimed. "Come and join us."

It was a wonderful feast of edibles and wits, as Paderewski's dinners always were. While we were seating, a barrel-organ man '• planted himself right in front of the restaurant. After he had been grinding out a simple tune monotonously for a while, I said: "Hollo! he has changed his key."

With a mischievous twinkle in his eyes Paderewski looked at my wife and said: "He is verv musical —for a critic."

Then and there I made up my mind to got even with him some day. The occasion presented itself at Morges, on Lake Geneva, during the fortnight we spent with him in the summer of 1912. Every Thursday afternoon visitors were allowed to enter the grounds, to see the flowers, the vegetable and fruit gardens, the hothouse, full of grapes, and the fancy poultry on which Madame Paderewski spent' thousand? every year. On our first Thursday our hosts had gone away, leaving us alone. Noticing some ladies in the garden, 1 said to my wife: "I'll sit down and improvise. They will' think it's Paderewski. ..." When our host came back I told him about these ladies, adding that they would now go back home and say to their friends: "You think you know how Parerewski plays because you have heard him in a concert hall; but. you have no idea how much more inspired he is when he improvises in his studio, as we heard him."

Friends of ours who had been guests at Morges had told us about variouspranks played upon them. I was not spared. In the bedroom assigned to me there were articles and , utensil:ffhich, when touched or lifted, played a tune. In the morning Paderewski asked me innocently if I had heard any thing during the night. Quick as f< lightning flash the answer came'to my tongue: "Oh, yes, I heard some chamber music." —From "My Adven turcs in the Golden Age of Music," by Henry T. Finek.