Читать книгу: «Ignaz Jan Paderewski», страница 5

In much the same vein I wrote of a recital held at St. James's Hall in 1901. "The fascination of Paderewski held criticism in check. I know that his Beethoven in C was smallish Beethoven; that there were many spots of virtuoso exaggeration of contrast; but I also know that the adagio molto had a poetry of expression which many better-balanced pianists miss, and that the last movement had a growing power which carried one away. I know, too, that Schumann's sonata in F sharp minor was too exaggerated, that its force was often too febrile. I will even admit that Paderewski's technique is not always as clear as it might be; that for perfection of finger dexterity Rosenthal, Godowsky, Busoni and Pachmann surpass him. If you press it, I will confess that Paderewski's force is hysterical, an explosion of exacerbated nerves; that, metaphorically, he has his back to the wall and with tight-drawn lips is fighting for his life. His strength, you may say, is almost a weakness. It has no reserve and occasionally it is perilously akin to ranting. He is also too fond of unnecessary dynamic contrasts – the sign of the virtuoso all the world over, whether he be a pianist or a chorus-master. I would not even combat the assertion that he often allows a fastidious brain to prompt new readings when novelty is unnecessary, and I must admit that he has the abominable trick of opening his chords – the kind of thing one expects in a third-rate pianist bidding for a cheap popularity. Is the catalogue of defects full? If not, insert some more, and then —

"Why, then, I will still assert that Paderewski is the greatest of living pianists. He has what so many of them do not possess – a strong individuality and real insight as a musical poet. D'Albert might play that Beethoven sonata with a nicer balance and a more intellectual grasp; but he would not create that glowing atmosphere. Paderewski's reading cannot be held up as a model to young men and maidens. It was very subjective. I do not ask Paderewski to be anything but himself, for his self interests me. But, at any rate, the performances of Haydn's Variations in F minor and Mozart's Rondo in A minor were perfect enough in restraint and classical grace to rank as models. They seemed to me to represent the normal Paderewski.

"And his Chopin playing particularly appeals to me. Pachmann, in the lesser Chopin, and Godowsky as well, play with more polish of phrase, and they have a more extended gamut of dynamic nuances; but neither plays as a poet would play, and Chopin, with all his absolute musical fastidiousness, was a poet. Pachmann is too pre-occupied with mere beauty of tone and with the rhetoric of antithesis; Godowsky with the perfection of finger technique. Busoni's Chopin playing can alone be compared to Paderewski's, for Busoni has a poet's imagination. But Paderewski has more emotional fibre." As a marginal note to this criticism, it should be said that the pianist was not at his best in that year. The tendency to nervous explosions was not so marked when he visited us the following summer.

It must be confessed that Paderewski's repertoire is rather limited. He never makes experiments with the compositions of new men, and I do not remember if he has ever played anything of Alkans or of César Franck. The plan of his programmes is apt to be stereotyped – a group of pieces by Bach, Handel, Scarlatti – or other of the harpsichord composers; then a sonata of Mozart or Beethoven, followed by the German romantic school, and ending with Chopin, Liszt, and Rubinstein, or his own compositions. Still, it is very difficult for a pianist to import novelty into the programme of a recital, and until quite recently modern composers have ignored the piano. But if Paderewski's repertoire is not very extended, his sympathies are catholic enough. There is only one other pianist who can be compared with him in this respect – Busoni. The rest have such limitations of sympathy that one could wish they would follow Pachmann's example and confine themselves to the composers they understand. Paderewski is, perhaps, at his best in the playing of Chopin and Liszt, and, at the other extreme, in his reproduction of the old harpsichord music. The racial spirit in him, which I have already shown is a real part of his composition, enables him to realise the bigger Chopin as no other pianist realises him. In the Chopin which mainly demands agility of finger and a refined sense of harmony, Busoni and Pachmann excel Paderewski; but neither can play the great Scherzo in C sharp minor as Paderewski plays it. His Beethoven is unequal. Sometimes, if in the mood, he will give you a performance of one of the later sonatas which cannot be surpassed for grandeur and glow of emotion (he could never be a mere "classical" Beethoven player); at other times his readings are rather small and not sufficiently architectural. He has done wonderful things with the "Moonlight" and "Waldstein" sonatas, however. His Beethoven is never uninteresting, and it is something that he spares us the hard austerity of some of the Beethoven playing which is so highly praised in these days.

It has been well said that Paderewski treats Bach as a modern romanticist, following the example of Liszt in this. The Bach worshipper of a certain type is not likely to admire Paderewski's readings, but the pianist certainly does bring out all the beauty of the composer's music. If Mme. Schumann's idea of her husband's music was right, then Paderewski is apt to treat him too much as a virtuoso composer. His playing is a trifle wanting in the true German reflectiveness, but the romance is realised. The concerto is one of Paderewski's finest achievements, however. When an appeal is not made to his Slav temperament, Paderewski's mind seems to find most pleasure in the refinement of Weber, Mendelssohn, and Mozart. He has done a great deal to rehabilitate Mendelssohn. He made serious musicians ashamed of their estimate of the "Variations Sérieuses," and he reset the exquisite gems of melody enshrined in the "Songs without Words," made so dim by the clumsy handling of generations of schoolgirls.

In all Paderewski does there is evidence of much musical thought. That is to say, even when he treats a composition to a new, and, as it seems, a sensational performance, the conception is consistent throughout. And that is one of the reasons why the pianist carries you away even when he runs counter to theories or prejudices. Your mind may be critically at work throughout the whole performance, but you feel at the same time that the player is not making a bid for the popularity of empty sensationalism. Those who accuse him of that are wrong. They forget that with all his intense quietude of manner, Paderewski is at heart a Pole, and that the very nervous force which enables him to play with glowing power is also apt to make him exaggerated and exuberant; but the musical intellect has artistically planned out these outbursts, which are seldom merely physical.

The weakness of his playing on its technical side lies in a tendency to smudginess of execution. Paderewski cannot lay claim to the absolute clearness of Busoni; nor has he the magical fingers of a Godowsky. But I am not at all sure that the defects of his technique are not an expression of his merits as a tone poet. It is inconceivable that a player of Paderewski's fiery and nervous temperament should be a perfect mechanician. Moreover, his lapses from technical rectitude are never lapses from the higher technique of the piano. No pianist so well understands how to produce beautiful tone; no pianist has such a variety of touch; and none such a grasp of the art of pedalling and phrasing. The Paderewski tone is a thing by itself. Above all, he is a master of rhythm. The wonderful, subtle nuances of tempo rubato which distinguish his playing are the expression of a genuine, musical nature. Sometimes this extraordinary grasp of rhythm may lead him to attempt effects which were not, perhaps, within his composer's intentions, but they are musical effects and not merely capricious. In brief, Paderewski appeals to lovers of music, not because he is the most wonderful player of his instrument that has ever existed, but because he is a genuine tone-poet, a man of exceptional nature and rare temperament.

Perhaps he has summed himself and his aims as well as any one else could sum them up. "If I were asked," said the great pianist to an interviewer, "to name the chief qualification of a great pianist, apart from technical excellence, I should answer in a word, genius. That is the spark which fires every heart, that is the voice which all men stop to hear! Lacking genius, your pianist is simply a player – an artist, perhaps – whose work is politely listened to or admired in moderation as a musical tour de force. He leaves his hearers cold, nor is the appeal which he makes through the medium of his art, a universal one. And here let me say, referring to the celebrated 'paradox' of Diderot, that I am firmly of the belief that the pianist, in order to produce the finest and most delicate effects must feel what he is playing, identify himself absolutely with his work, be in sympathy with the composition in its entirety, as well as with its every shade of expression. Only so shall he speak to that immense audience which ever depends on perfect art. Yet – and here is a paradox indeed – he must put his own personality resolutely, triumphantly into his interpretation of the composer's ideas."

IX
AS COMPOSER

It will be remembered that Paderewski began his musical career with the aim of being a composer, and through all the stress of his life as a virtuoso he has never lost sight of that aim. Indeed, he has more than once expressed the intention of retiring gradually from the concert platform in order that he may devote all his time to composition. The work he has already done is not to be passed over lightly as a pianist's music. Paderewski has certainly more originality than Rubinstein, and as he is now only in his forty-seventh year there is every possibility that he will make a name for himself as composer. It has already been related that Paderewski was by way of being a prodigy composer. At the early age of seven he wrote a set of Polish dances, but none of his compositions was published until he was twenty-two years of age. These early works, numbering some forty pieces, include Mazardas, Polonaises, Krakowiaks, and other Polish dances, a Caprice, an Intermezzo, a Sarabande, an Elegy, and many Mélodies, all of them surcharged with national spirit. It is facile criticism to trace the influence of Chopin in these pianoforte pieces of Paderewski's, and it is too often forgotten that many of the characteristics of the great composer's music were drawn from Polish music. Paderewski himself once remarked on this point: "The moment you try to be national, every one cries out that you are imitating Chopin, whereas the truth is that Chopin adopted all the most marked characteristics of our national music so completely that it is impossible not to resemble him in externals, though your methods and ideas may be absolutely your own."

Of the smaller compositions of Paderewski the most famous is, of course, the Minuet, which has nothing in it of Polish colour, but is a charming and skilful essay in the old style. A writer in a German periodical has told an amusing, if apocryphal story of this Minuet. "When Paderewski was a professor at the Warsaw Conservatoire, he was a frequent visitor at my house, and one evening I remarked that no living composer could be compared with Mozart. Paderewski's only reply was a shrug of the shoulders, but the next day he came back, and, sitting down at the piano, said, 'I should like to play you a little piece of Mozart's which you perhaps do not know.' He then played the Minuet. I was enchanted with it and cried, 'Now you will yourself acknowledge that nobody of our time could furnish us with a composition like that.' 'Well,' answered Paderewski, 'this Minuet is mine.'" The worthy German writer could have had but a superficial knowledge of Mozart's style of harmony. But the Minuet is certainly a charming little piece. Hardly less remarkable in its daintiness is the "Chant du Voyageur," number 3 of Opus 8, and the Thème Varié, Opus 11 is very skilful in its harmonic treatment of a naïve, eighteenth century tune. The Variations and Fugue and Humoresques à l'antique enable one to understand how Paderewski can play Scarlatti, Couperin, and Rameau with such intimate sympathy. These works may be said to represent one side of his talent, perhaps not the most original. In direct contrast with them are his fiery Polish dances – his Cracovienne and Polonaises. In his later compositions he has given up his imitations of the antique and has been gradually finding his own utterance in the idiom of national music. In his early life, however, he composed a short sonata for violin and piano, which, as far as I know, has not been performed in England; but, of course, the pianoforte sonata in A minor, Op. 17, which was written when he was twenty-eight years of age, is the most important contribution in a more or less "classical" style which has come from his pen. It served to introduce Paderewski as a composer to an English audience on the occasion of his first recitals at St. James's Hall in 1890. "In point of form this Concerto," wrote Mr. C. A. Barry in his analytical notes, "which is far more a matter of evolution than a stringing together of tunes, closely follows the traditionally classical lines, and is strikingly free from irrelevant and episodical passages, except such as immediately grow out of the subject-matter. In spirit it is strongly pervaded by the characteristics of Polish national music, with its proud, chivalrous and dreamy accents." Much of the music is of a virtuoso character, but the Romanza, an Andante, is a little gem of inspiration, and the finale is full of vivacity and spirit. Paderewski himself makes a very effective composition of this Concerto.

A considerable period elapsed between the composition of the Concerto (in 1888) and that of the Polish Fantasia, which was first performed at the Norwich Festival of 1893. It was actually written in the summer in that year. In this work national feeling is very strongly marked. This betrays itself in the treatment, and in the themes, which although the composer's own, are distinctly Polish in character. The work is full of colour, picturesqueness and romance, and in general it has the air of a Rhapsody. In the slow movement there is a power of combining themes which Paderewski had not previously shown, and the orchestra is handled with much skill both in the matter of instrumentation and in its combination with the piano. The Fantasia, which was afterwards repeated at a Philharmonic concert, placed the composer on a higher plane than anything he had hitherto done.

That Paderewski did not mean to confine himself to compositions for the piano and orchestra was soon proved by rumours of an opera on which he was engaged. Nothing of importance came from his pen until "Manru" was produced at Dresden on May 29, 1901, but the pianoforte score had been finished as long ago as 1895. As Paderewski had not hitherto composed anything of moment for the voice – his four songs, Op. 7, and the late set of six which Mr. Edward Lloyd sang to the composer's accompaniment are fanciful but of no great importance – there was much anticipation as to the result of his new departure. It should be said that at one time the composer was in negotiation with the late Sir Augustus Harris for the production of the opera at Covent Garden, but he could not see his way to accept the suggested alterations which the impresario thought necessary. As a matter of fact most of these alterations were made when the work was performed at Dresden. It was generally admitted, and the criticism was upheld when "Manru" was mounted in New York in 1902, that the opera suffers from its libretto.

The plot was borrowed from a Polish Romance, Kraszewski's "The Cabin behind the Wood," by the librettist, Dr. Alfred Nossig and sets forth how Manru, a gypsy, has won the love of a Galician maiden, Ulana, and has married her in the gypsy fashion. On her return to her native place, seeking her mother's forgiveness and help, she is received with contumely and a mother's curse. Her kind friends prepare her for the inconstancy of Manru by citing instances of the general fickleness in love of all gypsies, and Ulana, in order to keep Manru's love, seeks the help of Urok, a dwarf and magician who has the reputation of being a sorcerer. By the aid of a magic draught she keeps Manru to her side for a time, but the gypsy blood will out and, fascinated by a girl of his own race, he rejoins his tribe. This is not to the liking of the gypsy chief, Oros, who is in love with the same woman, Asa, and Manru's rehabitation is opposed. Matters then become too complicated for opera, and that is the weakness of the libretto. Oros finding his authority has no weight with the tribe breaks his staff and Manru is proclaimed chief in his stead. Ulana, in despair at the loss of her husband, hurls herself over a precipice, and Oros coming secretly on Manru and his new love Asa suddenly attacks his rival and throws him into the abyss. A strain of symbolism runs though the story. Thus Manru is not merely fickle, but is torn this way and that by his love for Ulana and his racial passion for music. You may, if you choose, look on Ulana as the embodiment of human love and Asa as representing the spiritual love of the artist.