The San Francisco call., 1908-03-01
PADEREWSkI IS
GREAT PLODDFR
Master Pianist Practices Five
Hours Daily When Not
Giving Concerts
Talks of the Symphony He Is
Completing and of Ameri=
can Composers
BY Waiter Anthony

Those gifts of personality and tenn
permanent = elusive and indeflnable
qualities-which make Paderewski a
unique figure even among the geniuses
of the keyboard are determinable facts,
so much q part of the man himself,
that even the informality of the break
fast table does not disulusionize you
Not that he goes about with his fine
head in the clouds of romance all the
time, or that he discourses esthetics
through misty clouds OF curling cigar
cite smoke after the approved style
of faulty genius. On the contrary, he
is very much q man, and his grip of
greeting explains his tremendous triple
forte. The only feminine suggestion
about him is his wife.
A long chapter might be written on
the feminine In art, more especially
tone art, for the quality called feminine
is the charm of Keats and Beethoven,
Poe and Chopin, Wagner and Pade-
rewski. In Paderewsh 1t expresses
itself in the most tender touch that a
player has ever put to an ivory key.
In the thrust and parry of ordinary
chat 1t lies dormant you are not aware
of it's presence, while the masculine is
as dominant as @ is to C. There is
no subdominant in his conversation.
LIVES IN PRIVATE CAR
Through an arran cement with which
Paderewski, as 1t turned out, had moth
ing to do, I was to visit him yesterday
at his home, corner OF Fourth and King
streets. and a very comfortable and
cozy home II is, though rendered some
what discordant by the interminable
putting of locomotives, rafting OF
freight cars and rumble Of over
land trains through his front yard.
Paderewski lives in his private car, and
says he cannot sleep of nights without
the noise Of passing trains.
He made the best of the invasion
into his home; assured me In terms Of
hattering sincerity that was welcome
and sat me down to my second break
fast with such persuasion that ! for
got the convention which would ordi-
narily prevail with reference to the
number OF times it is proper to break
ones fast, and I paid my share Of
tribute to the chef responsible for the
temptation.
Miss Adele Verne, pianist and artist
a former Paderewski pupil and present
Paderewski enthusiast, formed with the
madame the little party which robbed
the event of It's professional incubus.
Indeed, so freely did the Pole discuss
anything and anybody that the present
impulse is strong against abusing the
confidence.
For instance, Paderewski is a Rus
sian now. by virtue Of his recent ap-
pointment as director of the Russian
conservatory Of music 81 have to
spend three months of every year at
that work." he said. But he talked,
too. about his symphony, now nearly
completed, which, 1t is rumored. Is
patriotically Polish in content and SUBJ
stance.
TT is discouraging," he went on,
''and I fret about it more than I should
whenever I think of the hours 1 spend
playing five finger exercises, which
time might more enjoyably be given to
composition. But the drudgery Is es-
sential. I put in four or five hours
every day at 1t except on the days of
my concerts. Then 1 do not touch the
keys at all until / get before my
audience,
Think of spending five hours out
Of a day playing scales! But tone and
technic, conception and expression are
so intimately associated that without
the digital facility developed to it's
highest degree there must be a tagging
message. Just as a writer gets a new
thought when he learns a new word,
or q painter new effect when he adds
another tint to his palette, so a pianist
of music when he develops the mechan-
fcal means of expression. The thing
said and the way it is said are so
Identical In music.
First there is the vague impulse to