Music and Politics
The Paderewski Memoirs. By I. Paderewski and Mary Lawton. (Collins. 21s.) M. PADEREwSm's memoirs, of which this first instalment carries us down to the outbreak of war in 1914, are the record of a striking personality and a long and successful life. Born in 186o in a Polish family just beyond the eastern frontier of what is now (or was until a few weeks ago) Poland, he studied music in Warsaw and Vienna, and was early launched on the career which made hint the most famous pianist of his generation. In the 189o's he had reached the height of his power and reputation. He played in Germany, France and England, in Tsarist Russia, in Spain and Italy, in the Americas North and South, in Australia and New Zealand, and was everywhere greeted by the same large and admiring audiences. He performed before most of the crowned heads of Europe, including Queen Victoria, but not before Edward VII, who did not like music, and not before the Tsar, who at the last moment found it impolitic to listen to a Pole.
Like other artists, M. Paderewski sometimes had his difficulties with the conditions in which he was expected to appear, and with philistine agents and managers. He had also to cope with the eternal problem of talkative audiences, particularly at those highly remunerative but otherwise un- rewarding recitals at drawing-room receptions which were once popular in the high society of London and Paris. Such embarrassments he met with unfailing tact. But a crowded life, a charming personality, artistic genius, and many en- counters with famous men are not in themselves a guarantee of literary achievement ; and it is hard to agree with the verdict of Mr. Bernard Shaw's laudatory foreword that this is a " great autobiography." It has been dictated by M. Paderewski to Miss Mary Lawton, whose name appears on the title-page as co-author, but who, judging from internal evidence, has confined herself a good deal too strictly to the role of transcriber. In these four hundred pages we have far too many of the repetitions, digressions, irrelevancies and longueurs which are natural and appropriate in spoken reminiscences, but tiresome and inexcusable in the written word. More ruthless editing would have cut down the pre- sent volume to half its present dimensions and vastly improved it.
There are, however, many striking descriptions and com- ments which encourage the reader to plough through this rather formidable mass of recollections. Such is the story of his childhood in the tense political conditions following the Polish insurrection of 1863, during which his father was arrested. (M. Paderewski has throughout his life remained a good Polish patriot.) There is a welcome, though in these days unfashionable, tribute to the late Victorian age which was the heyday of his own musical achievement. " The passing of that great period, the 'nineties, brought to a close a tre- mendous era, a flowering of all that was most beautiful and elegant in life. We shall not see it again." The story of the suffragette who shouted to Mr. Lloyd George, " If you were my husband, I would give you poison," and provoked the re- tort " My dear lady, if I were your husband, I would take poison myself," has an authentic ring and may have been recorded before.
In this volume, at any rate, M. Paderewski rarely ventures into politics; and one of his few political judgements suggests perhaps that this self-restraint was prudent. Australia, he declares, " became a desert artistically because the Labour Government came into power shortly after our stay there and ruled for some twenty-three years. During that time the whole of the country fell into an almost barbarian state. They considered that people working with their brains, but not with their muscles, were not working at all, and it was complete decline of intelligence and of good form." Her.r we surely have an echo of one of those late Victorian society drawing-rooms where M. Paderewski played in his prime.
E. H. CARR.
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