Honoring Paderewski, “The Golden Lion of the Piano"
by MICHAEL BULYCHEV-OKSER

Some images from the depths of childhood are remembered forever. They are like videotape, which is constantly rewinded and seen again and again. I can clearly see everything as if it was yesterday…

Sketch of Paderewski by David Dubal.

Russia… Winter. It is very cold. So cold that I have to wear a warm coat even when I am indoors. I am cold physically, but mentally I am warm. I am warm because I am listening to wonderful music. My great-grandfather, Samuel Okser, is playing the piano for me. Cheerful trills and swift passages are accompanied by the crackling of wood in the fireplace. His pose, straight and a bit relaxed, attests of total comfort and stability. He finishes playing and turns around. I feel on me the gaze of his kind blue eyes. “Do you know the piece that I just played?” he asks. “No,” I reply, “but I like it.” He smiles. “This was the Menuet in G by Paderewski.”

Ignacy Jan Paderewski. There was hardly anyone in Poland at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th who did not know the name of this legendary figure. With everything he did in his life—playing the piano, composing, or negotiating as prime minister of Poland—he was a symbol of the Polish independent spirit, a true hero of his homeland.

Paderewski was born in 1860. Music and patriotism were part of his life from his earliest years, but it was not until his teens that his piano study began in earnest. Auditioning for Theodore Leschetizky in Vienna, the 24-year-old pianist was told it was “too late.” But Paderewski would not take no for an answer, and persuaded the great teacher to take him on. Paderweski proved himself a worthy pupil, who, in Leschetizky’s words, had “a great heart, a great head, and an immeasurably strong will.”

After four years of study, he debuted in Paris, then conquered England, and eventually toured America. By the 1890s no single pianist in Europe rivaled his popularity. Women from wealthy families would come to his concerts just to admire his impressive mane of golden-auburn hair. When he began to play his famous Menuet in G, a rumble of ecstatic applause would arise from the thrilled audience.

Like Liszt before him, Paderewski was a great showman. One of his gimmicks was opening the stage door and making the audience wait for him to come out. Like Busoni, before every performance he indulged in a bit of the best Champagne.

An inspired orator who spoke often and eloquently on behalf of Polish freedom, Paderewski became his country’s first prime minister when Poland became an independent nation in 1919—a position he held for two years before resuming his piano career. The outbreak of World War II brought Paderewski to the United States in 1939, where he continued to perform and to work for the Polish cause. He died in New York on October 18, 1941, almost penniless (having given his fortune away to cause after cause), and was given a hero’s burial in Washington’s Arlington National Cemetery.

Today Paderewski is largely forgotten, but Juilliard teacher and pianist David Dubal hopes to change that. Dubal recently moderated three lecture-performances at New York’s Kosciuszko Foundation, on October 18 and 25, and November 1, commemorating the 60th anniversary of Paderewski’s death.

The panel discussions with music—both live performances and historic recordings—illuminated Paderewski’s achievements, along with those of other Polish composers of his generation such as Moszkowski, the younger Szymanowski, and the slightly older Scharwenka. “I thought it would be appropriate to surround Paderewski’s music with that by people he knew well and who represented Polish music of that period,” explained Dubal. Other Juilliard pianists, including current students Spencer Myer and this article’s author, as well as recent alumni Jun Ling and Peter Wittenberg, also participated.

“Today the world changes instantly, and in general we have become history-less,” said Dubal. “The deeds of the great departed must be kept alive.” Once as revered a world figure as Einstein, Schweitzer, and Edison, Dubal said, Paderewski “deserves to be remembered as a great hero not only of the piano, but a statesman who helped create modern Poland.”

Michael Bulychev-Okser is a student of Oxana Yablonskaya.