George Bernard Shaw

Shaw to Mary Lawton, 11 November 1938

Though you have deserted the stage for literature your impersonation of Paderewski in this book of his and yours must rank with your greatest achievements as an actress. It has every quality of a great autobiography. It actually sent me to the index of the four volumes of my musical criticisms of 50 years ago to see what I had said when Paderewski swooped on London and was immediately drawn as an archangel by Burne-Jones. I am glad to find that I made no mistake about him : he appears in my notices as the greatest pianist of that time, and probably of all time. He has forgotten them all except one which annoyed him ; and therefore he appears in the book, as far as I am concerned, as a monster of ingratitude ; but I can explain that misunderstanding.

I think it was during Busoni's last visit to London that he invited me to a concert to hear an arrangement of his compositions played on two pianos by himself and Egon Petri. I said to him then, "There is only one thing on earth more damnable than one grand piano, and that is two grand pianos," Busoni understood this at once. "That is true, he said, "but we cannot do without them."

This had not occurred to anybody when Paderewski arrived in London. the louder the music the better people liked it—or pretended to like it ; for there was a frightful lot of pretence about the vogue of classical music in Victorian days. Rubinstein, his most famous predecessor, waved his arms furiously in the air and pretended to bang the piano like a savage. You see, there had been a change in the instrument. The old wooden pianos which made the fame of Brod woods, and for which Beethoven and Chopin composed, had been supplanted by a monster called the iron grand, now a steel one. Leschetizsky, the greatest teacher of that day, realised that a steel piano needed steel fingers to play it. He taught Paderewski a touch undreamt of by Wieck or Kullak, and made him the Stalin of the iron grand. Paderewski did not know that this was a novelty in London.

In the book he describes Clara Schumann to you as a poor old lady who could not play a fortissimo. And indeed she was old then and had gouty fingers ; but she could still make a simple scale beautiful. He says he played Schumann's fortissimo passages fortissimo ; but he does not know that the fortissimo of the iron monster under his steel fingers, whilst it would have drowned ten Clara Schumanns, would have sent Schumann himself into the street with his fingers in his ears. My mother's favourite pianist was Thalberg (I never heard him) and next to him Hallé. Liszt and Rubinstein bridged the change. I never heard Liszt ; but I heard many players of his school. Rubinstein I did hear. He was an extraordinary player, but not to be compared to Paderewski in comprehension of the great composers : he played Beethoven like a bear. Paderewski was a civilised player who brought fine culture and mental grasp to is work : he would have thrown aside the steel monster and become a great conductor if a conductor could then have earned the revenue of a prince as a great pianist did.

* * *

I await the second volume* with an interest and curiosity that is extraordinary considering my age (I am older than your hero). I was in my forties when I studied Paderewski the pianist. Now in my eighties I want to hear about Paderewski the President. When he played the Emperor Concerto the difference between him and all his rivals was that he played it presidentially. So much so that it was quite natural for Poland to make him President in 1918 after his great American campaign. We want to know all about that ; for how so great an artist could endure even for a single year as he did in 1919 our parliamentary politics, which can have suggested nothing to him but cats fighting on the keyboard, is a bit of history that has not yet been made known to us.

Enough, dear Mary.        

[Signed, 'G. Bernard Shaw'.]

The Paderewski memoirs,
by Ignace Jan Paderewski and Mary Lawton.
London : Collins 1939, pp. 15-6 and 17.

    * The II World War (1939-45) having intervened, the contemplated second volume had never materialised. The several political papers by Paderewski are largely available in various collections. (WPT).

Selected Bibliographic, http://melvyl.cdlib.org

Author Paderewski, Ignace Jan, 1860-1941. Title The Paderewski memoirs, by Ignace Jan Paderewski and Mary Lawton. Publisher London, Collins [1939] Description 395 p. front., illus., plates, ports., facsims. 24 cm. Note To August 1, 1914. "Later memoirs in preparation."
[ Contains a letter by Shaw to Mary Lawton of 11 Nov. 1938, pp. 15-17. ]