I have used the word apparition advisedly. There is something,
not only in the aspect of Paderewski, which seems to come mysteriously,
but full of light, from a great distance. He startles music into a
surprised awakening.
The art of Paderewski recalls to me the art of the most skilled and the
most distinguished of equilibrists, himself a Pole, Paul Cinquevalli.
People often speak, wrongly, of Paderewski's skill as acrobatic. The
word conveys some sense of disparagement and, so used, is inaccurate.
But there is much in common between two forms of an art in which
physical dexterity counts for so much, and that passionate precision to
which error must be impossible. It is the same kind of joy that you get
from Cinquevalli when he juggles with cannon-balls and from Paderewski
when he brings a continuous thunder out of the piano. Other people do
the same things, but no else can handle thunder or a cannon-ball
delicately. And Paderewski, in his absolute mastery of his instrument,
seems to do the most difficult things without difficulty, with a
scornful ease, an almost accidental quality which, found in perfection,
marvellously decorates it.
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