Paderewski’s Revenge

The great Polish pianist Ignace Jan Paderweski took the opportunity to get even with an agent named Wolff who mistreated him on his way to the top. And he wondered ever after what it had cost him to even the score.

It happened in Berlin in 1890. Paderweski was an international sensation, and he was to perform his piano concerto in Berlin with the eminent conductor Hans Von Bulow.

Wolff’s agency was the most powerful in Europe. In 1889 Paderewski had asked Wolff to manage his German concert tour and Wolff had flatly refused. An ears before, when Wolff had been manager for Anton Rubinstein, he had forbidden Paderewski even to stand in the hall during Rubinstein’s Paris concert.

Now, on the eve of Paderewski’s Berlin debut, Wolff invited Paderewski to come under his management. He made no mention of the previous encounters. Paderewski reminded him of them point by unpleasant point and steadfastly refused.

“Oh, well,” Wo1ff laughed, “that is business my dear sir — business! Don’t regard it so seriously. Join me now and you’ll be very glad you have. You’ll never regret it, never if you come to me.” Wolff added solemnly, “If no is your answer, I must tell you very frankly that you will regret it.”

The next day, during the performance of Paderewski’s concerto the orchestra played abominably. Once they had gotten through the concerto, which Paderewski later described as a massacre, a further indignity was waiting. Paderwesiki was playing a series of solos. Von Bulow had been sitting by the piano. During a funeral march by Schubert, he suddenly jumped up, pushed his chair back, and ran from the stage. It was impossible for Paderewski to continue. The program ended in a complete fiasco.

Was von Bulow conspiring with Wolff to ruin the concert? Paderewski never found out, but he came to consider Schubert’s funeral march a funeral march for his debut in Berlin.