Paderewski Listens To His Music

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 153, 1 July 1939, Page 11

Paderewski Listens To His Music

BOSTON.—“Here he is!" Members 1 of the Pops Orchestra stationed at rear • windows of Symphony Hall cried to the I men rehearsing on the stage a little i after noon to-day. < The orchestra laid down its instru- j ments as one man and sprang to its i feet, facing toward the shadowy corner : of the balcony, where in a few moments i an erect figure stepped inside the door l and took a seat in the deepest shadow. . [it was Ignace Jan Paderewski, who re- [ cently had thrilled an audience crowd- . ling into every corner of the Boston j Opera House. That was expect to be his farewell , 'appearance in Boston as an artist — , after long decades of supremacy at tho piano keyboard. To-day he came as a composer to hear his own music played by young Jesus Maria Sanroma, Boston concert pianist. With the dim emptiness of the hall

hidden by the dull red rehearsal curtain —except for three rows of the green tables and gilt chairs of the “Pops" and with just a handful of orchestra officials sitting near him in the balcony, Paderewski sat motionless in tho twilight of the unlightcd balcony, in rapt attention as Mr Sanroma entered upon his Concerto. ! His face was expressionless—as if all his thought was carried back to' the brilliant days in which he had expressed himself through his own interpretation of this music—with perhaps a ■ wonder as to the message it would carry to the future through other lingers such as those now fleeting over the keys. 1 Once ho raised a finger in anticipation of an apparently specially loved passage. That was his only movement except for brief clapping at the conclusion.