Speeches by Vauclain, Sewall and Finley
edited by Maja Trochimczyk
Introductory Remarks
by Samuel M. Vauclain [1]
As one of the founders of the Kościuszko Foundation,[2] it is my very great pleasure this evening to open the ceremonies in connection with this memorable occasion. As one of these founders, I wish to thank all of those present for the hearty support they have given us tonight, and the support that they have given this new bond which we are trying too forge between the Republic of Poland and the United States.
The Kościuszko Foundation is intended to bring both Nations into closer relationship, and to promote mutual exchange of the riches that are contained in both countries. As a part of our program to achieve this purpose, we have taken this occasion to invite as our guest a most noted Pole. The Kościuszko Foundation is a monument, a living monument to that wonderful patriot, Kościuszko, who fought with General Washington, and who served this country in its most dire extremity to his utmost.[3] We feel that there could be no monument to his memory so lasting as this living memorial which we are trying to erect, the Kościuszko Foundation. We are delighted this evening to have with us another patriot; not a patriot of the eighteenth or nineteenth century, but a patriot of the twentieth century, and such a patriot as no one can find the equal of in the entire land. I refer to our guest of the evening, Mr. Paderewski.
Before I turn this meeting over to the President of the Foundation to be conducted in an orderly manner, I desire to say just a few words about this twentieth century patriot—a man, an artist, and known as an artist all over the world. When the first intimation of war came to him, he closed up that wonderful instrument, ceased to be an artist, and started to be a patriot and a statesman; began the work that was to end in the recognition of Poland—Poland once more free and free forever.
Those who have been in the war from the time it started in 1914 until the present time know full well what this gentleman accomplished by his utmost endeavor, his utmost endeavor because his whole life was in it, his fortune was in it. There was no time to be lost if freedom for his people was to be obtained; if the yoke was to be thrown off so that the whole world should once more realize what the Polish people are to this world.
He accomplished it. His speeches will go down into history. They were not only the speeches of a statesman, of a patriot, but of an artist. The words from his lips were like the music from his hands, and wherever he was listened to conviction went with the effort which he made. Well do I remember the address he made here in this city, in Carnegie Hall. None was ever made like it. It is a question whether any will ever be made like it. His confidence in his people as he bared their condition to the world was unbounded. The present President of Czecho-Slovakia after Mr. Paderewski has finished said that there was nothing left for him to say.[4]Spellbound the audience was, including the Poles who, if you will permit me to say, are a deep-thinking people. They are emotional, it is true, and so are we Americans, those who are red-blooded, emotional also; even more so than the Frenchmen. And why? Because we are brave enough to speak out that which we think. We have the nerve to go ahead and do those things which we want to do, and which are necessary to be done.
I well remember in this same Carnegie Hall a few years later, when the Soviets were knocking at the doors of Warsaw, that the Polish people of this City were in a frenzy.[5]
I was asked to come from Philadelphia and say a few words to them upon that memorable evening. The speakers who preceded me had left nothing but a question. There was still a doubt. You could read it in the very faces of the more than 5,000 people who were there assembled. But I simply stated to these people gathered there my opinion of their countrymen who were baring their breasts and standing for the defense of Warsaw, that they should not be faint-hearted. I said: “Go to your homes; I assure you Warsaw will not fall.” They went at once. And Warsaw did not fall, and as the newspapers announced the next morning, and my reputation as a prophet was saved.
Mr. President [of the Kościuszko Foundation, Mr. Henry Noble MacCracken] [6] I am not here to conduct the exercises or take up the time of those who must conduct the exercises and therefore, if my audience will permit, I turn over to your tender care the remainder of the procedure.
In Praise of Paderewski: An Address
by Arthur V. Sewall [7]
One can readily appreciate the tangibles and estimate their values. They have length, breadth and thickness. Their influence, whatever it may be, is never voluntary, and to describe them is a simple undertaking. But if, on the other hand, a portrayal and estimate is to be made of the imprint upon our life and people by one of the world’s greatest men, himself a personage of international renown; heroic in character, in his humanities, his genius, his statecraft and his patriotism; now, and always to be, of the galaxy of the great men of the ages; then he to whom the portrayal of such an one has been entrusted, realizing how epochal is the occasion, must and will suffer from a penetrating sense of sheer inadequacy.
Fresh from victories in France, he came to us when he was thirty-one, “with his wonderful aureole of golden hair.”[8] He came, he saw, he conquered. He came opportunely—for us both, if it is fair to say—for reasons.
Receptivity to culture and to cultural influence has always been present in the American blood, though somewhat dormant. It came down to us from the long-time civilization of our British and European forbears. But we had been a pioneering people from the time of our arrival over here and in 1891 had not yet finished the job. Men and women absorbed in their effort of conquering such a vast wilderness as North America were not interested in nor willing to be troubled by bothersome food for the mind. They had, undoubtedly, a latent love and ear for music, though habituated only to hymns; and a liking for literature, if definitely moral. Colleges there were, many of them and other educational institutions, some with opportunities for instruction in music and art, though not so many, and there was a rapidly developing public school system destined to become one of the wonders of the world. But we were not much on culture! Our intellectual compass, the wonderful Ralph Waldo Emerson,[9] pleaded with us to turn our thoughts in that direction; and Matthew Arnold [10] came from England to see and determine for himself what manner of people we were, having done which, on leaving, he described us as Philistine, in words of soberness and truth. Emerson and Arnold were right, though we disliked being told. Out of the ruction came an ambition to follow Emerson and tie our thoughts to a star… And so, we were ready to give an unprecedented welcome to the coming of Paderewski, trailing clouds of musical glory, with his message and his charm.
“Whatever the course of the world’s history may have later demanded of Mr. Paderewski as a statesman,” writes our eminent musical authority, Mr. Richard Aldrich,[11]
“and however practically and brilliantly he may have responded to those demands, he will remain, for the vast majority of his American admirers, the great musician. His place in their admiration and affection is, first, that of the master pianist, the conjurer with the magic of tones, and then that of the composer of strong individuality, tinged deeply with the color of his Polish nationality. He seemed to speak a new language in music. He raised its poetry, its magic, its mystery, its romantic eloquence to a higher power than his listeners had ever known. It seemed as if he spoke directly in an individual appeal, touching the heart as never before. There was a beauty of line as well as of color and atmosphere, a poignancy of phrase, a quality of tone, a lyrical accent—so it seemed—such as made of his playing something never till then quite divined.”
But graphically pictured in words by Paderewski’s devoted friend, Richard Watson Gilder, under the title “How Paderewski Plays:”[12]
If words were perfume, color, wild desire
If poet’s song were fire
That burned to blood in purple-pulsing veins;
If with a bird-like trill the moments throbbed to hours;
If summer’s rains
Turned drop by drop to shy, sweet, maiden flowers;
If God made flowers with light and music in them,
And saddened hearts could win them,
If loosened petals touched the ground
With a caressing sound;
If love’s eyes uttered word
No listening lover e’er before had heard;
If silent thoughts spake with a bugle’s voice;
If flame passed into song and cried, “Rejoice, rejoice!”
If words could picture life’s hopes, heaven’s eclipse
When the last kiss has fallen on dying eyes and lips;
If all of mortal woe
Struck on one heart with breathless blow by blow;
If melody were tears and tears were starry gleams
That shone in evening’s amethystine dreams;
Ah, yes, if notes were stars, each star a different hue,
Trembling to earth in dew;
Or, of the boreal pulsings, rose and white,
Made majestic music in the night;
If all the orbs lost in the light of day
In the deep silent blue began their harps to play;
And when, in frightening skies
The lightnings flashed
And storm-clouds crashed,
If every stroke of light and sound were excess of beauty;
If human syllables could e’er refashion
that fierce electric passion;
If ever art could image (as were the poet’s duty)
The grieving, and the rapture, and the thunder
Of that keen hour of wonder,
That light as if of heaven, that blackness as of hell, –
How Paderewski Plays than might I dare to tell.
With such consummate magic Paderewski played to his vast audiences, the recipient of admiration and homage form all; registered on parchment, marble and in bronze. Let us add, parenthetically, that a dozen of his Rubata, assorted, are worth a whole carload of metronomes.
“He has garnered the laurels,” continues Richard Aldrich, “not only of a great interpreter, but also the more lasting, if less dazzling, fame of a composer. At his first American concerts he played his own concerto and his Polish Fantasia.[13] Many of his pianoforte solos, rooted in the soil of Poland, fragrant with the blossoms of Polish national art, were amongst his best beloved offerings. Many will remember the popularity of his melodious Minuet, the exotic charm of his Chant du Voyageur, and of his Nocturne.[14] His sonata for pianoforte and violin had made its way to America before his own arrival. Later, his own Polish opera, Manru, was produced in his presence at the Metropolitan Opera House.[15] Still later, he gave the Boston Symphony Orchestra, for its first performance, his symphony, at that time unfinished; a work of sombre spirit, of grand and moving power, denoting a new direction and a new development of his creative activity, followed by a profoundly felt pianoforte sonata and a set of variations for pianoforte solo.[16]
Mr. Paderewski reaped great fortunes repeatedly in America; but he felt himself so much a part of its people as to wish to leave here a permanent personal impression. He gave lavishly, with both hands, for charity. Many were the benefit performances which he proffered for the support of worthy causes. Many are the artists he has helped and encouraged. And he established a perpetual reminder of his interest in American art and its progress in the Paderewski Prize for compositions of outstanding merit in various forms by American composers, repeatedly awarded.[17]
For upwards of forty years, Mr. Paderewski’s profoundly poetic and passionate love for art has been a blessing to the people of our country. It is a joy to think that the American public’s reaction toward one who had always put his technical powers so completely at the service of the highest ideals in music, was and has remained, so immediate, so straight and so lasting; and that such influences as he has exerted have gained him permanent affection in the minds and hearts of the American people.
In diplomacy, his charming personality, effective through the medium of countless friends, enabled him with telling result too exert his personal influence for his beloved country at a most critical hour, obtaining by his unselfish passionate patriotism, definite terms for the Polish cause in war objectives and material aid. His personality and eloquent pleadings procured the determination on the part of President Wilson that there should be a fixed clause in the famous Fourteen Points to make certain the freeing and revivifying of Poland![18]
All the while, he was lavishly using his personal fortune and devising in other ways stimulus and support for his war-stricken people. Through five of these years he did not touch the piano. “I cannot play,” he said, “while men, women, and children are suffering and the world is aflame.”[19] In the autumn of 1917, after a concert tour had been arranged in every detail, with guaranteed net profits equal to twice the yearly salary of the President of the United States, he wired to his manager briefly these few words: “Cancel tour. All my time is needed for Poland.” Yet, notwithstanding the continuing drain upon his private means, he donated, as late as August 1926, twenty-eight thousand dollars to the Endowment Fund of the American Legion, placing him as of that date at the top of the list of the Legion’s generous supporters.
The cultural contributions of Paderewski to American life are so numerous and significant that to enumerate them in their entirety is impossible. But while in this connection we shall always think first of his achievements as a musician, composer, interpreter and genius, we shall also recall his many splendid attributes, inseparable parts of him, human, intellectual, ethical. A gentleman born and bred, sans peur and sans reproche; with loftiest standards and a sense of noblesse oblige ever in harmony with the impulses of a great, warm heart! Each and all of these characteristics are graven in our memory as glorious and ineffaceable components in the cultural contribution to America by Ignace Jan Paderewski, whom we salute as Scholar, Master, Genius; incomparable in music, unfailing in patriotism, heroic in convulsion [sic!—should it be “compulsion”?], for him we have and eagerly express the sense of obligation, the boundless admiration and the affection of our people, here, there, and everywhere.
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
That out of the sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star,
Consider it well; each tone of our scale in itself is nought;
It is everywhere in the world—loud, soft, and all is said;
Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought,
And there! Ye have heard and seen; consider and bow the head!”[20]
Paderewski and Polonia Restituta
by Dr. John H. Finley [21]
Mr. Chairman, Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I think that you must resent the prolongation of the overture, but I have been asked today to give a brief solo and I have brought the notes of my improvisation with me. Brief as it is, I have great trepidation in playing in the presence of the master. I must, first of all, make reference to the incomparable speech that was made by Mr. Paderewski on the tenth of April in 1918, to which reference was made by Mr. Vauclain.[22] Mr. Vauclain, however, did not say that I also spoke on that evening. In a sense I evoked that incomparable speech, for I presided. What it would have been if I had not done so, I do not know. As it was, however, I think I may take some credit to myself for having called it forth.
At the end of that address, I made a presentation to Mr. Paderewski of a print of an allegorical subject which was a prophecy. It was prophetic of Poland as a nation, representing Poland as a white eagle about to rise free once more. I find on the margin of my program of the evening this notation: “May we all live to see the White Eagle mount again,” (remember, this was in April 1918) “daring to look into the sun and flying with our American Eagle beside it, equal with equal, free with free.”
The prophecy of that night has been gloriously fulfilled as some of us have had an opportunity to know from our own observation. I rode myself one morning a few years ago on the wings of an aeroplanic white eagle (and it was Pentecost Day when the lilacs were blooming, when there was a spray of lilac in the bridle of every horse and one in the muzzle of every gun). I rode over the free prairies of Poland, from Warsaw (I went first to the monument of Copernicus) beyond Krakow to the enlarged borders of Poland looking toward Prague. But we celebrate tonight not only the fulfillment of that prophecy and the defense of Poland—it was not your prophecy alone, Mr. Vauclain. I had a brother there through that Bolshevik attack on that Sunday, that critical Sunday when all who could not work in the trenches were in the churches or in the streets praying and he wrote home, “Don’t let anyone ever make you think that there is no efficacy in prayer.”[23] They were praying as well as fighting, Mr. Vauclain.
We celebrate the patriotic and cultural world contribution of the man in whom the prophecy became Poland incarnate, Paderewski, whose name will for us—whether we pronounce it correctly or not—forever be associated with that of Poland and his fellow Poles, Copernicus and Kościuszko.
Back in 1914, shortly after the beginning of the War, I heard him play in a great barn of a place up in Troy, New York;[24] and I wrote the next day these lines—I will not quote all of them:
Beside Scamander’s stream in ancient Ilium[25]
(From whose dim, moon-lit ramparts Troilus
Sighed toward the Grecian tents where Cressid lay)
Brave Hector, so ’tis said, derided him
Whose love for Helen gave to Homer’s harp
The timeless Iliad: “O brother mine
The sounding lyre shall not avail thee now!”
Meaning, (I translate from forgotten Greek
With aid of Lang),[26] that spear and sword alone
Will serve ascending man…
…(Strange, is it not
That all that’s left of arms and men and song
Of that old fray is song?)….
…Last night, in Troy,
(Not Hasselik, all tumultuous, but Troy
Which sits beside a new-world Simois)
I heard brave Hector’s taunt again, and then
I heard reply: “Great Paderewski played
Not such a puny lyre as Paris twanged,
But one Christofori designed to sound
The thundering of battle, and, alike,
The peaceful breathings of an oaten pipe;
And hearing, thought: Had this Red Polack stood
Beside old Priam on the Trojan walls
The battle lost immortally were won!”
He would have cast a spell like Amphion […] and lifted the walls still higher, if need be.[27] And when, on the way home that night through the shining mist and the rain the chauffeur stopped to shift or mend a punctured tire, I could but see Ixion hovering there above his flaming wheel,
Which naught could stop
Save music, even for the briefest spell,
Ixion, listening, long eagerly
For that entrancing strain to come again.
A year later, in 1915, I saw one day this tragic query inn an interview with Paderewski, in one of the New York papers: “How can I play, when my countrymen are dying?” he said. But if amid the groans of the dying and with frenzied mothers clutching at his hands, he could not for a time play, he yet kept on crying: “Poland, Poland,” through the world, as Orpheus cried out the name of Eurydice throughout the chambers of Hades. And it was he who, as Premier, at last led Poland forth into the free upper air again.
I salute you, Artist, Statesman, Patriot.You’ve brought from out the air such symphonies
As God with all His earth-orchestral range
From cataract through soughing wind to lark
Could not produce without the skill of man.
But there’s a symphony that you’ve evoked
From out the hearts of men, more wonderful
Than you have played upon your instrument.
Composed of the praises of mankind
For what you’ve nobly done to lead again
To its proud place amid earth’s greatest States
Your land that gave the world Copernicus,
And for our freedom Kosciuszko gave.
As ancient Orpheus trod the aisles of hell
To rescue from its thrall Eurydice,
So you for Poland. But though Orpheus failed
You won. Polonia Restituta lives.
And will continue to live, we hope, so long as the earth continues to revolve around the sun of Copernicus. So long will you be gratefully remembered not alone by Poland but by the whole earth which Copernicus sent whirling about the sun.
Notes
[1]. This is the second part of material reprinted from a book of greetings given to Paderewski on the occasion of Poland’s 10th anniversary of independence. The book, bound in leather, is entitled Ignace Jan Paderewski: Artist, Patriot, Humanitarian / 1918-1928 (New York: Kościuszko Foundation, 1928). Samuel Matthews Vauclain (1856-1940) an industrialist and philanthropist, was a locomotive designer, CEO of Baldwin Locomotive Works, who supported U.S. aid to 12 countries after World War I. He was one of the founders of the Kościuszko Foundation. See his biography in Dictionary of American Biography, Supplements 1-2: To 1940.(American Council of Learned Societies, 1944-1958); reproduced in Biography Resource Center. (Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2001; http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC). [Back]
[2]. The Kościuszko Foundation, An American Center for Polish Culture, is located in New York and recently celebrated its 75th anniversary. Described as a Polish Fulbright, the Foundation sponsors Polish scholars and scientists who come to conduct research in the U.S. and American scholars studying in Poland. It also organizes a range of educational programs, concerts, etc. See www.kosciuszkofoundation.org [Back]
[3]. Thaddeus, or rather Tadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura Kościuszko (1746-1817) fought in the American Revolutionary War since 1976 and became brigadier-general after contributing to the victories at Saratoga and building the West Point Military Academy. Kościuszko left the U.S. in 1784 and returned to Poland, in 1789 becoming a major-general in the Polish army. He led Polish forces in resistance against the Russians during the partitions and directed an unsuccessful uprising of 1794 after the fall of which Poland was finally divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria. The sale of his lands in Ohio—given to him by the government in recognition of his achievement—provided funds for the establishment of one of the first schools for black Americans. [Back]
[4]. Thomas G. Masaryk (1850-1937) was the president of Czecho-Slovakia in the interwar period; he is recognized as a writer on history, social studies and politics. Masaryk was instrumental in his country’s revival after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. [Back]
[5]. The Polish-Soviet war of 1920 started with the Red Army aggression resulting in its swift occupation of eastern Poland, up to Vistula. The turning point of the war was the defense of Warsaw by the troops and volunteers, with all the inhabitants of the city helping out in the effort, by building trenches, providing food for the troops, etc. The Soviet troops were pushed back and Poland’s sovereignty defended. See Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). [Back]
[6]. Henry Noble MacCracken (1880-1970) was an American writer and college professor, working in Smith College and Vassar College (as president of the latter in 1915-1946). In 1925-1950 he served as the president of the Kościuszko Foundation and worked towards the reconciliation of Christian and Jews in a variety of national and international organizations. See Contemporary Authors Online (The Gale Group, 1999). Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. (Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2001). (http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC) [Back]
[7]. I was not able to locate biographical information about Arthur V. Sewall. [Back]
[8]. Paderewski’s first American tour took place in 1891. Paderewski arrived in New York on 11 November and departed for Europe at the end of March. He performed in New York (the first concert was conducted by Walter Damrosch), Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Buffalo, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Montreal, Toronto, Milwaukee, and Portland, Maine. See Małgorzata Perkowska, Diariusz Koncertowy Paderewskiego (Krakow: PWM, 1990), 49-50. [Back]
[9]. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American philosopher, one of the founders of the Transcendentalism movement; trained as Unitarian minister became a mentor to Thoreau, Whiteman, and others. [Back]
[10]. Matthew Arnold (1822 – 1888) was a British poet and literary critic teaching at Oxford University; one of the most important poets of the Victorian era. [Back]
[11]. Richard Aldrich (1863-1937) was a music critic, educated at Harvard University and writing for the Providence Journal, Evening Star, and New York Tribune (the latter as assistant to Krehbiel), before becoming the music editor for the New York Times till 1923 when he retired. [Back]
[12]. Richard Watson Gilder (1844-1909) was a poet and journal editor working for Scribner’s Monthly. He published sixteen volumes of poetry; A Book of Music (1906) contains poems dedicated to this subject, including the poem about Paderewski. Biography Resource Center (Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group, 2001; http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC). [Back]
[13]. Paderewski’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra Op. 17 in A minor consists of four movements: Allegro, Romanze, Andante and Allergo molto vivace. It was composed in 1882-1888 and dedicated to his teacher Theodore Leschetizky. The Polish Fantasia on Original Themes Op. 19 in D-sharp minor, for piano and orchestra is in four movements (Allegro moderato; Vivace ma non troppo; Andante sostenuto; and Allegro giocoso). The work composed in the summer of 1893 is dedicated to Princess R. Bassaraba de Brancovan. [Back]
[14]. The Minuet in G major is the first piece from Humoresques de concert op. 14, composed in 1886-1887 and including also a Sarabande in B minor and a Caprice (genre Scarlatti) in G major. The Chants du vouageur subtitled “Fraszki” op. 8 is a set of five small pieces composed in 1881-1882 and dedicated to Helena Gorska, baroness de Rosen and Paderewski’s future wife. The Nocturne in B-flat major is the fourth piece in Miscellanea op. 16, composed in 1888 and dedicated to Princess Bassarabe de Brancovan. [Back]
[15]. Paderewski’s only opera, Manru was composed in 1893-1901 to a libretto in German by Alfred Nossig. It was premiered in May 1901 in Dresden and soon opened in other opera theaters around the world, especially in the U.S., German-speaking countries, and the domain of the Russian Empire. [Back]
[16]. Paderewski’s Symphony Op. 24 in B minor is in three movements (Adagio maestoso, Andante con moto, Vivace) and was composed in 1903-1909. His Piano Sonata Op. 21 in E-flat minor was composed in 1887 and completed in 1903. His two cycles of Piano Variations are: Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme Op. 11 in A minor, composed in 1884 and Variations and Fugue on an Original Theme Op. 23 in E-flat minor, composed in 1885 and completed in 1903. [Back]
[17]. The Prize was given by the Paderewski Foundation created to support American music and young composers. The Foundation was established upon Paderewski’s departure from the U.S. after the 1896 tour, in April that year (his last concert was held at Carnegie Hall on 18 April). According to a report in Menestrel the Paderewski Foundation had a endowment of 50,000 francs and was supposed to give three prizes every three years for chamber and orchestral compositions (prizes of 2,500; 1,500; and 1000 francs). Perkowska, op. cit., p. 72. [Back]
[18]. President Woodrow Wilson made his first public expression of support for Poland’s independence during his State of the Union Address to the Senate on 21 January 1917; on 8 January 1918 he listed thirteen of his Fourteen Points on peace aims including “united, independent, and autonomous Poland with free, unrestricted access to the sea.” See Davies, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 387. [Back]
[19]. Despite this statement, Paderewski limited his public appearances during the second half of 1914 and first half of 1915. He gave a large number of recitals during the war; most concerts were preceded with a half-hour speech about Poland and its independence. He gave over 300 of such performances in 1915-1918. [Back]
[20]. I was not able to identify the source of this quotation. [Back]
[21]. John Huston Finley (1863-1940) was an educator, editor, and author. He taught at Princeton University before accepting the presidency of the City College of New York; after 10 years at this post he became the Commissioner of Education of the State of New York, and in 1921 associate editor of the New York Times (he rose to the position of its editor-in-chief in 1937). Finley loved classics and advocated the study of Greek and Latin as the foundation for education and personal development. He contributed to the reconstruction of the Parthenon in Athens and later was involved in charitable work on behalf of the victims of epidemic and war. Involved with the Boy Scouts, charities for the blind and other organizations, Finley received honorary degrees from thirty-two American and Canadian universities. See Dictionary of American Biography, Supplements 1-2: To 1940 (American Council of Learned Societies, 1944-1958). [Back]
[22]. Perkowska’s Diariusz does not list any speeches on 10 April 1918; according to her documentation Paderewski gave two speeches that year in New York: on 3 March to the American National Security League about the Polish Army and Polish borders and on 14 July, on the occasion of the French national holiday, about the French military efforts and support for Poland. Paderewski appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York on 10 January 1917 and 25 March 1917 in extended piano recitals; after 29 March 1917 Paderewski published a proclamation about the Russian declaration concerning the future of Poland. [Back]
[23]. The belligerent Red Army of newly formed Soviet Union attacked Poland in the summer of 1920; their troops took Poles by surprise and reached the outskirts of Warsaw. Under the leadership of Piłsudski and Haller, the Polish Army pushed the Soviets back, at one point occupying Kiev, but later withdrawing to within the Polish borders established after World War I. [Back]
[24]. Paderewski’s concert in Troy, New York took place on 27 March 1914 and was a part of an extended tour including concerts in Ann Arbor and Detroit, Michigan, New York, Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, New York, Newark, Providence, Troy, New York, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Hartofrd, Boston, Rochester, Erie, Chicago, Kansas City, and a Wells-Bijou Theatre in unspecified city. The program of the Troy concert included: J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A minor arranged by Liszt; Beethoven’s Sonata in C-sharp minor Op. 27 no. 2 (“Moonlight”); Schumann’s Fantasiestucke Op. 12; Liszt-Schubert’s Soirees de Viennein A major; Liszt-Schubert’s Erlkönig; Chopin’s Ballade in A-flat major Op. 47, Nocturne in B major Op. 62 no. 1, and Polonaise in A-flat major Op. 53; Liszt-Wagner’s Isoldes Liebestod; and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody(unidentified further). The program of all recitals from Newark to Kansas City was identical to the one listed above. See M. Perkowska, op. cit., pp. 135-137. [Back]
[25]. Finley’s predilection for ancient culture is obvious in this poem permeated with allusions to Homer’s Illiad (an epic poem from the 7th century B.C.), ancient mythology and personalities. Troilus was the youngest son of Priam and Hecabe, described by Homer as a young unarmed boy who was killed by Achilles outside the walls of Troy. A 12th-century French writer, Benoit de Sainte-More, made him into a young man and a hero of a love story (with Cresside, or Cryseyde), version of which were published by Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Shakespeare. Priam was the king of Troy (ancient city on the shores of what is now Turkey), the father of 50 sons and 50 daughters, including Hektor, the celebrated warrior, killed by Achilles, and Paris whose romantic involvement with Helene had led to the Troian wars. Ixion is the name of the first murderer of a family member in Greek mythology; he killed his father-in-law but was forgiven by Zeus. At a divine feast, Ixion tried to seduce Hera and was punished in Tartarus where he is fixed to a turning wheel on fire. He is the father of centaurs; “Ixion’s wheel” denotes suffering and torture. Note based on Władysław Kopaliński, Słownik Mitów i Tradycji Kultury (Warsaw: PIW, 1979). [Back]
[26]. The Illiad of Homer was translated by Andrew Lang (1844-1912) and edited by Wallace B. Moffett. This edition by Macmillan of New York appeared first in 1905 and was revised and reprinted with illustrations in 1930 and 1933. [Back]
[27]. Amphion and Zetos were twins, the sons of Zeus and Antiope of Thebes, raised by a shepherd. Zetos became an athlete and hunter, while Amphion turned to poetry and music, having received a lyre from Hermes. They surrounded Thebes with a stone wall with seven gates; in the construction Zetos used his force while Amphion charmed the rocks with his music. Kopalinski, op. cit. [Back]