Paderewski was learning the hard way about the energetic all-out American way of doing things! In Europe, a pianist who played six different concertos in one season, much less one week, would be considered a wonder. Four of the concertos he could easily manage, but the other two, although he had played them once or twice, were not really ready for public performance.
All of these troublesome facts, however, he put out of his mind when he walked out onto the stage of Carnegie Hall for the first time and began to play the Saint-Saens C minor Concerto. It was the same work he had played with the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris. This time he was accompanied by the Symphony Society of New York City, under its handsome young conductor, Walter Damrosch. The evening closed with his own concerto, which gave the New York critics a chance to judge him as a composer as well as a pianist.
But poor Paderewski had little time after the concert that night to worry about the next day's reviews. Damrosch had scheduled the rehearsal for the next concert at ten o'clock in the morning. And at this second concert he was to play not only the Beethoven "Emperor" Concerto and the Schumann Concerto, but, as a bonus for the audience, the fiendishly difficult Hungarian Fantasia for piano and orchestra by Liszt.
Paderewski went back to his new hotel physically exhausted, as always after a concert, and began practicing for the next day's work. He had not struck more than six chords before there was an agitated knocking at the door. The manager of the hotel stood outside, wringing his hands.
"Mr. Paderewski! Playing the piano at this hour?"
"But I have to practice for my next concert. And nighttime is the only time I have free!"
"Yes, but Mr. Paderewski, we have so many elderly people living in the hotel. We can't possibly have you practicing the piano at midnight. You can understand that!"
He could understand it, yes, but what could he do about it? Suddenly from the depth of his memory came a clear picture of the Kerntopf factory in Warsaw, with its room after room of inviting pianos. He grabbed his coat and called to his secretary, "Goerlitz! Come on! We're going out!"
The nightwatchman at the Fourteenth Street office was surprised to be roused from his slumbers by a wild-eyed man pounding at the door. "I must have presented a strange appearance," Paderewski recalled. "The watchman, however, opened the room where the pianos were stored, and there, in that cold and gloomy loft, I began practicing. There were no lights except the two candles on the piano. It must have been a strange sight as I think back on it--the empty room, with two fluttering candles and the two men, the night watchman and my secretary, each snoring loudly in his corner as I worked on until morning. That was all I had for inspiration!"