kartooner

Wish­ing to encour­age her young son’s progress on the piano, a mother took the small boy to a Paderewski con­cert. After they were seated, the mother spot­ted a friend in the audi­ence and walked down the aisle to greet her. Seiz­ing the oppor­tu­nity to explore the won­ders of the con­cert hall, the lit­tle boy rose and even­tu­ally explored his way through a door marked “NO ADMITTANCE.”

When the house lights dimmed and the con­cert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and dis­cov­ered that her son was miss­ing. Sud­denly, the cur­tains parted and spot­lights focused on the impres­sive Stein­way on stage. In hor­ror, the mother saw her lit­tle boy sit­ting at the key­board, inno­cently pick­ing out “Twin­kle, Twin­kle Lit­tle Star.”

At that moment, the great piano mas­ter made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whis­pered in the boy’s ear, “Don’t quit, keep play­ing.” Then lean­ing over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began fill­ing in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child and he added a run­ning obbli­gato. Together, the old mas­ter and the young novice trans­formed a fright­en­ing sit­u­a­tion into a won­der­fully cre­ative experience.

- Author Unknown