Paderewski’s name was a household word to several generations. To people who knew nothing about music he was the archetype of the pianists;  to those who knew nothing of Poland, he was the epitome of the flamboyant Pole;  to those w ho had no clear idea of  his political career he was a Mosaic leader of his people.  He was the celebrity par excellence: the public could see and hear him in the concert hall and in the cinema, and they could read about him endlessly in the press, but in fact they knew nothing, or very little, about him.  He sprang from a past of which little could be gleaned and lived in a closely knit world of his own creation.  The press pried and invented, painting a fabulous image.  Paderewski and his entourage countered with another, which he threw up like a smoke-screen to hide him from public scrutiny.
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He was secretive and confided in very few people; they have confided in nobody.  He hated writing letters, and many of those he did write have not survived two world wars.  Of those that have, the most personal are guarded by people to whom he was a sort of god. His own memoirs and the two biographies published, with his blessing, during his lifetime provide an “official version”, which tells us very little about the man himself and invites a degree of skepticism.  The figure which emerges is dull, conventional and lifeless – and Paderewski was certainly none of these.
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“Paderewski is one of the very few people to whom the word genius can be applied”, stated A. J. Balfour, while the French politician and writer Gabriel Hanotoux prophesied that “this Pole will come to be judged by history not only as one of the greatest representatives of his nation, but also of his century”.  These two statements are outstanding neither for their superlative nature nor for the distinction of those who uttered them.  They merely encapsulate views held by a great many people, who believed that Paderewski would loom large to future generations.
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He suddenly appeared from nowhere, a dazzling new star in the musical firmament outshining every other and fascinating the gaze of musicians and laymen alike.  The compositions he produced cannot be considered great music, but they are certainly not insignificant, and at the time they added an impressive dimension to his artistic stature.  This continued to grow instead gradually waning, as might have been expected after such a meteoric rise.  And alongside the artist, the man grew in stature, too, revealing himself to be an intelligent and refined person, a great philanthropist and, finally, a remarkable statesman.
It became obvious to his contemporaries, as it must also be to posterity, that Paderewski was no ordinary man – not in the sense of talent and ability, though these were astonishing, but in terms of motivation and force of personality.  They could see that his musical success was not the result of inborn virtuosity, but of some inner fire which they readily took for artistic inspiration.  Similarly, he was propelled into public life not by political, religious or even national party or interest, but by a very personal urge to do good and redress wrong. This medieval, almost crusading sense of mission was striking in the context of the twentieth century, the more so as Paderewski was neither simple nor bigoted, but seemed, indeed, to posses something of the wisdom and serenity of an Eastern sage.   On meeting him, people felt themselves to be in the presence of an altogether superior being, and since this was the twentieth century and not the Middle Ages, they dubbed him not a saint but a genius.
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He was a knight errant, a man who had made his own traditions of his forefathers and wanted, passionately, to do good in a world which was full of wrongs.  He struggled hard to achieve a position, and he conquered – both himself and the obstacles in his path – and this lent him a sense of peace which enhanced his greatest natural gift: his genius for charm, for intercourse, for expression, for life.  It added a uniquely cathartic and spiritual quality to his playing, and a moral force to his powers of persuasion. He was no genius but ultimately just a good and nobleman and he was both of these on a truly epic scale.