“When Paderewski plays he speaks the language of Heaven. To hear him is a spiritual experience,” wrote Charles Phillips, the pianist’s biographer. Audiences were enthralled by the music he played.

Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who served as Poland’s prime minister and foreign minister from January to December 1919, was a star of his time. The piano virtuoso was particularly admired by American women, who would scream and go wild at his performances in a way that anticipated the outbreak of Beatlemania half a century later. He capitalised on his celebrity for a noble cause—using close contacts with American political, cultural and economic elites, especially with President Woodrow Wilson, to help Poland regain independence in 1918.

Paderewski, born on 6 November 1860 in Kuryłówka (now Ukraine), came from a noble family with strong patriotic traditions. At 12, he was admitted to the Warsaw Conservatory. He studied composition in Berlin, and then piano in Vienna. His first major breakthrough came when he was asked to perform with Helena Modrzejewska, a Polish actress who had made a glittering career on the world stage. Her generous offer to combine her popular declamations with Paderewski’s musical performances allowed the young pianist to raise funds for his studies in Vienna. His professional debut in March 1888, at the Salle Érard in Paris, was a smashing success. The audience was so enthusiastic that he played an hour of encores. Instantly, Paderewski’s international career took off. He was showered with offers for solo recitals and guest appearances with orchestras. Since the young maestro possessed a modest repertoire, he was forced to work up a more ambitious programme in just three weeks. Frederic Chopin was played at every concert, but Paderewski also composed works of his own. Some of the latter enjoyed great success, such as the Minuet in G major, op. 14 no. 1, and Manru, an opera which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1902. Altogether, Paderewski’s oeuvre spans more than 70 works.

Paderewski was the second Polish pianist after Chopin to give concerts at the homes of London’s aristocracy, including two private performances before Queen Victoria herself. His first U.S. tour was organised and funded by the Steinway family. Paderewski became the best-known performing artist of his day, the virtuoso he had always dreamed of becoming. He was dubbed king of the piano.

From earliest childhood, Paderewski’s artistic ambitions were accompanied by an equally fervent desire to serve his native country, which the partitions had erased from the world map by 1795. His desire to “be somebody” was always fuelled by his determination to aid the cause of Polish independence. Paderewski dreamed of Poland’s liberation. As he wrote in his memoirs, music and patriotism were one for him.

When the First World War broke out, he decided to use his popularity to advance the Polish cause. At the time, Paderewski was living in the United States. In 1917, he met with Woodrow Wilson and persuaded the American president to include Poland’s independence in a blueprint for a post-war geopolitical order. After the meeting, on 8 January 1918, Wilson delivered an address to the U.S. Congress outlining this famous “Fourteen Points” programme. One of these points called for restoration of “an independent Polish state”.

In December 1918, Paderewski made a triumphant return to newly independent Poland. From a window of the Bazar Hotel in Poznań, he made an impassioned speech to the Polish population that sparked the outbreak of the Wielkopolska Uprising, which freed the province from German rule. In January 1919, Paderewski was appointed the prime minister and foreign minister of independent Poland, whose delegation he would lead to the international peace conference at Versailles.

In 1921, Paderewski retired from politics and resumed his concert career. Once again he was a tremendous success. Critics wrote that no other pianist in the world was so sensitive to the poetry of music. Paderewski had millions of fans, as evidenced by his star on Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame.

A born perfectionist, Paderewski brought great passion and panache to everything he did. At his estate in Paso Robles, California, he established an almond plantation and vineyard that produced some of the ten best wines in California, according to a mid-1930s ranking by the Los Angeles Times. His Zinfandel grapes are still used to make wine in the area to this day.

Paderewski was also a philanthropist who helped orphans, impoverished musicians and war victims. He financed the construction of monuments, including the Washington Arch in New York and a monument in Kraków commemorating the victory of the Polish army in the battle of Grunwald.

In 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, he once again set out on a U.S. tour. By then he was nearly in his eighties. The outbreak of the war found him in New York. Seeking to help his country as he had done during the First World War, Paderewski immediately began meeting with prominent officials and luminaries. He died of pneumonia in 1941. His remains are buried at St. John's Archcathedral in Warsaw.