Ignace Jan Paderewski, one of the world’s foremost piano virtuosos and
one of Poland’s most renowned statesmen, was born in Kurylówka, Podolia,
on November 18, 1860. A child prodigy, he was given piano lessons from
his third year on. Several patrons arranged to send him to the Warsaw
Conservatory, from which he was graduated in 1878. Between 1881 and 1883
he studied composition and orchestration in Berlin, and from 1884 to
1887 piano with Leschetizky in Vienna. Paderewski’s first major success
as a pianist came in Vienna in 1889, a concert that was the beginning of
a virtuoso career extending for about half a century and carrying him
triumphantly to all parts of the world. In 1919 he temporarily withdrew
from music to become the first Premier of the Polish Republic, but about
a year later he resumed concert work. He made his American debut in New
York in 1891, and his last American tour took place in 1939. During the
early part of World War II he returned to political activity as
President of the Parliament of the Polish Government in Exile. He died
in New York on June 29, 1941. By order of President Roosevelt he was
given a state burial in Arlington National Cemetery.
Paderewski produced many ambitious compositions, some in the style of
Polish folk music; these included the opera _Manru_, a symphony, piano
concerto, the _Polish Fantasy_ for piano and orchestra and numerous
shorter compositions for the piano. Ironically it is not for one of his
ambitious works that he is most often recalled as a composer, but
through a slight piece: the _Minuet_ in G, or _Menuet à l’antique_, a
graceful, well-mannered composition in an 18th-century style. This is
one of the three most popular minuets ever written, the other two being
by Mozart and Beethoven. Paderewski originally wrote it for the piano;
it is the first of six pieces collectively entitled _Humoresques de
concert_, op. 14. Fritz Kreisler transcribed it for violin and piano;
Gaspar Cassadó for cello and piano. It has, of course, been frequently
adapted for orchestra.