Does Paderewski figure in the history of publicity rather than great artistry? A man of extraordinary charisma whose admirers waited for hours to glimpse his noble profile as it flashed past on a “royal” train, briefly President of Poland, his every move was lovingly scrutinised by his legions of admirers. An American estimate of Brazilian pianist Guiomar Novaes as “the Padrooski of the Pampas” was intended as the highest praise, and only Liszt achieved a greater celebrity in his own lifetime. Speaking of a performance of Schumann’s F sharp minor Sonata, Clifford Curzon once told me of Paderewski’s enveloping warmth and magic, qualities virtually unknown to later generations. But that was a reference to Paderewski at the height of his career, long before his early lack of training made itself felt in concerts spotted by sentimentality and a rapidly failing technique.

Yet even in his “final recordings” you can glimpse something of an endearing humanity. The free and romantic beauty of Paderewski’s Haydn variations is unmistakable and if his de-synchronisation of the hands makes the opening of Mozart’s A minor Rondo sound like a prophecy of Charles Trenet’s “Coin de rue”, his gentle and caressing warmth are omnipresent. Paderewski’s Chopin can be formless and inert, reminding you that it was Rubinstein’s heroic achievement to rescue his compatriot from a maudlin salon sentimentality, and in the A flat Polonaise you hear Paderewski struggling with an equipment no longer equal to such virtuoso largesse. Paderewski is a voice from another age, though as Bryan Crimp (APR’s expert producer and annotator) suavely admits, “equating the level of adulation Paderewski received in the concert hall with the pianist we hear on record has always been a challenge”.