Josef Hofmann: Difference between revisions

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'''Jósef Kazimierz Hofmann''' ([[January 20]], [[1876]] - [[February 16]], [[1957]]) was a Polish-[[American]] [[pianist]] and composer. Born in Krakow, Poland; he died in 1957 in Los Angeles.

Famous as a [[child prodigy]] who played a long series of sensationally received concerts throughout Europe and Scandanavia at the age of ten. This phase culminated with a series in America in late 1887 and early 1888 at which he became an early media sensation. He then retired and studied with Russian virtuoso and composer [[Anton Rubinstein]], becoming his only private pupil and later, his leading disciple. Hofmann was also gifted mechanically and invented mechanisms for the piano and especially automobiles, with numerous patents to his credit.

Hofmann spent most of his later career in the [[United States]], where he taught at the [[Curtis Institute of Music]], of which he was Director until 1938. His pupils included several of the most talented students of the day, but only [[Shura Cherkassky]] went on to an international career. Cherkassky shared Hofmann's sovereign technique and tone, but not his intellectual depth.

Hofmann made a few commercial recordings beginning in 1903 through the 1930s. He also made the some of the earliest recordings of classical music for [[Thomas Edison]] that have been lost, but some cylinders he made in Russia a few years later have recently been discovered. He made two series of reproducing piano rolls and reaped a huge income from their issue, but never trusted rolls as accurate representations of his playing. Recordings of broadcasts of several of Hofmann's live performances have survived, and all of these recordings have been published on compact discs. These are cherished by most connoissuers, but because of differences of opinion about performance, reviled by others.

Famously he had very small hands, and like seevral other famous pianists, he found the situation more of a nuisance than a handicap. [[Steinway]] eventually built him a custom piano with narrower keys (a quarter-inch narrower per octave), which he said was slightly more comfortable.

[[Rachmaninoff]] considered Hofmann his superior as a pianist and dedicated his [[Piano Concerto No. 3 (Rachmaninoff)|Piano Concerto No. 3]] to him. Hofmann never played it, however, a fact mis-attributed by many to his small hands; another of Hofmann's teachers, Moritz Moszkowski, also dedicated a piano concerto to Hofmann which he never played. More than likely, Hofmann did not want to play concertos by pianist-composer rivals. Considered to be one of the first "modern" pianists because of his respect for the printed score, he was unlike some earlier Romantic pianists whose interpretations would be considered extreme today. His playing nonetheless possessed extraordinary technical skill, poetry, color, and imagination.

Hofmann had an encyclopedic repertoire, only a small part of which has survived in recordings because of his great distrust of the medium. He is now regarded as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th Century.