Josef Casimir Hofmann (originally Józef Kazimierz Hofmann; January 20, 1876 – February 16, 1957) was a Polish-American pianist, composer, music teacher, and inventor.
Josef Hofmann was born in Podgórze (currently part of Kraków), in Austro-Hungarian Galicia (present-day Poland) in 1876. His father was the composer, conductor and pianist Kazimierz Hofmann, and his mother the singer Matylda Pindelska. He had an older sister – Zofia Wanda (born June 11, 1874, also in Kraków). Throughout their childhood, their father, Kazimierz, was married to Aniela Teofila née Kwiecińska (born January 3, 1843, in Warsaw), who, after moving to Warsaw in 1878 with her husband, died there on October 12, 1885. Then the next year Kazimierz Mikołaj Hofmann married on June 17, 1886, Matylda Franciszka Pindelska - the mother of his children, (daughter of Wincenty and Eleonora née Wyszkowska, b. in 1851 in Kraków) in the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.
In order to ensure their son Josef a thorough musical education, the whole family moved to Berlin from 1886. Josef Hofmann, a child prodigy, gave a debut recital in Warsaw at the age of 5, and a long series of concerts throughout Europe and Scandinavia, culminating in a series of concerts in America in 1887-88 that elicited comparisons with the young Mozart and the young Mendelssohn. The young Hofmann took music lessons from Heinrich Urban (composition) and with the pianist and composer Moritz Moszkowski.
Anton Rubinstein heard the seven-year-old Hofmann play Beethoven's C minor Piano Concerto in Warsaw and declared him to be an unprecedented talent. At Rubinstein's suggestion, German impresario Hermann Wolff offered career management and offered to send the boy on a European tour, but Hofmann's father refused to let the boy travel until he was nine years old. At that age, Hofmann gave concerts in Germany, France, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Great Britain.
At the age of 12, young Josef Hofmann was probably the first pianist of note to record on Edison's phonograph; Hans von Bülow recorded a Chopin Mazurka on Edison's improved phonograph the same year, i.e., 1888.
In 1887, an American tour was arranged, with three months of performances that included fifty recitals, seventeen of which were at the Metropolitan Opera House. Yet soon after, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children stepped in, citing the boy's fragile health. However, as per the contract that had paid Hofmann $10,000, he was legally obliged to complete the tour. The contract was rendered void by Alfred Corning Clark who donated $50,000 and, in turn, legally forbade Hofmann to perform in public until he turned 18 years old. The final segment of the tour was cancelled and the family returned to Potsdam, outside Berlin. This marked the end of Hofmann's child prodigy years. (See and for details.)
Subsequently, Anton Rubinstein took Hofmann as his only private student in 1892 and arranged the debut of his pupil in Hamburg, Germany, in 1894. Hofmann toured and performed extensively over the next 50 years as one of the most celebrated pianists of the era.
Clark's donation enabled Hofmann to continue individual study in science and mathematics, and he continued to take music lessons from Heinrich Urban (composition) and with the pianist and composer Moritz Moszkowski. In 1892, Rubinstein accepted Hofmann as his only private pupil, the two meeting for 42 sessions in Dresden's Hotel d'Europe. Initial lessons, a week apart, included ten Bach Preludes and Fugues and two Beethoven sonatas, from memory. Hofmann was never allowed to bring the same composition twice, as Rubinstein said as a teacher he would probably forget what he told the student during the previous lesson. Rubinstein never played for Hofmann, but gave ample evidence of his pianistic outlook during many recitals the boy heard. In a three-day period Hofmann heard in Berlin's new Bechstein Hall recitals by Hans von Bülow, Johannes Brahms and Rubinstein, and commented on their radically different playing. Rubinstein arranged Hofmann's adult debut on March 14, 1894, in Hamburg's Symphonic Assembly Hall, the piece being Rubinstein's Piano Concerto No. 4 in D minor, with the composer conducting. After the concert, Rubinstein told Hofmann there would be no more lessons, and they never saw each other again. Rubinstein returned to Russia and died later that year. In later years Hofmann referred to his relationship with the titanic Russian master as the "most important event in my life.".
As a composer, Hofmann published over one hundred works, many of those under the pseudonym Michel Dvorsky, including two piano concertos and ballet music. He made the United States his base during World War I and became a US citizen in 1926. In 1924, he became the first head of the piano department at the inception of the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia; he became the institute's director in 1927 and remained so until 1938. In 1913, he was presented with a set of keys to the city of St. Petersburg, Russia.
He was instrumental in recruiting illustrious musicians such as Efrem Zimbalist, Fritz Reiner, Marcella Sembrich, Isabella Vengerova, Moriz Rosenthal, Wilhelm Backhaus, Benno Moiseiwitsch, Abram Chasins, David Saperton, Wanda Landowska, and Leopold Auer to the Curtis faculty. Hofmann's pupils included Jacques Abram, Jeanne Behrend, Abram Chasins, Shura Cherkassky, William Harms, Harry Kaufman, Angelica Morales von Sauer, Ezra Rachlin, Nadia Reisenberg (see ), Abbey Simon, Lucie Stern, and Ruth Slenczynska. While not a pupil, Jorge Bolet benefited from Hofmann's interest. In 1937, the 50th anniversary of his New York debut performance was celebrated with gala performances including a "Golden Jubilee" recital at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City.
By the early 1930s, Hofmann had become an alcoholic but he retained exceptional pianistic command throughout this decade; Rudolf Serkin and a young Glenn Gould have recounted magical impressions created on them by Hofmann's concerts in the middle and late 1930s. After his departure from the Curtis Institute in 1938, a combination of his drinking, marital problems and a loss of interest in performing caused a rapid deterioration in his artistic abilities. Commenting on Hofmann's sharp decline, Sergei Rachmaninoff said, "Hofmann is still sky high ... the greatest pianist alive if he is sober and in form. Otherwise, it is impossible to recognize the Hofmann of old". Oscar Levant wrote, "one of the terrible tragedies of music was the disintegration of Josef Hofmann as an artist. In his latter days, he became an alcoholic. …[H]is last public concert … was an ordeal for all of us".
In the years from 1939 to 1946, his artistic eminence deteriorated, in part due to family difficulties and alcoholism. In 1946, he gave his last recital at Carnegie Hall, home to his 151 appearances, and retired to private life in 1948.
Hofmann's views on technique and musicianship are explained in his book Piano Playing with Questions Answered.
He had small but exceptionally strong hands. Steinway eventually built for him custom keyboards with slightly narrower keys (pianist/critic Stephen Hough has commented on how Hofmann's mechanical understanding of the Steinway piano action set him apart from all other pianists.)
His concert instruments had subtle action changes for faster repetition, two pedals rather than three (he liked the older Steinway trap work geometry), faultless regulation, and were accompanied on tours by his own recital chair, built with a short folding back and a 1½" slope from rear to front. After playing Hofmann's special concert instrument in the Steinway New York basement, Gunnar Johansen reported that the piano had the biggest sonority of any he had ever tried.
Unlike Rubinstein, Hofmann sat quietly at the piano, striking the keys in a kneading manner. His finger staccato was at the time unequaled, as was his orchestral sonority. According to his student Nadia Reisenberg, he continuously used a combination of finger pedalling and foot pedalling. The New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg said Hofmann had all of Leopold Godowsky's technique, a claim approved by Godowsky himself. By his own admission, Sergei Rachmaninoff, in his 40s, prepared for a career as a concert pianist by practicing over 15 hours a day with the goal of attaining the level of Hofmann's technique. When pianist Ralph Berkowitz was asked if Vladimir Horowitz had the greatest technique of all the pianists he had heard, Berkowitz replied that Horowitz indeed was the supreme master of the technical parts of performance, but one older era pianist was his equal - Hofmann.