Josef Hofmann plays Rachmaninoff's 'Prelude in G minor,' recorded in New York on 20 April 1923.
From Wikipedia: Josef Casimir Hofmann (originally Józef Kazimierz Hofmann; January 20, 1876 – February 16, 1957)...was born in Podgórze (a district 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... 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. 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....
As a composer, Hofmann published over one hundred works... 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, and became the Institute's director in 1927 and remained so until 1938.
He was instrumental in recruiting illustrious musicians...as Curtis faculty...
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.
In 1938 he was forced to leave the Curtis Institute of Music over financial and administrative disputes. 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. He spent his last decade in Los Angeles in relative obscurity, working on inventions and keeping a steady correspondence with associates.
As an inventor, Hofmann had over 70 patents, and his invention of pneumatic shock absorbers for cars and airplanes was commercially successful from 1905 to 1928. Other inventions included...piano action improvements adopted by the Steinway Company...
He moved to Los Angeles in 1939. Hofmann died of pneumonia on February 16, 1957 at a nursing home in Los Angeles, California...
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...
Unlike Rubinstein, Hofmann sat quietly at the piano, striking the keys in a kneading manner. His finger staccato was at the time unequalled, as was his orchestral sonority. According to his student Nadia Reisenberg, he continuously used a combination of finger pedalling and foot pedalling... By his own admission, Sergei Rachmaninoff, in his 40s, prepared for a career as a concert pianist by practising 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.
Hofmann's approach and style can be summarized by his motto 'an aristocrat never hurries.' He often stated that Rubinstein and Moriz Rosenthal were the only pianists that influenced his art, and admired singers Mattia Battistini and Marcella Sembrich. He adopted a more demonstrative style in live performances but a subtle and restrained style for his studio recordings; in both cases, he mostly adhered to the printed score, occasionally doubling left-hand octaves, and shunned sentimentality. He put spontaneity rather than structure foremost... Schonberg wrote that among Hofmann's contemporaries, only Godowsky had the finish and refinement of Hofmann but lacked Hofmann's colour, fire, and 'red blood,' while only Ferruccio Busoni and Rachmaninoff were ever mentioned by contemporaries as Hofmann's equals...
I transferred this side from an Australian Brunswick 78 rpm pressing. The pressing is a little noisy, but I haven't filtered too heavily
