Polish pianist, one of the greatest and internationally most acclaimed of his day.

Career Summary

Having begun his concert career in the 1880s, Hofmann studied with Anton Rubinstein in Germany for a period from 1897. From 1924, he was head of the piano division at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and director of the Institute from 1926 (when he became an American citizen) to 1938. He retired in 1940.

He was the earliest professional musician to make a recording--on wax cylinder in 1887--and made a number of commercial recordings. He wrote two books on piano playing and left many compositions, under the pseudonym Michael Dvorsky.

He is not to be confused with the Josef Hofmann[link] (1865–1927) who taught at the Vienna Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst (= Conservatory).

Hofmann and Schenker

Schenker evidently had mixed feelings about his playing. After attending a Hofmann recital in 1906, and after describing his technique generally, Schenker commented in his diary: Tuesday November 13, [1906] [...] Evening: concert [by] Josef Hofmann. Technique of the artist: so to speak, a self-contained physical as well as manual[?] unity, hence [makes a] most satisfactory impression. The real nerve-center of the composition is however only very seldom captured. [There is] even something shallow about the sonority (deriving from the shallow style of playing), and hence only little [that is] liberating about even the technique itself. (Gummy[?]) Beethoven, C-minor Sonata, Op. 111 often childishly distorted (variations), and at its best totally misunderstood. Mumbling like an old man who has reverted to childhood. However, in the Liszt, at last the most unfettered, freeest playing." (OJ 1/5, p. 26).

In 1932, Hofmann evidently expressed skepticism about a planned English translation by Arthur Waldeck of Schenker's Harmonielehre (OJ 5/44, [3], December 31, 1932).

No correspondence is known to survive between Hofmann and Schenker.

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