Józef Kazimierz Hofmann

Training under Anton Rubinstein is recorded. Jeanne Behrend, Shura Cherkassky and Abram Chasins are recorded as having studied under Józef Kazimierz Hofmann. The recorded working language is Polish and English. The field of work recorded is pianist. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are classical music. Places of work recorded in the authority are Philadelphia. Employment is recorded with Curtis Institute of Music. Distinctions recorded are Commander of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

• Name — Josef Hofmann • Birth Name — Józef Kazimierz Hofmann • Born — 20 January 1876 • Birthplace — Podgórze, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria-Hungary • Died — 16 February 1957 • Place of death — Los Angeles, California, U.S. • Resting Place — Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California • Children — 4, including Josef Anton Hofmann

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.

• Illustration — Hofmann as a young man at the keyboard 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.".

• Illustration — Hofmann in 1916 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.

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 a windscreen wiper, a furnace that burned crude oil, a house that revolved with the sun, a device to record dynamics (U.S. patent number 1614984) in reproducing piano rolls that he perfected just as the roll companies went out of business, and piano action improvements adopted by the Steinway Company (U.S. patent number 2263088).

Hofmann spent his last decade in Los Angeles where he moved to in 1939 and lived in relative obscurity, working on inventions and keeping a steady correspondence with associates. He died there of pneumonia on February 16, 1957, at a nursing home. He had four children; a daughter and three sons. In 1928, it became public that Hofmann had divorced his first wife—Marie Eustis, with whom he had a daughter—in 1924 and had married his second wife—Betty Short, who had initially been one of his students—shortly thereafter. His eldest son, Josef Anton Hofmann, became a noted audio engineer.

• Illustration — The 1917 New York Times article of James Huneker placing contemporary pianists, including Hofmann, in the context of the past legends. Harold C. Schonberg has argued that Hofmann was the most flawless and possibly the greatest pianist of the 20th century. His Master's Voice and RCA unsuccessfully pursued recording projects with Hofmann in the 1930s. Sergei Rachmaninoff dedicated his Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor (1909) to Hofmann, although Hofmann disliked it and never played it. Older generation critics such as James Huneker labeled Hofmann the "king of pianists", and Samuel Chotzinoff called him the "greatest pianist of our time." Contemporaries such as Rachmaninoff, Ignaz Friedman, Josef Lhévinne, and Godowsky considered Hofmann to be, overall, the greatest pianist of their generation, but the acclaim was not so universal from the next generation of pianists. In his autobiography Arthur Rubinstein criticized Hofmann as someone who took interest in only the mechanics of music and not in its heart or spirituality, and commented that at the end of Hofmann's career "he was left with nothing after his technique left him". Claudio Arrau dismissed Hofmann (along with Paderewski) as someone who only happened to be very famous and said "I didn't know what to do with him". Sviatoslav Richter, after listening to a Hofmann RCA test pressing of the Scherzo from Beethoven's Sonata in E-flat, Op. 31, No. 3, considered the older pianist to be technically "stunning", but noted that Hofmann ignored the composer's sforzando markings; while György Sándor has called him the greatest of all 20th-century pianists in terms of music, interpretation, and technique. Hofmann's own student Shura Cherkassky compared Horowitz favorably with Hofmann as follows: "Hofmann was possibly the greater musical mind. But, I think, Horowitz was the greater pianist, the greater virtuoso—he somehow appealed to the whole world. Hofmann could not communicate on that level". To balance the record, Earl Wild acknowledged Hofmann's style as the biggest influence on him gaining a fluid and flexible technique: ‘His interpretations were always delivered with great logic and beauty.’ Jorge Bolet is reported to have said that whenever he heard either Rachmaninoff or Hofmann, he always thought to himself, ‘Every note that they play – that is what I would like to play.’ The Josef Hofmann Piano Competition, co-sponsored by the American Council for Polish Culture and the University of South Carolina Aiken, was established in his honor in 1994.

He also worked under the name Michel Dvorsky. The authorities additionally record the headings Josef Casimir Hofmann and Jozef Hofmann. His recorded languages were Polish and English. He was the child of Kazimierz Hofman. One child is recorded: Josef Anton Hofmann.

Józef Kazimierz Hofmann is recorded as pianist, composer, screenwriter, university teacher and inventor.