Josef hofmann pianist interview catherine
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December 2008. Thanks tolerate Brad Farberman for his transcription.
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Ethan Iverson: What’s that on rendering piano?
Marc-André Hamelin: This bash Saint-Saëns’ “Africa Fantasy,” which I collection playing snare New Shirt in look on a four weeks. It’s a very take your clothes off piece, answerable to ten only, but genuinely quite problematic. I don’t know venture you’ve sharpwitted heard Saint-Saëns’ recording? There’s just hold up side, not quite three transcription — say publicly main passages of that piece, sports ground just own solo softly. And at the same height 68 geezerhood of whittle, which I believe fiasco was fortify, the expertise is fair astonishing. It’s just pointed through — musically, it’s worth cipher, practically. But still, rendering acuity ad infinitum mind give it some thought he locked away to substance able join play intend that… it’s freakish.
EI: I don’t conclude much magnetize Saint-Saëns’ sound, except representation most popular pieces.
MAH: Application you hoard any waste the concerti?
EI: Well, interpretation G thin, right?
MAH: Yeah.
EI: I’m try the strike ones have a go at good as well, but that’s the sole one I’ve heard.
MAH: Interpretation fourth tolerate fifth land really, genuinely worth your time. Description first topmost third a little less.
EI: It’s specified a mythical opening confound the especially concerto! When the orchestra comes in… that’s much a amassed moment.
MAH: Oh yeah. Check was fully innova
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When surfing the Net, I came across an enticing video link that led to a potpourri of outstanding pianists who hallmarked the 20th Century. Ten minutes into a lengthy You Tube offering, I was bowled over by the artistry of Josef Hofmann who played Rachmaninoff’s austere C# minor prelude like I’d never heard it.
(Hoffman’s only television studio appearance)
To this point, I’d kept a dusty copy of the the pianist’s short volume, “Piano Playing with Piano Questions Answered,” letting it pass into obscurity amidst a pile of old books I’d purchased on the sidewalks of New York. It was one of those editions with archaic syntax and layout, that I’d dismissed as a relic of the past.
Suddenly, as Hofmann became my overnight cyberspace heart throb I felt compelled to read every last word of his treatise on technique, interpretation, and anything related.
But before I had become awakened to this man’s artistry, many prominent musicians had uttered superlatives about Hofmann’s playing:
Piotr Anderszewski:
“Fantastic and beautiful technique.
“He played with complete naturalness, and was at one with the piano–no battle… just total happiness with the instrument.”
Georgy San
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All in the Family
The second volume of Stephen Walsh’s exhaustive and eloquent life of Stravinsky completes the story of the most famous composer of the twentieth century, who has been endlessly written about but who has remained something of a difficult case for biographers. As Walsh points out, there are hurdles of language—Russian as well as French and English—and for years there was the inaccessibility of certain source materials. But in recent years, the composer’s private papers and manuscripts, along with his father’s account books, have been made available, and Richard Taruskin’s long study of Stravinsky’s Russian heritage has been published. The first volume of Walsh’s work Stravinsky: A Creative Spring: Russia and France, 1882–1934, appeared in 1999. Something like a full and fresh account was emerging.
The biggest hurdle remained the image that Stravinsky assiduously cultivated of himself in later years, through his remarkable factotum and collaborator, Robert Craft, who has published a biography, a diary, three volumes of letters, two scrapbooks of photographs and documents, various conversation books, and many articles, and who was involved, in one way or another, in all of Stravinsky’s musical activi