The spontaneity, freedom, and clarity in Hofmann's playing was unsurpassed. That golden tone and those crazy dynamics...one of a kind! A true virtuoso.
It’s amazing to consider how many generations closer to Chopin Hofmann was, and the interpretation or style is noticeably different than pianists played even 50 years ago; I don’t mean that it’s old fashioned in any way! His interpretations seem more authentic because of his proximity to Chopin’s life. It’s not only his use of tenuto and the incredible tonal colors he’s able to produce….the execution of his rapid passages are so crystalline and lovely that I forget to breathe! And I adore the Rubinstein concerto! I wish more people played it!
Originally this was made available as a set of 13 records. Only 20 sets were produced in 1937. Hofmann's wife Betty arranged for the recording without Hofmann's knowledge. Betty Hofmann did sent the records to Hofmann’s mother who could not attend the concert, this because she lived in Berlin. This particular exemplar (set) is archived at the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung in Berlin Germany.
Pan pianista. Pan Hofmann był geniuszem. Rachmaninow twierdził, ze nie było lepszego za fortepianem. Niestety jakoś zapisu z tamtych lat nie pozwala w pełni tego docenić. Genialny wynalazca Edison podarował kilkuletniemu Józefowi swój wynalazek czyli fonograf. Widział w nim geniusza, był zachwycony. Zapomnieliśmy o nim. Może też dlatego, że jego ostatnie lata wyglądały jak wielu gwiazd rocka. Tak o nim pisał inny geniusz czyli Sergiusz Rachmaninow. "...Kiedyś w Paryżu mieszkało mnóstwo krawców. Gdy jednemu z nich udało się wynająć sklep przy ulicy, na której nie było ani jednego krawca, napisał na szyldzie "Najlepszy krawiec w Paryżu". Drugi krawiec, który wynajął sklep obok napisał na swym szyldzie "Najlepszy krawiec na całym świecie". Cóż zrobił trzeci krawiec, który wynajął sklep między dwoma pierwszymi? Napisał z należną skromnością: "Najlepszy krawiec na tej ulicy". Pańska wzruszająca skromność, wyrażona w Pańskim liście, tak jak i Pańskie niezrównane mistrzostwo zawodowe, dają Panu pełne prawo na ten ostatni tytuł "Pan jest najlepszy na tej ulicy" - tak do polskiego pianisty Józefa Hofmanna - pisał Sergiusz Rachmaninow.
Sie waren früher alle bescheidener und dabei noch besser als heute. Was das Publikum heute bei den Interpreten ausflippt, wie wären sie ausgeflippt bei Hofmann, würde er heute konzertieren. Nicht auszudenken. Er stellt alle in den Schatten. Zeitgenossen, wie Rachmaninov und die Generation danach, wie Horowitz, Rubinstein und wie sie alle hießen, waren große Bewunderer von Hofmann, jetzt weiß ich warum.
Natürlich war damals der Hofmann sozusagen der goldene Standard und verdiente die Bewunderung seiner berühmten Kollegen. Was man hier hören kann ist echtes pianistisches Können von einer seltenen Art gepaart mit einem ei zigartigen Klangsinn und einer individuellen originellen musikalischen Aussage. Nicht von ungefähr spricht man von "The golden piano age". Das ist WIRKLICHES KÖNNEN!
Thank You for this. What amazing playing. The Moszkowski Caprice Espagnole totally blew me away. I was reading the score as he played it and the cleanness of his playing and outright virtuosity leaves me astonished. No one can do that like he did. That said, I really thought the G Minor Chopin Ballade was terrible for my taste. Way to fast, rushed, not elegant Chopin at all. Jorge Bolet said "Nothing kills beautiful piano music like excessive speed". He was right. Then Hofmann follows with a Chopin Nocturne 9 #2 and plays it beautifully. I'm not sure his Chopin was his strong suit though. At times it's absolutely beautiful, and at times it's lacking in charm and excessive speed and virtuosity at the expense of the music. It's hard to criticize someone who is so titanic of a musical mind and abilities. I have to call it as I see it.
WorldCat info on orchestra and conductor: Josef Hofmann, piano ; Curtis Student Orchestra ; Fritz Reiner, conductor (in the Brahms, Rubinstein, and Hofmann works). Event notes: Recorded in the Metropolitan Opera House on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Josef Hofmann's American debut, Nov. 28, 1937.
as usual in comments of such videos there is a joy to read so many unprofessional reviews of people who never even played piano but come here and tell the truth who is best and who's not
@Chopin1995 : Vous parlez de ce célébrissime Golden JUBILEE Concert de Josef HOFMANN, comme si le monde entier était le connaître .... Un membre de la communauté ou vous Chopin1995, pourrait-il me dire dans quelle prestigieuse salle de concert J.HOFMANN joua-t-il ce beau jour du 12 février 1921 ? Merci d'avance à tous. Et merci à chopin1995 d'avoir publié cette pépite historique.
Those tempi he is riding are just voracious! Is that a 33.3 rpm vinyl disc that is played at 44 rpm? But still, there are a lot of expressions transmitted, very delicate!
We’ve lost all semblance of music making today. Nobody and I mean nobody makes art like the golden age of pianists !!!! We have half dressed cocktail waitress types. No suffering equals no art !
". . . half-dressed" indeed! Dream Date backstage remarks, How'd you like the performance?" "Well, Yuja, nice ass. But no BLOOD." This is, of course, a reference to Artur Rubenstein's autobiography. My own teacher was from this era, a student of Leschetitzky. Woefully a stray bullet hit his left hand, ending his Viennese concertizing. Every single time he played a section of a piece for me, I balled like a baby. Every time. He never made the slightest note of it. Haven't really enjoyed a SINGLE concert since, sitting on the aisle, leaving at intermission.
@@patrickshanahan7505 wow great comment. I studied at Juilliard under Josef Raieff and Ania Dorfmann in the 70s. You are so right. Rubato is long lost art . They also refuse to play Beethoven and Mozart without rubato. No life , no originality. I could go on.
IMO, often, especially in the ballade, he sacrifices drama for techmical showmanship and, in doing do, ruins the flow. Pity, because he really makes the piano weep at the beginning of the ballade. He did play the minute (tiny) waltz as the minute (60 seconds) waltz. Was it due to tevhnological limitations of recordings of the era? The ease with which he plays is amazing.
удивительно даже, что в том же году Владимир Софроницкий даёт исторические концерты где исполняет чуть ли не те же сочинения Шопена с потрясающей глубиной, до сих пор остающиеся эталонными интерпретациями. а вот где-то в таких шикарных залах вот как-то так играет Шопена Гофман.
@@paulcapaccio9905 au contraire. LOTS of people could tie their shoes. Why i myself saw Van Cliburn tie his shoes on many occasions, sometimes while performing Tchaikovsky! And Claudio Arrau did it by putting his feet actually ON the piano as he tied them, all without missing a beat!
Hofmann gave this concert in his early 60s, it's one of our rare, final glimpses of his playing before it sharply declined. He truly was the pride and sorrow of the classical piano world as later in life alcoholism consumed him, and his playing deteriorated. According to Rachmaninoff, "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." The very best of his contemporaries and the generation of pianists that followed him considered him to be the best. It's hard to quantify the impact he's had on classical piano music, but it would be fair to say we wouldn't have Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto (as it's written) as it was dedicated to Hofmann. Or the numerous improvements to design and action modern pianos now enjoy, due to the inventions he created and patents he held.
@@behindtheheadphones From what I read in recent years Hoffman was the prodigy of prodigies by the 1880s. He had been the only private student of Anton Rubinstein, the Founder of the St Petersburg Conservatoire( this fact had a tremendous impact on students of the Conservatoire like Rachmaninoff and Levine at the time, who admired Hoffman throughout their lives-which by itself is something amazing). We notice the influence of Anton Rubinstein in his approach to certain pieces. One thing that Hoffman is also greatly admired for is his use of the pedals which is said to be unique of his playing. And of course he also had an innate understanding of the mechanics of sound generation and developed a partnership with Steinway to create grand pianos especially from his specifications. Just to finish, anyone after a 65-year career should have the right to retire from practicing so that it is unfair to criticize him for his later years. In spite of being referred to as a heavy drinker he lived to 81 so that I think his drinking was not actually so detrimental to his health-in a time in which there were no treatments!
@@osvaldoschilling9129 I agree with everything you've said. I'm not laying any judgement but simply quoting and explaining the sentiment of his contemporaries. Which is relevant context in answering Peyton's question. This is only speculation on my part, but I suspect for many of the great pianists of the day, it took a toll on them watching their hero fade off in that manner. When asked why he practiced so hard, often for 17 hours a day, Rachmaninoff was quoted saying that he, "wanted to have a technique that approached that of Josef Hofmann." Or take for instance, Oscar Levant explaining, "one of the terrible tragedies of music was the disintegration of Josef Hofmann as an artist. In his latter days, he became an alcoholic…his last public concert…was an ordeal for all of us." It's completely fair to retire after such an incredible career, but it's also understandable why his contemporaries were so dismayed seeing someone they looked up to, with such innate virtuosic ability, seemingly lose interest and retire. Something they all had to work tremendously hard, just to approach his ability. I've read a few opinions that the tragedy of Hofmann was that everything came too easy for him - he just lost interest. I'm not sure I really buy that argument though, as heavy alcohol use often leads to marital problems and can damage careers. Even the greatest minds can fall trap to a cycle of alcohol addiction, and live with its profoundly negative effects but still be functioning (to greater or lesser degrees - as I believe he was still inventing and patenting devices well after he retired from performing). On a lighter note though, there were others, notably his students at the Curtis Institute of Music that spoke with great admiration of him, like Ruth Slenczynska th-cam.com/video/5OskB5lXUmo/w-d-xo.html (highly recommend this interview - it was a real treasure to come across).
One final tidbit of info the Josef Hofmann fans on here might find interesting. His son, Josef Anton Hofmann, was the "H" in KLH. One of the three original founders of the highly respected, audiophile quality, loudspeaker and audio company. He was a speaker system designer and known for "Hofmann's Iron Law" of speaker enclosure/woofer tradeoffs. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Anton_Hofmann
@@behindtheheadphones Hi. Thanks. In fact when someone was as famous as Hoffman was in the 1930s everybody tends to judge him according to very high standards. This is part of what is called fame. At this point we wonder that he should have made much more electric recordings, both for the money and to establish his status among a wider audience. I actually dont know much about details, in particular about his departure from the Curtis Institute.
Lol... It's true. The ballade is a mess, but you can't criticize Hofmann, it is not politically correct. But you can, for instance, extract the ballade excerpt and publish it on TH-cam just saying that it's an Argerich's recording. And you'll see how the mob tears it apart.
![[FULL EP.16] เซียนพาลุย "เผือก-ฟรอยด์" กรี๊ดลั่น จนปูหนี | เฮ็ดอย่างเซียนหรั่ง | One Playground](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FsqUvwS3b-Y/mqdefault.jpg)
0:20 - Brahms - Academic Festival Overture Op.80
10:06 - Introductory remarks by Walter Damrosch
Rubinstein - Piano Concerto No.4 in D minor
15:13 - Moderato assai - Allegro
27:26 - Andante
37:49 - Allegro
47:15 - Transition
47:46 - Chopin - Ballade op.23
55:50 - G Minor Chord
56:07 - Chopin - Nocturne op.9 No.2
1:00:14 - Chopin - Waltz op.42
1:04:00 - Transition
1:04:28 - Chopin - Andante Spianato & Grand Polonaise op.22
1:15:28 - Chopin - Nocturne op.15 No.2
1:18:26 - Chopin - Waltz op.64 No.1
1:20:06 - Glissando, Transition
1:20:11 - Chopin - Etude op.25 No.9
1:21:13 - Chopin - Berceuse op.57
1:25:03 Hofmann - Chromaticon (for piano and orchestra)
1:39:19 - Transition
1:39:30 - Mendelssohn - Spinning Song op.67 No.4
1:41:18 - Rachmaninoff - Prelude op.23 No.5
1:44:52 - Beethoven-Rubinstein - Turkish March
1:46:55 - Moszkowski - Carpice Espagnole op.37
The spontaneity, freedom, and clarity in Hofmann's playing was unsurpassed. That golden tone and those crazy dynamics...one of a kind! A true virtuoso.
It’s amazing to consider how many generations closer to Chopin Hofmann was, and the interpretation or style is noticeably different than pianists played even 50 years ago; I don’t mean that it’s old fashioned in any way! His interpretations seem more authentic because of his proximity to Chopin’s life. It’s not only his use of tenuto and the incredible tonal colors he’s able to produce….the execution of his rapid passages are so crystalline and lovely that I forget to breathe! And I adore the Rubinstein concerto! I wish more people played it!
Hofmann must have been 61 years old in 1937 - his energy and skills are beyond amazing!
Originally this was made available as a set of 13 records. Only 20 sets were produced in 1937. Hofmann's wife Betty arranged for the recording without Hofmann's knowledge. Betty Hofmann did sent the records to Hofmann’s mother who could not attend the concert, this because she lived in Berlin. This particular exemplar (set) is archived at the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung in Berlin Germany.
Thank you very much for this additional and important piece of information! I'm going to add this to the description.
Incredible.
Wow. It's like I'd never heard Chopin Op 22 before. And the purity and simplicity of Op 9 no 2 is out of this world.
What a gift, truly reference, the bright spot in our Corona-plagued time!
The most spectacular concert in the history of music!
And of course, you've heard every concert in the history of music to make such an arrogant and pointless claim?
@@remomazzetti8757 It’s just an expression dummy. You quit being arrogant. Leave it be Lola.
Pan pianista. Pan Hofmann był geniuszem. Rachmaninow twierdził, ze nie było lepszego za fortepianem. Niestety jakoś zapisu z tamtych lat nie pozwala w pełni tego docenić. Genialny wynalazca Edison podarował kilkuletniemu Józefowi swój wynalazek czyli fonograf. Widział w nim geniusza, był zachwycony. Zapomnieliśmy o nim. Może też dlatego, że jego ostatnie lata wyglądały jak wielu gwiazd rocka. Tak o nim pisał inny geniusz czyli Sergiusz Rachmaninow. "...Kiedyś w Paryżu mieszkało mnóstwo krawców. Gdy jednemu z nich udało się wynająć sklep przy ulicy, na której nie było ani jednego krawca, napisał na szyldzie "Najlepszy krawiec w Paryżu". Drugi krawiec, który wynajął sklep obok napisał na swym szyldzie "Najlepszy krawiec na całym świecie". Cóż zrobił trzeci krawiec, który wynajął sklep między dwoma pierwszymi? Napisał z należną skromnością: "Najlepszy krawiec na tej ulicy". Pańska wzruszająca skromność, wyrażona w Pańskim liście, tak jak i Pańskie niezrównane mistrzostwo zawodowe, dają Panu pełne prawo na ten ostatni tytuł "Pan jest najlepszy na tej ulicy" - tak do polskiego pianisty Józefa Hofmanna - pisał Sergiusz Rachmaninow.
Sie waren früher alle bescheidener und dabei noch besser als heute. Was das Publikum heute bei den Interpreten ausflippt, wie wären sie ausgeflippt bei Hofmann, würde er heute konzertieren. Nicht auszudenken. Er stellt alle in den Schatten. Zeitgenossen, wie Rachmaninov und die Generation danach, wie Horowitz, Rubinstein und wie sie alle hießen, waren große Bewunderer von Hofmann, jetzt weiß ich warum.
Natürlich war damals der Hofmann sozusagen der goldene Standard und verdiente die Bewunderung seiner berühmten Kollegen. Was man hier hören kann ist echtes pianistisches Können von einer seltenen Art gepaart mit einem ei zigartigen Klangsinn und einer individuellen originellen musikalischen Aussage. Nicht von ungefähr spricht man von "The golden piano age". Das ist WIRKLICHES KÖNNEN!
Fascinating program with the orchestra participating in non successive works. There is nothing more beautiful than this Nocturne Op.9 No.2
We have very little on record of Fritz Reiner conducting the Curtis Orchestra. The finesse and virtuosity are on a very high level.
Incredible! Thank you for sharing this entire concert in one video!
I bought this on vinyl (not the original 78’s) when I was a teenager. Thanks for uploading it here.
this is incredible. this is better than any pianist alive today
This is wonderful-but let's not get carried away...
@@bloodgrssyes he is better than all of these ones alive today
Nope...@@sowhat5399
@ladivinafanatic people compare lang lang to him 🤣🤣
@ladivinafanaticMoris Rosenthal and Percy Grainger,too
Wow. This is amazing! Love the simplicity of the Nocturne. The perfection in the Etude triggers PTSD from one of my old teachers. 😅
Thank you so much! I had no idea this existed and I am quite old..
You're welcome! Pretty good, isn't it? :)
The Ballade is absolutely spectacular. Wow.
Hofmann, on a Roll!!
One of the very best pianists of all times! I am very thankfull to have the chance to hear this in such a good recording quality. Such an enjoyment!
Marvellous. Thank you very much for uploading it!
For anyone following with the score: at 1:13:03 he skips about 38 measures of the polonaise
Astounding!
Thank you for this wonderful document. ❤🎉❤
Thank You for this. What amazing playing. The Moszkowski Caprice Espagnole totally blew me away. I was reading the score as he played it and the cleanness of his playing and outright virtuosity leaves me astonished. No one can do that like he did.
That said, I really thought the G Minor Chopin Ballade was terrible for my taste. Way to fast, rushed, not elegant Chopin at all. Jorge Bolet said "Nothing kills beautiful piano music like excessive speed". He was right.
Then Hofmann follows with a Chopin Nocturne 9 #2 and plays it beautifully. I'm not sure his Chopin was his strong suit though. At times it's absolutely beautiful, and at times it's lacking in charm and excessive speed and virtuosity at the expense of the music. It's hard to criticize someone who is so titanic of a musical mind and abilities.
I have to call it as I see it.
WorldCat info on orchestra and conductor:
Josef Hofmann, piano ; Curtis Student Orchestra ; Fritz Reiner, conductor (in the Brahms, Rubinstein, and Hofmann works).
Event notes: Recorded in the Metropolitan Opera House on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Josef Hofmann's American debut, Nov. 28, 1937.
the grand polonaise was so energetic I acc wanted to break into a dance
as usual in comments of such videos there is a joy to read so many unprofessional reviews of people who never even played piano but come here and tell the truth who is best and who's not
Is it just me or this recital seems a bit more casual than recitals now? Like more lively?
თვით რახმანინოვი აღიარებდა
ჰოფმანს პირველ პიანისტად ❤
@Chopin1995 : Vous parlez de ce célébrissime Golden JUBILEE Concert de Josef HOFMANN, comme si le monde entier était le connaître .... Un membre de la communauté ou vous Chopin1995, pourrait-il me dire dans quelle prestigieuse salle de concert J.HOFMANN joua-t-il ce beau jour du 12 février 1921 ? Merci d'avance à tous. Et merci à chopin1995 d'avoir publié cette pépite historique.
Metropolitan opera à New York. Tout est dit dans la présentation.
Different Era~Style
Those tempi he is riding are just voracious! Is that a 33.3 rpm vinyl disc that is played at 44 rpm? But still, there are a lot of expressions transmitted, very delicate!
This was recorded on thirteen 78rpm records.
Does anyone have any information on what pianist composers attended this concert. It's truly historical.
We’ve lost all semblance of music making today. Nobody and I mean nobody makes art like the golden age of pianists !!!! We have half dressed cocktail waitress types. No suffering equals no art !
". . . half-dressed" indeed! Dream Date backstage remarks, How'd you like the performance?" "Well, Yuja, nice ass. But no BLOOD." This is, of course, a reference to Artur Rubenstein's autobiography. My own teacher was from this era, a student of Leschetitzky. Woefully a stray bullet hit his left hand, ending his Viennese concertizing. Every single time he played a section of a piece for me, I balled like a baby. Every time. He never made the slightest note of it. Haven't really enjoyed a SINGLE concert since, sitting on the aisle, leaving at intermission.
@@patrickshanahan7505 wow great comment. I studied at Juilliard under Josef Raieff and Ania Dorfmann in the 70s. You are so right. Rubato is long lost art . They also refuse to play Beethoven and Mozart without rubato. No life , no originality. I could go on.
Well, there is Pletnev.
@@patrickshanahan7505 you are so livky
@@patrickshanahan7505 lucky
IMO, often, especially in the ballade, he sacrifices drama for techmical showmanship and, in doing do, ruins the flow. Pity, because he really makes the piano weep at the beginning of the ballade.
He did play the minute (tiny) waltz as the minute (60 seconds) waltz. Was it due to tevhnological limitations of recordings of the era?
The ease with which he plays is amazing.
37:49
удивительно даже, что в том же году Владимир Софроницкий даёт исторические концерты где исполняет чуть ли не те же сочинения Шопена с потрясающей глубиной, до сих пор остающиеся эталонными интерпретациями. а вот где-то в таких шикарных залах вот как-то так играет Шопена Гофман.
Don’t need to put one artist down to praise another
44:00
Help me here folks. What orchestra is this, and what hall is this in?
Thank you.
BDS
Walter Johannes Damrosch? The old Metropolitan Opera House? How’my doing?
OK guys. I looked it up. And I was right. Wonderful. What a legacy!
Curtis Student Orchestra under Fritz Reiner
a lot of his laying reminds me of lang lang and people hate lang lang lol
How could he be "the greatest pianist of the 20th century" when he died in the 1950's?
Because nobody after that could tie his shoes. Except Horowitz . Nothing but Asian machines today.
@@paulcapaccio9905 au contraire. LOTS of people could tie their shoes. Why i myself saw Van Cliburn tie his shoes on many occasions, sometimes while performing Tchaikovsky!
And Claudio Arrau did it by putting his feet actually ON the piano as he tied them, all without missing a beat!
So no clue why this is big time history. Enlighten me.
Hofmann gave this concert in his early 60s, it's one of our rare, final glimpses of his playing before it sharply declined. He truly was the pride and sorrow of the classical piano world as later in life alcoholism consumed him, and his playing deteriorated. According to Rachmaninoff, "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." The very best of his contemporaries and the generation of pianists that followed him considered him to be the best. It's hard to quantify the impact he's had on classical piano music, but it would be fair to say we wouldn't have Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto (as it's written) as it was dedicated to Hofmann. Or the numerous improvements to design and action modern pianos now enjoy, due to the inventions he created and patents he held.
@@behindtheheadphones From what I read in recent years Hoffman was the prodigy of prodigies by the 1880s. He had been the only private student of Anton Rubinstein, the Founder of the St Petersburg Conservatoire( this fact had a tremendous impact on students of the Conservatoire like Rachmaninoff and Levine at the time, who admired Hoffman throughout their lives-which by itself is something amazing). We notice the influence of Anton Rubinstein in his approach to certain pieces. One thing that Hoffman is also greatly admired for is his use of the pedals which is said to be unique of his playing. And of course he also had an innate understanding of the mechanics of sound generation and developed a partnership with Steinway to create grand pianos especially from his specifications. Just to finish, anyone after a 65-year career should have the right to retire from practicing so that it is unfair to criticize him for his later years. In spite of being referred to as a heavy drinker he lived to 81 so that I think his drinking was not actually so detrimental to his health-in a time in which there were no treatments!
@@osvaldoschilling9129 I agree with everything you've said. I'm not laying any judgement but simply quoting and explaining the sentiment of his contemporaries. Which is relevant context in answering Peyton's question. This is only speculation on my part, but I suspect for many of the great pianists of the day, it took a toll on them watching their hero fade off in that manner. When asked why he practiced so hard, often for 17 hours a day, Rachmaninoff was quoted saying that he, "wanted to have a technique that approached that of Josef Hofmann." Or take for instance, Oscar Levant explaining, "one of the terrible tragedies of music was the disintegration of Josef Hofmann as an artist. In his latter days, he became an alcoholic…his last public concert…was an ordeal for all of us." It's completely fair to retire after such an incredible career, but it's also understandable why his contemporaries were so dismayed seeing someone they looked up to, with such innate virtuosic ability, seemingly lose interest and retire. Something they all had to work tremendously hard, just to approach his ability. I've read a few opinions that the tragedy of Hofmann was that everything came too easy for him - he just lost interest. I'm not sure I really buy that argument though, as heavy alcohol use often leads to marital problems and can damage careers. Even the greatest minds can fall trap to a cycle of alcohol addiction, and live with its profoundly negative effects but still be functioning (to greater or lesser degrees - as I believe he was still inventing and patenting devices well after he retired from performing). On a lighter note though, there were others, notably his students at the Curtis Institute of Music that spoke with great admiration of him, like Ruth Slenczynska th-cam.com/video/5OskB5lXUmo/w-d-xo.html (highly recommend this interview - it was a real treasure to come across).
One final tidbit of info the Josef Hofmann fans on here might find interesting. His son, Josef Anton Hofmann, was the "H" in KLH. One of the three original founders of the highly respected, audiophile quality, loudspeaker and audio company. He was a speaker system designer and known for "Hofmann's Iron Law" of speaker enclosure/woofer tradeoffs. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Anton_Hofmann
@@behindtheheadphones Hi. Thanks. In fact when someone was as famous as Hoffman was in the 1930s everybody tends to judge him according to very high standards. This is part of what is called fame. At this point we wonder that he should have made much more electric recordings, both for the money and to establish his status among a wider audience.
I actually dont know much about details, in particular about his departure from the Curtis Institute.
In the Ballade he was trying set a new speed record. Did not sound like a Ballade to me.
Sorry. What does a Ballade sound like? This is not troubadour music from 1450.
Lol... It's true. The ballade is a mess, but you can't criticize Hofmann, it is not politically correct.
But you can, for instance, extract the ballade excerpt and publish it on TH-cam just saying that it's an Argerich's recording. And you'll see how the mob tears it apart.
@@dorfmanjones loooooooollll