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Scherzo Fantastique for two pianos

play time 9:30


Rafael Joseffy

Born: July 3, 1852 - Hunfalu, Hungary
Died: June 25, 1915 - New York, New York, USA


As a young boy of 8-years-old, Joseffy began his piano studies. Although he was not a
child prodigy, his father made him continue his studies in Budapest. Joseffy then entered
the Music Conservatory in Leipzig, Germany in 1866, studying under Ernst Friedrich
Wenzel when he was 14 years old. In 1868 he went to Berlin to study with Carl Tausig
and during the summers spent time with Franz Liszt in Weimar, Germany.

Rafael Joseffy made his first public appearance in Berlin in 1872, and was immediately
acclaimed as a master pianist of great brilliance and remarkable technical powers. He
moved to the United States seven years later and made appearances in several American
cities playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Music critic James Huneker once wrote: "Joseffy stands today (1911) for all that is
exquisite and poetic in the domain of the piano. A virtuoso among virtuosi, and the
beauty of his tone, its velvety, aristocratic quality gives him a unique position in the
music-loving world. There is magic and moonlight in his playing of a Chopin Nocturne,
and meteor-like brilliance in his performance of a Liszt concerto".

Joseffy found concert life so severe upon his nerves that he retired from the concert
platform, not caring about fame or applause. He preferred the smaller income of the
teacher to the glare of the footlights and devoted his attention to teaching privately
and at The National Conservatory of Music in New York City.

Besides editing a large number of piano compositions of Chopin and other composers
for G. Schirmer music publishers, his chief contribution to the literature of the instrument
is his important "School of Advanced Piano Playing" (New York, 1902), upon which he
worked for many years.




















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