MEN-n-MUSIC PRESENTS

Andante and Presto, Op.17

play time 5:17


Josef Hofmann

Born January 20, 1876 in Podgórze, Kraków, Poland
Died February 16, 1957 in Los Angeles, California, USA


Josef Hofmann came from a family of musicians and began piano lessons
at the age of three. When he was eight he appeared in Warsaw, where
he played the Mozart's Concert in D minor conducted by his father. Two
years later he was touring Europe.

The following year Josef Hofmann began a tour of the USA. He was to
play eighty concerts, performing four times a week. The eleven-year-old
boy caused a sensation with his playing and improvising - in fact he was
the first musician ever recorded by Thomas Edison. After three months
of performances, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
stepped in citing the boy's fragile health. A humanitarian benefactor paid
Josef's father a substantial sum on the condition that Josef would not
appear in public until he was eighteen years of age.

During 1892-1894, Hofmann became the only private pupil of Russian
virtuoso and composer Anton Rubinstein. At his adult debut on March 14,
1894 in Hamburg, Hofmann played Rubinstein's Piano Concerto No. 4
in D minor with the composer conducting. He gave such a wonderful
performance that Rubinstein declared there was nothing left to teach him.

After this concert, Hofmann reentered the life of a touring virtuoso. Especially
popular in Russia, he gave 21 consecutive concerts in St. Petersburg, playing
255 different works, not repeating a single piece. Once Hofmann had learned
a piece of music, it was apparently in his mind and fingers for good. He also
had the ability to hear a composition just once and play it back flawlessly
without seeing the printed note.

Hofmann was also a composer publishing more than one hundred works,
mostly keeping in the convention of stylistic music of the 19th century,
many under the pseudonym Michel Dvorsky. Hofmann translates into
Dvorsky, the Polish language equivalent of "courtyard man".

Josef Hofmann was gifted with an analytical mind and he liked to boast
that he made more money out of his 70 patented inventions than he did
out of piano playing. His shock absorbers for cars and planes earned him
a fortune in the early twentieth century. His other inventions included
medical devices, a home heating oil furnace, and even the paper clip.

The next time you are driving down the road and it begins to rain, think
of Josef Hofmann, for he invented the windshield wiper.

CHROME KNOWS WHAT YOU WANT enter the CHROMIUM COLLECTION and have some fun

      
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