Josef Hofmann - Repertoire, Musical Ear and Memory

Repertoire, Musical Ear and Memory

Hofmann's repertoire was mostly confined to music written before the start of the 20th century. Much like Rubinstein's seven historic recitals of 1885, he gave 21 consecutive concerts in St. Petersburg without repeating a single piece, playing 255 different works from memory during that marathon cycle in 1912–1913. In the diary his wife kept during his 1909 Russian tour, she mentions his raising his eyebrows when he saw Brahms' Handel Variations on a program—a piece he had not played or even looked at for two and a half years. He played the work at the concert without hesitation. Although a poor sight reader, he was said to possess the ability of Franz Liszt and Camille Saint-Saëns to hear a composition once and play it back correctly without seeing the printed notes. Rosina Lhévinne recalled that Hofmann heard her husband Josef Lhévinne play Liszt's Lorelei, a piece Hofmann had never heard but went on to play it "just like my Josef (Lhevinne)" for an encore at his concert later that day. Maurice Aronson, who served as Leopold Godowsky's assistant, recalled Hofmann learning Godowsky's Fledermaus transcription. Godowsky and Hofmann met in Berlin in 1900, becoming friends until Godowsky's death in 1938. Hofmann would visit Godowsky's studio and listen while Godowsky was composing Fledermaus. A week later Hofmann visited Godowsky again and played the entire transcription, and he had never seen the music. Godowsky, in fact, had not yet written it down. Schonberg has added that Godowsky's Fledermaus is one of the most resourceful and complicated stunts ever written for the piano.