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Acoustically Perfect - Josef Hofmann: The Brunswick Recordings · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
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  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
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  Please consider subscribing to The Piano Maven
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  through my Substack page, and I've provided a
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  link in our episode description. Paid subscribers
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  get free downloads at the start of each month,
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  and we also will have Zoom meetings every now
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  and then. We did have one in February, and I
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  just was not able to find the time to schedule
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  one for April, but we will have one for June.
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  I still have to schedule that. It's been rather
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  hard for me to keep up with all of this because
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  I've been on tour this spring, and I'm preparing
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  for my fall concert touring as well. Excuses,
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  excuses, right? For this episode, I'm going to
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  get into what some of you might think is rather
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  esoteric or arcane territory, yet it's a topic
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  that's very relevant to serious collectors of
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  piano recordings and true mavens of pianism's
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  recorded history. Up until the advent of recordings
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  made under the electrical process with microphones,
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  All piano recordings, indeed all recordings,
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  were made by the acoustic process, purely by
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  mechanical means, without any electrical amplification
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  or microphones. The process actually was very
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  simple in theory. Instrumentalists... And singers
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  performed in front of a flare metal horn that
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  gathered and funneled sound waves toward a thin
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  diaphragm at the small end of this horn. And
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  the energy of the sound waves caused the diaphragm
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  to vibrate. And the vibrating diaphragm caused
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  an attached stylus to etch the sound waves onto
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  a rotating object. At first, the rotating object
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  was a cylinder. You had rotating cylinders capturing
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  these sound waves. But the cylinders eventually
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  gave way to flat disks, as we tend to relate
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  to records, you know, LP -78s, 45s, the flat
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  disks. And there were not any tone controls.
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  Any adjustment to the sound or dynamics had to
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  come from the performers, which meant that if
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  you had a loud voice, you had to stand back from
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  the big acoustic horn. Otherwise, you would kind
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  of overload the thing. You know, it's like turning
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  the microphone too much higher. You know what
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  I mean? Now, to play the recordings back, basically
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  the process was reversed. So over the decades
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  that acoustic recording technology was in place,
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  all kinds of experiments were done by record
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  companies to try to improve the sound or to try
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  to expand the limited range of audio frequencies.
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  And by and large, acoustic technology did pretty
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  sufficient justice to pianists. And when you
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  play these acoustic recordings on modern equipment
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  with a stylus that can ride the grooves properly,
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  a surprising amount of detail comes through in
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  terms of nuance and pedaling and scaling of dynamics
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  within the limited dynamic range available. And
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  it's very easy for your ears to adjust. So, you
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  know, when you hear these... Old acoustic recordings
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  played on modern equipment with the best styluses
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  and so on and so forth. They sound actually much
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  better than they would have sounded on the old
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  playback equipment of the 19 -teens and 20s.
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  But one reason that acoustic recordings are important
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  is that they preserve the artistry of many pianists
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  who did not. live into the electrical era, or
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  at least they did not record into the electrical
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  era, or they preserve certain pianists at early
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  stages in their careers. And these pianists,
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  of course, did continue to record into the electrical
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  era in 78s and even through the eras of mono
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  and stereo LPs. A good example of this is the
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  pianist Wilhelm Backhaus, who lived from 1884
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  until 1969. Now, he's mainly known for the Beethoven
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  recordings that he made in his 70s and 80s for
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  Decca in the 50s and 60s. But when he began recording
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  around 1908 at the age of 23 or 24, he was a
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  young virtuoso dynamo who could... toss -off
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  Liszt rhapsodies and Moskovsky encores like nobody's
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  business. In other words, he was a very different
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  kind of musician in his youth. Now, had Artur
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  Schnabel not resisted making recordings when
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  he was much younger, until he finally relented
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  in 1932 at the age of 50, who knows if we would
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  have been able to hear Schnabel in his 20s play
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  works of Chopin and Liszt, which were in his
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  repertoire back in his early days. So what I'm
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  saying is that the piano discography has such
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  an enormously rich acoustic recording heritage
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  that it would really take dozens of podcast episodes
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  to do it justice. So I thought from time to time
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  we could take... a particular artist or a particular
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  group of recordings or a genre within the acoustic
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  catalog to draw attention to some important or
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  at least interesting acoustic piano recordings.
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  Here's the first installment in a miniseries
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  or subseries that I'm going to call Acoustically
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  Perfect. And I stole that title from Bugs Bunny.
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  Remember in the cartoon The Long -Haired Hare
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  when he's going after that singer who harassed
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  him? And now he's going to get revenge on the
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  singer who's performing at the Hollywood Bowl.
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  And Bugs Bunny hits a hammer. on the top of the
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  Hollywood Bowl shell, and he says, acoustically
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  perfect. So for this first installment, I want
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  to discuss a series of recordings that most hardcore
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  piano mavens probably agree upon. I think there's
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  definitely critical consensus around the 1923
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  solo sessions for the Brunswick label featuring
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  pianist Joseph Hoffman. Hoffman lived from 1876
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  until 1957. He was arguably the most acclaimed
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  virtuoso of his day. He started out as a remarkable
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  child prodigy, and he matured into a finished
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  artist and a pianist who was almost universally
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  admired for his extraordinary workmanship and
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  musical intelligence in his prime years, meaning
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  the late 1800s. throughout the first few decades
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  of the 20th century. And he had a rather strange
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  recording career. Hoffman was mechanically inclined,
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  and he actually held several patents for inventions.
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  He was intrigued by early recording technology,
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  and when he was a child prodigy, he actually
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  sat on the inventor Thomas Edison's lap and played
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  into a prototype cylinder machine. Later on,
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  Edison sent Hoffman a cylinder phonograph as
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  a gift, and the child experimented with it all
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  the time. And unlike many pianists recording
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  in the early days of acoustic technology, like
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  in the 1900s and 1910s, a lot of pianists...
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  looked askance at the recording process. But
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  Hoffman was intrigued by it. And he was one of
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  the few pianists who really, really cared what
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  his recording sounded like. And he always was
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  in quest of finding the ideal means of tone production.
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  And I think he was concerned with this throughout
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  his life, actually. He recorded at first. commercially
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  anyway, for the British G &T label in 1903. And
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  then he made an extensive series of recordings
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  for American Columbia between 1912 and 1918.
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  And he also was involved in recording piano rolls,
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  which is a whole other topic. And the value of
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  piano rolls actually is rather controversial,
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  but that's a topic for another podcast. But in
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  essence, by 1923, acoustic technology had been
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  refined to the point where Hoffman could obtain
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  sonic and artistic results that he could easily
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  sign off on. And his 1923 series of 78s for the
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  American Brunswick label not only constitutes
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  some of the best sounding acoustic piano recordings
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  of that time, but they also capture Joseph Hoffman's
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  artistry and his pianism in prime form. Hoffman's
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  Brunswick's are collected. in the compact disc
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  series called The Complete Joseph Hoffman, which
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  began on the VAI label with the first four volumes,
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  and then the Marston label picked up the series
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  from volume five on through the concluding ninth
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  volume. The Brunswick's are contained on volume
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  four, released by VAI, and these recordings continue
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  to stand the test of time more than a hundred
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  years after they were made. Among the highlights
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  of this series include the most eloquent and
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  gorgeously proportioned rendition I've ever heard
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  of Anton Rubinstein's Melody in F. This was a
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  popular encore that could be sentimentalized
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  and boulderized to death and pulled apart so
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  easily. Yet Hoffman plays it with such simplicity
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  and dignity as if this was the greatest piece
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  of music ever composed. And also the controlled
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  virtuosity and the ease that he brings to Louis
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  Brassens' transcription of the magic fire music
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  from Wagner's Die Walküre remains a discographical
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  gold standard. Some commentators thought that
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  Hoffman played Rachmaninoff's G minor prelude,
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  Op. 23, No. 5, even better than the composer.
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  And there is a case for that. If you listen to
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  how he balances the middle section's main theme
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  and the inner voices and the middle register,
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  maybe you would agree. And there's one performance
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  in the Brunswick series that's very interesting,
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  Chopin's C -sharp minor waltz. Hoffman plays
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  the main section of the piece. That part. He
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  plays it very straightforwardly, but in the trio
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  section, in D -flat major, he frees up a little
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  bit. He frees himself up, I mean, and desynchronizes
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  his hands in the old -fashioned manner that he
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  largely avoids in his recordings. The Scarlatti,
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  Pastoral, and Capriccio in the Taussig arrangements
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  are played with such finesse and rhythmic center
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  that you really get a feeling of air in between
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  the notes. That's a cliche that I use all too
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  often when I write reviews, the air in between
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  the notes. But I think it's really true about
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  this recording. And interestingly, in a letter
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  to Alexander Greiner, at Steinway. Hoffman claimed
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  that this recording of the Taussig arrangement
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  of Scarlatti was a favorite recording of Rachmaninoff's.
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  Rachmaninoff actually liked this, so that's kind
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  of cool. Joseph Hoffman plays Liszt's Hungarian
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  Rhapsody No. 2 and Liszt's La Campanella with
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  a poise and a precision that makes other pianists
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  of his generation sound thick by comparison.
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  And while Hoffman's recording of the Chopin B
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  minor scherzo is unfortunately abbreviated, there
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  aren't any repeats, again, this is just flawless
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  pianism. Now, one could argue that Hoffman plays
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  Liszt's Waldusrauschen way too fast, and he does
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  speed through it rather mechanically, if he wanted
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  just to get it over with. But pianistically,
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  it's remarkable. Musically, I'm not quite so
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  convinced. And as beautifully and intelligently
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  meted out as Hoffman's 1923 recording of the
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  Chopin F -sharp. major nocturne opus 15 number
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  two may be, I actually prefer his 1935 electrical
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  recording for HMV, which was part of a series
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  of five unpublished test pressings that Hoffman
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  actually considered to be his best recordings.
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  And I will talk about those in a future episode.
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  But by and large, the 1923 Brunswick 78s add
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  up to... A historically important and musically
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  rewarding part of Joseph Hoffman's artistic legacy.
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  And if you can get a hold of this CD, the complete
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  Joseph Hoffman Volume 4 on VAI, produced by Gregor
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  Benko and Ward Marston, I guarantee that you
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  will not regret it. This is Jed Disler, and you've
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  been listening to The Piano Maven, your friendly
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  podcast guide to piano recordings. Thank you
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  for listening, and I look forward to being with
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  you for our next episode.