Word: hofmann
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Once a winter a piano with a specially constructed keyboard is rolled on to the stage in Carnegie Hall, Manhattan, while in the lobby a box-office attendant drones: "Everything sold for this performance. All standing-room gone." When the hall is hushed, stubby Josef Hofmann ambles into view, his head cocked quizzically to one side, an appraising look in his keen brown eyes. Few notice the piano with its keys cut short to suit the short fingers...
...Hofmann sounds a few trial chords and externals are forgotten for music that is great...
Last week Hofmann again proved his power with long-familiar music, made his piano seem not like a man-made instrument but like a vibrant human voice spontaneously singing, whispering, shouting to the skies. Every piano student knew the pieces by Gluck, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt. But fresh cause for wonder were Hofmann's dazzling arpeggios, the flying double octaves, the countless tonal colors. Said Critic Olin Downes in the New York Times next day: "It was playing of the grandest and most compelling sort...
...Gordon, Rose Bampton, Kathryn Meisle and Marion Telva, who has been badly missed since she left the Metropolitan in 1931. Outstanding tenors: Lauritz Melchior, Paul Althouse, Giovanni Martinelli. Charles Hackett. Nino Martini. The baritones: Lawrence Tibbett, John Charles Thomas, Friedrich Schorr, Richard Bonelli. The bassos: Ezio Pinza, Ludwig Hofmann, Emanuel List, Leon Rothier...
...Gertrud Hrdliczka, a comely Viennese who was conducting in Russia when she met Werner Hofmann, a U. S. engineer who was installing machinery for a Soviet oil refinery. Conductor Hrdliczka quickly became Mrs. Hofmann, settled down to live in a plain clapboard house in Larchmont, N. Y. For her concert last week she somehow managed to hire 60 expert players from the Philharmonic-Symphony. The men liked her. Her manner was agreeable, her beat graceful and sure. Hrdliczka's concert sounded better than Antonia Brico's which took place four days later. But Antonia Brico had a stiffer...