Josef Hofmann

PIANO PLAYING

WITH

PIANO QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Copyright © 1909 by Doubleday, Page and Company; renewed 1937 by J. Hofmann.

© 1908 by McClure Company; renewed 1936 by J. Hofmann.

© 1920 by Theodore Presser Company; renewed 1947 by Josef Hofmann.

Piano Playing

TO MY DEAR FRIEND

CONSTANTIN VON STERNBERG

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A FOREWORD

This little book purposes to present a general view of artistic piano-playing and to offer to young students the results of such observations as I have made in the years of my own studies, as well as of the experiences which my public activity has brought me.

It is, of course, only the concrete, the material side of piano-playing that can be dealt with here—that part of it which aims to reproduce in tones what is plainly stated in the printed lines of a composition. The other, very much subtler part of piano-playing, draws upon and, indeed, depends upon imagination, refinement of sensibility, and spiritual vision, and endeavours to convey to an audience what the composer has, consciously or unconsciously, hidden between the lines. That almost entirely psychic side of piano-playing eludes treatment in literary form and must, therefore, not be looked for in this little volume. It may not be amiss, however, to dwell a moment upon these elusive matters of æsthetics and conception, though it be only to show how far apart they are from technic.

When the material part, the technic, has been completely acquired by the piano student, he will see a limitless vista opening up before him, disclosing the vast field of artistic interpretation. In this field the work is largely of an analytical nature and requires that intelligence, spirit, and sentiment, supported by knowledge and æsthetic perception, form a felicitous union to produce results of value and dignity. It is in this field that the