Interpretative editions offer the editor’s personal opinion on how to perform the work.
This is indicated by providing markings for touch, phrasing, dynamics, tempo, expression,
fingering and pedalling which supplement or replace those of the composer. In extreme
cases, interpretative editions have deliberately altered the composer’s notes or even
deleted entire passages.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth century many famous performing musicians
provided interpretative editions, including Harold Bauer, Artur Schnabel, and Ignacy
Paderewski. Today, teachers seldom recommend interpretative editions to their students,
preferring instead ürtext editions. It is useful, however, to consult interpretative editions
to gain information as to past performing practice including the practice of celebrated
pianist/editors and pupils and contemporaries of the original composers.
JOSEFFY
Rafael Joseffy (1852-1915) was born in Hunfala, Hungary, on 3 July 1852 and died in
New York on 25 June 1915. He studied in Budapest with Brauer, the teacher of Stephen
Heller. In 1866 he went to Leipzig, where his teachers were Ignaz Moscheles and Ernst
Friedrich Wenzel.
He became a pupil of Carl Tausig in Berlin, remaining with him for two years, and then
studied with Liszt at Weimar in 1870 and 1871. He made his début in Berlin in 1872 and
was immediately acclaimed as a pianist of great brilliance. In 1879 he made his New
York début in Chickering Hall playing Chopin’s E minor and Liszt’s E flat major
concertos, accompanied by Leopold Damrosch and his orchestra.
James Huneker wrote of him: ‘There is magic in his attack, magic and moonlight in his
playing of a Chopin nocturne, and a meteor like brilliancy in his performance of a Liszt
concerto.’ After going on tour he settled in New York and taught at the National
Conservatory of Music. He was one of the first pianists to programme Brahms regularly
in the United States. His style was broad and comprehensive, yet his playing had a
certain incisiveness which those who heard him never forgot.
In his earlier years he produced numerous popular compositions for the piano. Later in
life he virtually retired from the concert platform and devoted his attention to teaching.
He was a very reserved man. Henry Wolfsohn claimed to have offered Joseffy huge
sums for concert tours but Joseffy found concert life so severe upon his nerves that he
would not accept. He preferred the smaller income of the teacher to the glare of the
footlights. Joseffy continued to care absolutely nothing for fame and applause. To him
art was supreme and other things mattered little.
He published a ‘School of Advanced Piano Playing’ in 1902, and edited the piano works
of Chopin. He performed the Liszt Sonata in the early years of the twentieth century and
edited it for Schirmer. He said of the Liszt Sonata that it was one of those compositions
that plays itself, ‘it lies so beautifully under the hand.’ Joseffy did not make any discs or
rolls.