From Alamy.com
Heinrich Hofmann was born in Berlin on the 13th January 1842. At the age of nine he became a treble chorister in the Royal Cathedral Choir and from the age of fifteen he studied at Theodore Kullak’s Neue Akademie der Tonkunst in Berlin. At the Academy he studied piano with Kullak himself, harmony and composition with Dehn and Wuerst and he also studied church music. According to one account, Hofmann was a member of the opera choir in Berlin.
After leaving the Academy it seems that he wished to become a performer and he also worked as a teacher. He was successful for a period as a virtuoso perfomer.
The composition that brought Hofmann to the public’s attention was his comic opera ‘Cartouche’ written in 1869. However, its popularity did not last very long. Following this, he wrote the Hungarian Suite for Orchestra in 1873. The success of this work encouraged Hofmann to devote himself fulltime to composing. Hofmann wrote a considerable amount of chamber music, leider, orchestral works, operas and piano music. He wrote five operas in total. An example of his choral music is The Fairy Tale of the Beautiful Melusine which is for a mixed choir and piano.
In the Graphic Newspaper dated 8th September 1877 there is a column describing new music that has been published. The Company of Messers Witt and Co published many of his works in the UK. The newspaper states ‘Hofmann is one of the most prolific and diligent composers of the period. We have just received no less than nine songs and four times that number of pianoforte pieces, all more or less meritorious. Some singers will say that the accompaniments are too difficult for ordinary songs but a little steady practice will soon overcome this difficulty, even though the singer be his or her own accompanist’.
There is an article in the Morning Post dated 21st December 1877 which is striving to enhance Hofmann’s reputation as a composer. It states ‘ the wealth of melody at his command and the judicious employment of “form” so contemptuously regarded by the greater number of writers of the so-called modern school give Hofmann’s compositions a special and distinctive charm’.
The Morning Post dated 31th October 1879 has a review of Hofmann’s “Frithjof” Symphony. It states ‘the music is bold, free and not without interest. It is impossible and undesirable to disguise the fact that Herr Hofmann, like the majority of musicians in Germany, seems to be inoculated with Wagnerian virus. It cannot bd said that the effect is altogether desirable as might be wished’. It then goes on to imply that his writing at times fits the ‘fashionable norms’ of the time. And it carries on by saying ‘the symphony is clever, shows an aptitude for scoring, and is all things considered, worthy of a place in a Crystal Palace programme’. One of the articles later comments states that Hofmann will not be remembered in later years.
In 1882 Hofmann was made a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin and in 1898 he became a senator of the Academy of Arts.
The Glasgow Evening News and Star dated 11th April 1884 has a review of a concert given by the Pollokshields Music Association. Hofmann’s ‘Melusina’ was sung at this concert. The review states ‘Gade is a favourite composer in Glasgow and yet Hofmann, who is his equal, if not his superior, in the romantic school of Schumann has largely been neglected by our choral societies. Still more unaccountable is the fact that his “Frithjof” Symphony has hitherto failed to find a place in the programmes of the Choral Union Orchestra’. It is the opinion of the reviewer that Hofmann ‘occasionally comes within measurable distance of Medelsshohn himself’ and that “Melusina’ is one of his masterpieces.ofmann
Leipziger Strase 1897.
By Waldemar Franz Hermann Titzenthaler - Scanned from Janos Frecot & Helmut Geisert: Berlin in frühen Photographien 1857–1913. Schirmer/Mosel, Munich 1984. ISBN 3-88814-984-3 (Landesinstitut für Schule und Medien Berlin-Brandenburg), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3234069
Hofmann died on the 16th July 1902 at Gross-Tabarz and was buried in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Cemetery in Berlin on the 20th July 1902. Another account states that he was buried in the Trinity Cemetery I in Berlin and that his grave has not been preserved.
The Bolton Evening News dated 26th July 1902 states ‘Death is announced of the well-known compser Heinrich Hofmann. He was born in Berlin and studied under Grell, Dehn and Wuest’. A list of some of his works follows the above.
The obituary in the Daily News dated 30th July 1902 states that one of his symphonies, The Frithjof, was widely celebrated. He was well-known in Germany it is said and that some of his works were produced at the Crystal Palace and other places in the UK. The last paragraph states ‘his compositions number upwards of 120, which include half a dozen operas, none of which, of course are known here and many cantatas and choruses (some of them for female voices only), a violin sonata and numerous chamber works’.
Evening Post 23rd August 1905
Press 21st November 1903
The ABRSM footnotes for the 2009 – 2010 Grade 3 exam book state that ‘His music was very popular in Germany in the 1870s and 1880s’.
On the 10th March 1934, the Fife Free Press review the annual concert given by the Kirkcaldy Choral Union. One of the works that is sung is Hofmann’s ‘Melusina’. It states ‘ Melusina’ which is based on the German legend of “Die Schone Melusine” is composed by Heinrich Karl Johann Hofmann, who although enjoying a considerable vogue more particularly for his “Hungarian Suite” must be regarded as one of the lower luminaries of the music world. Hofmann’s early activities are confined to the composition of pianoforte items but following the success of a comic opera in 1869, he devoted himself to more ambitious endeavours and in 1875 produced “Melusina”. The work is by no means without appeal and will be found to be more conventional than the Elgar composition’.
Some critics of the time felt that he was writing too much music and that Hofmann would often be repetitive in his compositions. His style is sometimes compared with Mendelssohn’s and Schumann’s. Some of his music today is considered highly romantic in character.
The following are the pieces by Hofmann that have been in the ABRSM piano examination syllabus.
Hofmann Heinrich Sherzo, Op. 77 No. 7 Grade 4 1990 Alt Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Scherzo: No. 7 from Skizzen, Op. 77 Grade 4 2017-2018 B Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Am Abend (In the Evening), Op. 88 No. 2 Grade 5 2001-2002 B Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Am Abend: No. 2 from Stimmungsbilder, Op. 88 Grade 5 2015-2016 B Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Elegie, Op. 77 No. 2 Hofmann, 17 Miscallaneous Pieces Grade 5 2003-2004 B Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Melody, Op. 77 No. 5 Hofmann Grade 3 1999-2000 B Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Rogue. Op. 77 No. 1 Grade 3 1992 A Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Schelm (Rogue), Op. 77 No. 1 Hofmann, 17 Miscallaneous Pieces Grade 3 2003-2004 B Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Scherzo: No. 7 from Skizzen, Op. 77. No. 6 from Hofmann, 17 Miscallaneous Pieces Grade 4 2007-2008 B Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Waldvöglein: No. 15 from Skizzen, Op. 77 Grade 3 2007-2008 B Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Waldvoglein (No. 15 from Skizzen, Op. 77) Grade 3 2023-2024 C Romantic
Hofmann Heinrich Minnelied (No. 7 from Stimmungsbilder, Op. 88) Grade 5 2023-2024 B Romantic
Jane Magrath notes in her book, The Pianist’s Guide to Standard Teaching and Performance Literature, that his work Leaves from My Diary, Books 1 - 3 are written in a salon-type style and that they are not particularly profound. The writing of the pieces of the ABRSM book 17 Miscellaneous Studies mentioned below has, she says, some “interesting writing”. She mentions five in particular, two of which have been in the ABRSM syllabus - Melodie Op. 77 no. 5 and In the Evening Op. 88 no. 2.
References
H. Hofmann 17 Miscellaneous Studies ABRSM
More Romantic Pieces for Piano Book III ABRSM
More Romantic Pieces for Piano Book II ABRSM
www.ancestry.co.uk
www.britishnewspapersonline.co.uk
The Pianist’s Guide to Standard Teaching and Performance Literature Jane Magrath Alfred Publishing 1995