Rafael Joseffy
Rafael Joseffy (3 July 1852 – 25 June 1915) was an American pianist and music teacher of Jewish origin, from Hungary. He was the son of a rabbi and grew up in Miskolc and Pressburg.
Joseffy studied in Budapest with Friedrich Brauer, then from 1866 at the Leipzig Conservatory with Ignaz Moscheles and Ernst Ferdinand Wenzel. From 1868 to 1870 he studied in Berlin with Karl Tausig, followed by two years in Weimar with Franz Liszt. He made his Berlin debut in 1870, performing Frédéric Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1.
He began teaching during his Vienna years. In 1875, his pupils included Moritz Rosenthal, whom Joseffy accompanied on a second piano at the young musician's first public concert in Vienna. Rosenthal recalled Joseffy's preference for staccato playing and his skill at billiards.
From 1879 Joseffy lived and worked in New York. That year he made his debut with the New York Philharmonic under Leopold Damrosch, and he toured extensively with Theodore Thomas's orchestra. He soon concentrated mainly on teaching and taught at the National Conservatory of America from 1888 to 1906. His pupils included Rubin Goldmark, who later dedicated his Piano Quartet to him.
Joseffy wrote the study collection The School of Advanced Piano Playing, which developed Tausig's teaching principles. He edited a 15-volume complete edition of Chopin's works for the Schirmer publishing house, as well as American editions of pieces by Carl Czerny, Adolf Henselt, Ignaz Moscheles and Robert Schumann. His piano works and arrangements included a piano transcription of Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita No. 3 for Solo Violin and an arrangement of Anton Rubinstein's Fourth Piano Concerto for two pianos.
After Joseffy's death, New York Times critic James Huneker praised both his playing and personality. Huneker described his pianism as a “cool silver touch of piercing sweetness, an alliance of magic and moonlight,” and wrote that, apart from Chopin, no pianist could equal him in mastery of nuance.