STORIES OF LITTLE HOFFMAN IN THE STATES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2450, 24 March 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

STORIES OF LITTLE HOFFMAN IN THE STATES.

Little Josef Hoffman, has been creating a furore in musical circles in America. One lady who has met the boy, and who has heard him play both in public and private, states that nothing that has been said of him adequsitely expresses his marvellous genius. At the first rehearsal which he had with the musicians at the Metropolitan Opera-house, prior to hia first public appearance in Now York, the members of the orchestra wero perfectly astonished at his playing. They were still more so when he stopped them in tho middle of a Beethoven sonata and directed Mr Neuendorf to tell the clarionet to play more piano. He also told the well-known conductor how the time should be beaten, as the orchestra was not playing properly. It must havo been a revelation to the musicians, who wero all soloists, to bo reprimanded ,for their work by a child. how6ver talented, ten years of age. Mdme. Teresa Careno, the distinguished pianist, who heard him play at the private recital at Wallace's Theatre, exclaimed, at tho conclusion of a Bioh number, " Havo I spent years in trying to achieve what this child has at his fingers' ends ?"' Mdme. Careno gave him a theme, :ind asked him to improvise a molody based upon it. Little Hoffman sprang back on the piano stool, and began a variation on a theme of his own, which he played for several minutes, and gradually worked back to the theme given by Mdme. Ciiruno, with si rippling accompaniment played with tho riirlit hand, and the theme with the left hand. At. the concert in New York, at tho Metropolitan Operahouse, tho largest audience ever present at any performance in the building since its erection composed little Hoffman's hearere. Ho has an arrangement with hie father by which ho receives a penny for each encore, and at one of his concerts the other night, after being , call out four times, he shook his head at hia father, who was standing in the wings, and held up his four-fingers, laughed, and then began a fourth encore.