Finding Aid for Rafael Joseffy Music and Personal Papers, 1812-1915 | The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music

Title: Rafael Joseffy Music and Personal Papers, 1812-1915

ID: 12/9/116

Primary Creator: Joseffy, Rafael (1852-1915)

Extent: 26.5 cubic feet

Arrangement: The collection is arranged in the series: Personal Papers, Original Music Manuscripts, and Personal Piano Music Library. Series 2 are manuscripts written in Joseffy's hand. PS refers to piano score. Series 3 is arranged alphabetically by composer. Individual titles are listed in the description with the format: Title, arranger/editor if applicable, (Publisher), date; Title...

Date Acquired: 05/15/1944

Consists mainly of solo piano music but also includes orchestral scores from 1870 to 1915, music manuscripts, and a few items of vocal music. Primarily U.S. and European editions of the period from 1870 to 1915, including many works by composers who were contemporaries of Joseffy. Some of the published scores in Series 3 are autographed to Joseffy from the composers. Some items have marginalia and fingerings in Joseffy's hand. The original manuscripts document Joseffy's compositional style. Joseffy's Personal Piano Music Library was transfered to the Music and Performing Arts Library in 1944 from the Rafael Joseffy Memorial in New York City. Each item has recieved a Joseffy signature stamp and an indication in the gutter. MPAL received a small amount of scores before the most of Joseffy's library was transferred. Those first scores have been integrated into the Special Collections and have a library call number. They are not included in this finding aid.

For the most complete record of the Joseffy Collection, refer to the card catalog (Series 3, Boxes 73-74) which includes card for both this finding aid and Special Collections indivdual items. Cards that refer to items that remain in the MPAL Special Collections include a call number for location.

Also refer to the "Musical Library Owned by Rafael Joseffy 1853-1915" (Series 3, Box 72, Folder 7) which is another index to the collection and includes some further description. Items with hash marks have been removed from the main collection, and most were placed in Special Collections.

Hungarian pianist Rafael Joseffy was born in Hunfal on July 3, 1852 and died in New York on June 25, 1915. His youth was spent in Miskolcz, where he began to study the piano at the age of eight. After further studies in Budapest he entered the Leipzig Conservatory (1866), where he was taught chiefly by E.F. Wenzel, though he also had a few lessons from Moscheles. From 1868 to 1870 he studied with Tausig in Berlin, and he spent the summers of 1870 and 1871 in Weimar taking lessons from Liszt. He first performed publicly in Berlin in 1870; soon he was giving concerts in most of the large European cities. In a review of 1874 Hanslick admired his brilliant technique but found his playing cold. Joseffy made his American debut in New York in 1879, playing concertos by Chopin and Liszt in addition to solo items, and then settled in the USA. He toured with Theodore Thomas and his orchestra, and gave many recitals, being one of the first to perform Brahms' works regularly. From 1888 to 1906 he taught the piano at the National Conservatory in New York. In his youth he composed some salon pieces, a set of lieder and numerous arrangements of works by Bach, Haydn, Chopin and others; but he was much better known for his editions of Chopin's works (15 volumes) and of studies by Czerny, Henselt, Schlozer and Moscheles; he also wrote a valuable of School of Advanced Piano Playing (New York, 1902).

Repository: The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music

Acquisition Source: Mrs. Joseffy

Acquisition Method: Gift original given to the Music Library and the collection was later transferred to the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music sometime around 2010.