ARTARIA EDITIONS
Baitrial Board
ALLAN BADLEY » CLIFF EISEN
ROBERT HOSKINS + BERTIL VAN BOER
LEOPOLD HOFMANN
Violin Concerto in C (Badley C1)
ait by Allan BadAES
LEOPOLD HOFMANN
Violin Concerto in C (Badley C1)
Source ~Kastlmiizcum Helikon KBr 0162
itor ~ Allan Badey|
Engraving & Layout ~ Promethean Editions Limited
6 Ataris Editions Limited 2022
Published by Artara Editions (Hong Kong) Limited in Hong Kong,
ISBN 974-$88-8708-52-9 (print)
ISBN 978-988-8708-53-5(igitl)
ISMN 979.0-805700-65-2
aEFOREWORD
copold Hofmann (0738-1793) was regarded by his
| contemporaries as one of the mos gifted and influen
ial composers of his generation. Although a church
msician by profession, Hofmann was also an important and
prolific composer of instrumental music. His symphonies,
concertos and chamber works were played all over Europe
and the avidity with which they were collected is attested to
today by the large numberof surviving manuscript copies
‘The son of a senior and highly-educated civil servant,
Hofmann revealed his musical abilities
‘of seven joined the chapel of the Empress Dowager Blisabeth
‘on andat the age
Christine as a chorister, As a member of the chapel he re-
ceived a broad musical education studying keyboard—and
later composition—with Georg Christoph Wagensei, the
‘most important and influential composer of instrumen-
tal music in Vienna at this
me, and violin, possibly with
Giuseppe Trani, Dittersdort’s teacher.
Hofmann's earliest known compositions date fom the
late 1750s and include symphonies, flute concertos and @
number of small-scale sacred works, His reputation must
hhave spread well beyond Vienna by 1760 since Sieber, the
Parisian publisher, printed six of his symphonies that year
and a number of the great Avstrian monastic houses, includ
ing Gottweig, began assiduously collecting his music from
around this time,
In his native Vienna, the city Dr Charles Burney de-
scribed as “the imperial seat of music as well as of power",
Hofmann became a figure of consequence. His first known
professional post—as musicus (probably violinist) at St
Michael's (1758) was followed quickly by the musical direc-
torship of St Peters and, in1769, an appointment as keyboard
teacher tothe imperial family, probably on the recommenda-
tion of Wagenseil. Three years later, Hofimann secured the
prized position of Kapellmeister at St Stephen's Cathedral
and in a gesture of supreme professional confidence, de-
the directorship of the Imperial Chapel on learning
that the conditions of appointment would require him to
telinguish his other lucrative posts including St Peters