The name of Ernest Dohnányi (born Hungary, 1877, died USA, 1960) hardly
rings a bell today except in Hungary. Even those who remember him are
likely to be familiar with only one of his works, his Variations on a
Nursery Song for piano and orchestra (1914). His stage works, orchestral
compositions including symphonies, concerti etc., vocal compositions
such as the Stabat Mater (1953), as well as his numerous chamber music
and piano compositions are now seldom played. One would search long to
find his music in any concert programme. Yet at his peak he was one of
the most versatile and influential musicians of his time. His youthful
Piano Quintet (1895) was so highly esteemed by Brahms at its first
performance that he personally made arrangements for it to be performed
in the Vienna Tonkünstlerverein.
It was his cellist father and
Károly Förstner, a cathedral organist, who gave Dohnányi his first
lessons in piano and theory. Having completed his secondary education he
went to Budapest from his native town Pozsony (now Bratislava) in order
to study at the Budapest Academy. (His school friend Béla Bartók
followed suit.) There he studied piano with Thomán and composition with
Koessler. After receiving his diploma in 1897 he spent the summer of the
same year with composer and pianist Eugen d’Albert (Glasgow-born but of
German-French-Italian origins) to whom, in 1898, Dohnányi eventually
dedicated his First Piano Concerto, a work which received the
Bösendorfer Prize.
It was in 1898 that Hans Richter, one of the
leading conductors of the time, asked Dohnányi to join him in London as
the soloist in Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. This tour, during
which he gave 32 concerts in two months, established him as a concert
pianist of the first rank. His interpretative power in the Austro-German
classics, above all Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as his
dedicated involvement in chamber music playing, made him one of the most
sought-after performers of his time. His pianistic ability combined
with improvisational panache was such that when later his memory
deserted him from time to time it was a popular pleasure among
connoisseurs to hear how he wriggled out of trouble by stylishly
improvising passages that led back to the original notes. It was
Richter, too, who in 1902 introduced Dohnányi’s Symphony No 1 in D
minor, in Manchester.
The great violinist Joachim, friend of
Brahms, was also friend to Dohnányi whom he invited to Berlin where the
composer was offered a professorship at the Hochshule in 1905. Ten years
there were paralleled and followed by various prestigious appointments
not only at the Budapest Academy but also as chief conductor of the
Philharmonic Orchestra, a position which he held for the best part of 25
years from 1919. In 1931 he became the musical director of Hungarian
Radio where he worked until 1944. With all these involvements he found
time not only for composition but also for selecting concert repertoire
with the aim of raising musical standards in Hungary. He gave as many as
120 performances there in one year. No wonder that Bartók saw in him a
leading provider of Hungarian musical life. For four decades Dohnányi
dominated the musical scene in his home country and beyond. It is to
Dohnányi’s credit that although his musical temperament and outlook were
very different from Bartók’s and Kodály’s he put his phenomenal
performing ability to their service. In fact he recognised Bartók’s
genius well before others and gave him practical support while his own
countrymen were predominantly hostile. His long-standing relationship
with America made him a welcome refugee when, after a few years stay in
Austria (1944-1948), he decided to leave Europe for the New World. There
he indefatigably continued his musical activities, not only in his
capacity as pianist/composer-in- residence at Florida State University,
but also as a touring performer. One of his last concerts was in 1956 at
the Edinburgh Festival. Working to the very end of his life, he died
during a recording session at the age of 83.
In this series
featuring ‘The Romantic Piano Concerto’, Dohnányi’s two works in this
form are fitting examples of the genre because he was throughout his
life a romantic both at heart and in his musical language. Although he
died as late as 1960 he had little to do with the musical developments
of the twentieth century. The two Concertos on this recording evoke a
world which belongs to the nineteenth century. Dohnányi continued to
compose in a style deeply rooted in the Austro-German classical
tradition exemplified by Brahms. His merit as a composer is that he was
able to prolong meaningfully the classico/romantic past, of which he was
one of the last practitioners, well into this century, both in his
chamber and orchestral music. This he did with elegance, wit, and
stylish virtuosity. The two Piano Concertos are fine examples of his
fluent mastery of form and instrumentation.
The Piano Concerto No
1 in E minor, from the years of 1897–8, follows the traditional
three-movement structure: fast-slow-fast. However, the first movement
Allegro is preceded by an introductory ‘Adagio maestoso’ whose main
theme is picked up, albeit in a modified way, by the first Allegro
subject proper. It is characterised by a diminished 5th drop resolving
upwards a minor second (E-A#-B). The structural importance of the
introductory Adagio maestoso gains marked significance as it is
reiterated at the end of the movement. There is nothing in the musical
language—that is, in the rhythm, melody, harmony and musical structure
as well as in the traditional orchestration—which Brahms would have
found unfamiliar.
The second movement, with its largely pizzicato
orchestral accompaniment, is in A minor. Its melodic contour is also
derived in a subtle way from the ‘Adagio maestoso’. The last
twenty-eight bars, during which the piano plays the opening theme
originally introduced by the orchestra with broad arpeggio chords
finally establishing the key of A major (known as ‘tierce de Picardi’),
is an old trick, but it works superbly.
The third movement,
Vivace, brings to its dramatic conclusion the opening Adagio maestoso
theme which, motto-like, gives unity to the whole composition. Of the
three movements this is perhaps the most Brahmsian in style with its
lush sixths and thirds. A chorale-like theme played by the orchestra
interrupts the flow of the cadenza. Then a frenetic coda in 6/8 is
approached via a series of trills. Finally the time signature changes
again, now to 2/4 Presto, leading the composition to its conclusion—not
in E minor, but in the triumphant E major.
The Piano Concerto No 2
in B minor belongs to the post-World War II years, 1946–7. Thus nearly
fifty years separate the two Concertos on this CD. The composer’s
compositional style, however, shows little change. It is amazing to
think that Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto was written two years before
this one. The first Allegro movement of this Concerto also opens with a
quasi-motto theme. There is something Hungarian to it both melodically
and rhythmically. Among several striking passages the one which stands
out is the ‘Poco meno mosso’ entry of a theme which more or less
dominates the second half of the movement.
The second movement,
‘Adagio poco rubato’, again evokes Hungarian, or rather a stylised
Hungarian gipsy style in G minor. It ends in G major with a gradually
speeded-up repetition of the note G in the orchestra, leading directly
without a break to the third movement, Allegro vivace. The ostinato G is
spiced by a minor second clash which gives backing to the entry of the
energetic main theme. The motto theme of the first movement reappears,
albeit en passant, over a long held E in the bass. This gives way to a
spirited unfolding of the material and the eventual conclusion of the
Concerto.
It is incorrect to suggest, as some do, that Dohnányi
bridged the gap in Hungarian music between Liszt and Bartók. This is not
so, since he did not share their innovating and pioneering
compositional genius. He got stuck in a style somewhere between Brahms
and Saint-Saëns. What he offers, however, is an unfailing romantic
spirit which to this day can evoke the musical values of yesterday,
which he served and defended with such inspired dedication. Hyperion
Ernő Dohnányi (1877-1960)
Piano Concerto No 1 in E minor Op 5 [44'56]
Piano Concerto No 2 in B minor Op 42 [29'44]
Conductor – Fedor Glushchenko
Leader [Orchestra] – Geoffrey Trabichoff
Orchestra – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Piano – Martin Roscoe
