Dohnányi, Ernö (EN)

Dohnányi Ernö, Ernst von Dohnányi, *27 July 1877 Pozsony (now Bratislava), †9 February 1960 New York, Hungarian pianist, composer, conductor, teacher and organiser of musical life. He came from a family of Hungarian musicians who had been Germanised by the third generation. He was initially taught by his father, the amateur cellist Frigyes Dohnányi, and by K. Forstner, the cathedral organist in Pozsony. During this time, he became friends with B. Bartók, who attended musical evenings at the Dohnányi family home. Until 1897, he studied at the Budapest Academy of Music under I. Thoman (piano) and H. Koessler (composition); he spent the summer of that year with E. d’Albert at Würmsee near Munich, perfecting his piano playing. Shortly afterwards, he began concert tours of Hungary, Austria and Germany. In 1898, at the urging of H. Richter, he performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in London, achieving enormous success: he was hailed as the greatest Hungarian pianist since Liszt. By 1901, he had performed on stages across Europe and the Americas, giving a vast number of concerts. At the same time, he composed intensively; as early as 1895, his Piano Quintet in C minor delighted Brahms, who personally arranged the Viennese premiere of the work; this piece, which was his 68th, Dohnányi published as his first opus. In 1900, he received the Bösendorfer Prize for his Piano Concerto No. 1, dedicated to d’Albert. Between 1905 and 1915, at the invitation of J. Joachim, he taught piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, becoming a professor in 1908. In 1915 he returned to Budapest, where he undertook a complete reorganisation of musical life; in 1916 he became a professor, and in 1919 director of the Budapest Academy of Music; during B. Kun’s administration, he was a member of the “Musical Directory” alongside Bartók and Z. Kodály. Removed from his post as director of the academy following Kun’s downfall, he devoted himself once again to piano performance: between 1919 and 1921, he gave around 120 concerts annually in Budapest alone (including, in 1920, a performance of all of Beethoven’s piano works). At the same time, in 1919, he was appointed conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic Society for a term of 25 years. Between 1921 and 1927, he undertook a series of concert tours to the USA; in 1925, he took up the post of conductor of the New York State Symphony Orchestra. In 1928, he became a professor of the master class in piano at the Budapest Academy of Music, in 1931 he became music director of Hungarian Radio, and in 1934 once again director of the Academy, resigning from this post in 1941 in protest against the persecution of Jews by the Horthy regime. In the same year he gave a series of recitals, performing all of Mozart’s piano concertos. In 1944, he left Hungary, travelling first to Austria and then to England, where he undertook a concert tour in 1947–48. In 1949, he spent several months in Tucumán, Argentina, where he headed the piano department at the local university, and subsequently settled in Tallahassee, USA, taking charge of the piano and composition classes at Florida State University whilst continuing his concert tours (including a performance at the Edinburgh Festival in 1956). He died whilst recording his latest piano works.

Dohnányi stands out for the expansiveness and versatility of his musical personality, which can be compared, for example, to that of G. Enescu. Although he did not establish any school of piano playing or a new performance style, he was one of the most outstanding figures in the history of the piano, impressing not only with his phenomenal technique but also with his great interpretative artistry, and not only with the breadth of his repertoire but also with its richness. Admired as a performer of Mozart and Beethoven, he was one of the first promoters of Schubert’s piano compositions. He was equally keen to perform little-known works from the 19th century, as well as music from the 20th century; among other things, he was the first to perform a number of Bartók’s piano works, with whom he often performed in duet or as a conductor. Having chosen a career as a virtuoso soloist, he devoted himself to chamber music just as passionately. He was an enemy of all showmanship and musical kitsch, similarly to Bartók, though more effectively, he fought to raise the cultural and musical taste of the Hungarian public, enamoured of pseudo-folk arrangements. This was the direction taken by his reforms of the Hungarian music education system – designed in 1919 in collaboration with Kodály – and his conducting career, which began relatively late but proved highly successful. Dohnányi’s pedagogical work is also worth mentioning; his pupils included, amongst others, A. Fischer, G. Solti and G. Anda. Dohnányi’s compositional output (Piano Quintet in C minor, Piano Concerto No. 1, Symphony No. 1) was initially shaped by Brahms’s influence, which is generally exaggerated (Dohnányi was called the “Hungarian Brahms”) which, in later years, concerned his creative approach rather than his musical language. Dohnányi’s individual style, already evident in the Serenade, Op. 10, is characterised, on the one hand, by a cultivation of traditional forms and techniques (particularly the sonata and variation forms), and on the other, by a selection of melodic, harmonic and timbral devices that increasingly distanced themselves from tradition, with a clear striving for full emotional intensity. Through this compromise, Dohnányi distanced himself from the musical trends of the time, although as a performer he remained open to them. Apart from the Ruralia hungarica cycle, he did not show much interest in folk music either. Nevertheless, Dohnányi is today regarded as the most outstanding Hungarian composer of the first half of the 20th century, alongside Bartók and Kodály, thanks to the technical and emotional qualities of his music. His chamber works, both symphonies, the Variations for piano and orchestra, and the Szeged Mass are particularly highly regarded, whilst the opera Der Tenor is sometimes described as one of the few authentic comic operas of its time.

Literature: V. Papp Ernö Dohnányi, Budapest 1927; I. Podhradszky The Works of Ernö Dohnányi, “Studia Musicologica” VI, 1964; M. Eckhardt Briefe auf dem Nachlasse Ernst von Dohnányi, “Studia Musicologica” IX, 1967; B. Vazsonyi Ernö Dohnányi, Budapest 1971; D. Kiszely Discography of Ernö Dohnányi oraz Editions and Recordings. An Analysis of Ernö Dohnányi’s “Ruralia Hungarica” op. 32/a, no. 4, “Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae” XXXVI, 1995; P. Laki F Schmidt (1874–1939) and Dohnányi Ernö (1877–1960). A Study in Austro-Hungarian Alternatives, “The Musical Quarterly” LXXX, 1996.