Notes for: August 12, 2008
At the start of the 20th century, musical life in Hungary was suffering from a century of backwardness and neglect. Franz Liszt had been the only Hungarian composer of note in the preceding century, and he had found it necessary to live elsewhere in Europe to pursue his career. In the early years of the new century, however, three strong personalities emerged to revive Hungarian music – Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and Ernö Dohnányi. Each worked in his own way, reflecting his roots and sense of tradition.
Dohnányi – sometimes known by his Germanized name Ernst von Dohnányi – was the oldest of the three and the first to achieve fame outside Hungary. In 1895, his Opus 1, a piano quintet, was acclaimed by Brahms. In 1898, he made his reputation as a pianist in London with a performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto, and his introduction into the repertory of some neglected works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. In 1899, his First Piano Concerto won the Bösendorfer Prize in Vienna. By 1900, he was considered the greatest Hungarian pianist and composer after Liszt.
In 1915, Dohnányi returned to Budapest and undertook the reshaping and modernizing of Hungary’s musical life. He became a teacher of conducting and piano and then director of the Budapest Academy of Music; chief conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic, a post he held for 25 years; and music director of the Hungarian radio. In addition to his own music, he introduced the music of Bartók and Kodály, as both conductor and pianist, at home and abroad.
His career was interrupted by the rise of Nazi influences in Hungary and by World War II. In 1941, he resigned as director of the Academy rather than comply with anti-Jewish legislation affecting his faculty members. He kept Jewish members of the orchestra until the German occupation, when he disbanded the ensemble. In November, 1944, he went to Austria; while he took no part in that country’s political or musical life, that decision drew criticism from anti-Nazis for many years.
After World War II, Dohnányi lived in London and then Argentina and finally settled in the United States. In September, 1949, he became pianist and composer-in-residence at Florida State University, and remained in that position until his death in New York while making phonograph records. While in the U. S., he was joined by his grandson, Christoph von Dohnányi, who came to study conducting with Leonard Bernstein and returned in 1984 to become music director of the Cleveland Orchestra.
In his own compositions, Brahms was Dohnányi’s primary influence – unlike Bartók, he was interested not in finding new paths but in expressing his late Romantic heritage in late 19th century forms. A conservative by nature, he sought in these forms a framework for his lyrical gifts and frequent flashes of musical wit. He was particularly successful in chamber music, and his nine major works in this field are of high originality and craftsmanship.
Composed in 1937, the C Major Sextet calls for the unusual combination of piano, clarinet, horn, violin, viola and cello. Its primary structural characteristic is its striving for organic unity through the use from movement to movement of the same thematic germ – namely, two descending notes. The rhythm of the notes and the interval between then varies, but the pattern is the mainspring of the entire sextet.
The first movement, marked allegro appassionato, is in traditional sonata form. It opens with a horn call over an agitated accompaniment, the theme beginning with the two descending notes and then expanding on them. The more lyrical second theme, presented by the violin, presents the pattern in repeated dropping thirds. In the third theme, more mysterious in tone, the two-note pattern starts a dropping line which then rises.
The second movement, although titled “Intermezzo,” is marked adagio and is in effect the slow movement. The first theme, introduced by the piano and strings in rich harmony, further elaborates the descending two-note pattern but in a more leisurely flow. The mood is interrupted by a stumbling dotted rhythm in the piano against which the winds intone a broad Brahms-like melody generated by the two-note pattern and building up to a climax.
The scherzo opens with the clarinet playing another, more delicate, expansion of the dropping two-note pattern. For contrast, there is an agitated middle section. These two elements alternate, leading eventually to a recollection in swaying rhythm of the horn theme of the first movement.
The fourth movement is pure mischief. The main theme is a dance tune in the style of 1930s European jazz; the two-note pattern now appears at the end of each phrase, the second note repeated twice for emphasis. This theme alternates with other material, notably a corny waltz. The sextet ends with a return to the horn call of the opening movement and a final bow by the two-note pattern, this time going uphill.
Notes for: August 9, 2016
At the start of the 20th century, Franz Liszt had been the only Hungarian composer of note, and he had to live elsewhere in Europe to pursue his career. In the new century, three strong personalities emerged to revive Hungarian music – Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and Ernö Dohnányi. Each worked in his own way, reflecting his roots and sense of tradition.
Dohnányi was the oldest of the three and the first to achieve fame outside Hungary. In 1895, his Op.1 Piano Quintet was acclaimed by Brahms. In 1898, he made his reputation as a pianist in London playing Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto, and some neglected works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. In 1899, his First Piano Concerto won the Bösendorfer Prize in Vienna. By 1900, he was considered the greatest Hungarian pianist and composer after Liszt.
In 1915, Dohnányi returned to Budapest and began modernizing Hungary’s musical life. He taught conducting and piano, became director of the Budapest Academy of Music; chief conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic (a post he held for 25 years), and music director of the Hungarian radio. In addition to his own music, he introduced the music of Bartók and Kodály, as both conductor and pianist, at home and abroad.
His career was interrupted by the rise of Nazi influences in Hungary and by World War II. In 1941, he resigned as director of the Academy rather than comply with anti-Jewish legislation affecting his faculty members. He kept Jewish members of the orchestra until the German occupation, when he disbanded the ensemble. In November 1944, he went to Austria. Although he took no part in their political or musical life, that decision drew criticism from anti-Nazis for many years. After World War II, Dohnányi lived in London and then Argentina, and finally settled in the United States. In September 1949, he became pianist and composer-in-residence at Florida State University, and remained there until his death.
In his own compositions, Brahms was Dohnányi’s primary influence – unlike Bartók, he was not interested in finding new paths; he preferred to express his late 19th century Romantic heritage. Conservative by nature, he used these forms as
a framework for his lyrical gifts and frequent flashes of musical wit. He was particularly successful in chamber music, with nine major works of high originality and craftsmanship.
Composed in 1935, the C Major Sextet uses the unusual combination of piano, clarinet, horn, violin, viola and cello. Its primary goal is to achieve organic unity from movement to movement by using the same repeated theme – namely, two descending notes. The rhythm of the notes and the interval between them varies, but the pattern is the focus of the entire sextet.
The first movement, marked allegro appassionato, is in traditional sonata form. It opens with a horn call over an agitated accompaniment; the theme begins with the two descending notes and then expands on them. The more lyrical second theme, played by the violin, presents the pattern in repeated dropping thirds. In the third theme, more mysterious in tone, the two-note pattern starts by dropping, but then rises.
The second movement, although titled “Intermezzo,” is marked adagio and is in effect the slow movement. The first theme, introduced by the piano and strings in rich harmony, further elaborates the descending two-note pattern but in a more leisurely flow. The mood is interrupted by a dotted rhythm in the piano against which the winds intone a broad Brahms-like melody, based on the two-note pattern as it builds up to a climax.
The scherzo opens with the clarinet playing another, more delicate, expansion of the dropping two-note pattern. For contrast, there is an agitated middle section. These two elements alternate, eventually returning to the horn theme of the first movement.
The fourth movement is pure fun; it is like a dance tune in the style of 1930s European jazz. The two-note pattern appears at the end of each phrase, the second note repeated twice for emphasis. Then, an amusing waltz theme can be heard. The sextet ends with a return to the horn call of the opening movement, and the two-note pattern, this time climbing up.
Notes for: July 11, 2023
Dohnányi, Bartók, Kodály – three Hungarian composers who were musical forces in the first half of the 20th century. All three were ardent Hungarian nationalists, but they expressed their nationalism in different ways. Bartók and Kodály were intent on discovering Hungarian folk music and promoting it in their own music. Dohnányi’s musical inspiration was not folk music but Brahms’s late German Romanticism. As a young student at the Academy of Music in Budapest, Dohnányi studied composition with a Brahms devotee, and his early Piano Quintet won Brahms’s praise. But Dohnányi was committed to his Hungarian roots, and for years he put his stamp on the country’s cultural institutions.
Early in his career, Dohnányi established an international reputation as a legendary concert pianist. He spent a decade teaching in Berlin before returning to Budapest after World War I. There, over many years, he wielded musical power as director of the Budapest Academy of Music, conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic, music director of Budapest Radio, and the teacher of a long line of acclaimed Hungarian pianists, while continuing to both perform and compose. He also promoted the music of Hungarian composers. After the German occupation of Hungary in 1944 he left the country, eventually settling in the United States, where for ten years he taught music at Florida State University. He became a US citizen in 1955.
The Sextet in C Major was his last chamber music work. From the dramatic sweep of the first movement to the jazzy lightheartedness of the last, Dohnányi takes us on an exhilarating musical journey, filled with late Romanticism’s rich harmonies and sweeping melodic lines. Dohnányi begins the opening Allegro appassionato with an ominous three-note motif, introduced dramatically by the horn. It recurs throughout a movement that alternates between tense, at times dark heights and sections of sweetness and calm, soaring and falling before finally arriving at a jubilant close. After the turbulence of the first movement, the second movement Intermezzo begins quietly, only to be interrupted by a sinister march – the piano’s chordal arpeggios of the opening now turned menacing – before returning to the calm of the opening measures. The third movement, Allegro con sentimento, is a set of variations on a theme introduced by the clarinet, all engagingly lyrical except for a scherzo-like, diaphanous Presto that could have been written by Mendelssohn. There is a brief return of the opening movement’s horn theme before the music swoops without pause into an irresistibly ebullient finale – a boisterous, syncopated romp complete with foot-tapping rhythms and a loopy waltz. Dohnányi’s sense of fun propels this movement – no surprise from the composer who dedicated his Variations on a Nursery Song “to the enjoyment of lovers of humor, and to the annoyance of others.”