fbpx
Wikipedia

Ernst von Dohnányi

March 09, 2023

The native form of this personal name is Dohnányi Ernő. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Ernst von Dohnányi (Hungarian: Dohnányi Ernő, [ˈɛrnøː ˈdohnaːɲi]; 27 July 1877 – 9 February 1960) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and conductor. He used a German form of his name on most published compositions.[1]

Ernst von Dohnányi

Biography

Dohnányi was born in Pozsony, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary (today Bratislava, capital of Slovakia). He was the son of Frigyes Dohnányi and his wife Ottilia Szlabey.[2] He first studied music with his father, a professor of mathematics and an amateur cellist, and then when he was eight years old, with Carl Forstner, organist at the local cathedral. In 1894, in his 17th year, he moved to Budapest and enrolled in the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music, studying piano with István Thomán and composition with Hans von Koessler, a cousin of Max Reger.[3]

István Thomán had been a favorite student of Franz Liszt, while Hans von Koessler was a devotee of Johannes Brahms's music. These two influences played an important part in Dohnányi's life: Liszt on his piano playing and Brahms on his compositions.[4] Dohnányi's first published work, his Piano Quintet in C minor, earned approval from Brahms, who promoted it in Vienna. Dohnányi did not study long at the Academy of Music: in June 1897 he sought to take the final exams right away, without completing his studies. Permission was granted, and a few days later he passed with high marks, as composer and pianist, graduating at less than 20 years of age.[4]

After a few lessons with Eugen d'Albert, another student of Liszt, Dohnányi made his debut in Berlin in 1897 and was recognized at once as a performer of high merit. Similar success followed in Vienna and on a subsequent tour of Europe. He made his London debut at a Richter concert in Queen's Hall, with a notable performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. He was among the first to conduct and popularize Bartók's more accessible music.

During the 1898 season, Dohnányi visited the United States, where he gained a reputation playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 for his American debut with the St. Louis Symphony. Unlike most famous pianists of the time, he did not limit himself to solo recitals and concertos, but also appeared in chamber music. In 1901 he completed his Symphony No. 1, his first orchestral work. Although he was heavily influenced by established contemporaries, notably Brahms, it displayed considerable technical skill in its own right.[5]

 
Ernst von Dohnányi, c. 1900

Dohnányi first married Elisabeth "Elsa" Kunwald (also a pianist), who bore him a son, Hans, in 1902. Hans was to be the father of the German politician Klaus von Dohnányi and of the conductor Christoph von Dohnányi, long Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Hans distinguished himself as a leader of the anti-Nazi resistance in Germany and was ultimately executed in the final stages of World War II. In addition to Hans, Dohnányi and Elsa Kunwald also had a daughter, Greta.[6]

Following an invitation by the violinist Joseph Joachim, a close friend of Brahms, Dohnányi taught at the Hochschule in Berlin from 1905 to 1915. There he wrote The Veil of Pierrette, Op. 18, and the Suite in F-sharp minor, Op. 19. Returning to Budapest, he appeared in a remarkable number of performances over the following decade, notably in the Beethoven sesquicentenial year of 1920/1921.[7]

Before World War I broke out, Dohnányi met and fell in love with a German actress (also described as a singer),[8] Elsa Galafrés, who was married to the Polish Jewish violinist Bronisław Huberman. They could not yet marry as their spouses refused to divorce them, but nonetheless, Dohnányi and Elsa Galafrés had a son, Matthew, in January 1917. Both later gained the divorces they sought and were married in June 1919. Dohnányi also adopted Johannes, Elsa's son by Huberman.[9][10][11]

During the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, Dohnányi was appointed Director of the Budapest Academy, but a few months later the new interim government replaced him with the prominent violinist Jenő Hubay after Dohnányi had refused to dismiss the pedagogue and composer Zoltán Kodály from the Academy for his supposedly leftist political position.[12] However in 1920, with Admiral Horthy becoming Regent of Hungary, Dohnányi was named Music Director of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and as such promoted the music of Béla Bartók,[citation needed] Zoltán Kodály, Leo Weiner and other contemporary Hungarian composers. That same 1920 season, he performed the complete piano works of Beethoven and recorded several of his works on the Ampico player-piano-roll apparatus. He gained renown as a teacher. His pupils included Andor Földes, Mischa Levitzki, Ervin Nyiregyházi, Géza Anda, Annie Fischer, Hope Squire, Helen Camille Stanley, Bertha Tideman-Wijers, Edward Kilenyi, Bálint Vázsonyi, Sir Georg Solti, Istvan Kantor, Georges Cziffra and Ľudovít Rajter (conductor and Dohnányi's godson). In 1933 he organized the first International Franz Liszt Piano Competition.[13]

In 1937 Dohnányi met Ilona Zachár, who was married with two children. By this time, he had separated from his second wife Elsa Galafrés. He and Ilona travelled throughout Europe as husband and wife, but were not legally married until they settled in the United States. After Dohnányi's death, Ilona, in her biography, launched a campaign to quell his hardly deserved reputation as a Nazi sympathizer.[14] Peter Halász continued this in an article titled "Persecuted Musicians in Hungary between 1919–1945", which portrayed him as a "victim" of Nazism,[15] and by James Grymes, who in his book called Dohnányi saw him as "a forgotten hero of the Holocaust resistance".[16]

In 1934 Dohnányi was once again appointed Director of the Budapest Academy of Music, a post he held until 1943. According to the 2015 entry on Dohnányi in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "From 1939 much of [Dohnányi's] time was devoted to the fight against growing Nazi influences. By 1941 he had resigned his directorial post at the Budapest Academy of Music, rather than submit to the anti-Jewish legislation. In his orchestra, the Budapest Philharmonic [17] he managed to keep on all Jewish members until two months after the German occupation of Hungary on 19 March 1944, in Operation Margarethe, when he disbanded the ensemble. In November 1944 he moved to Austria, a decision which drew criticism for many years. In fact, Dohnányi was criticized either from the left or from the right for most of his deeds, from his student days on. "The explanation may be found in his unassailability on musical or ethical grounds.... The "accusations" levelled against him always took the form of rumours. This, and the magnitude of the so-called charges (never substantiated), made it impossible for Dohnányi to defend himself."[18]

At a March 2014 conference, "The Holocaust in Hungary, 70 Years On: New Perspectives"[19] at the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies at Florida Gulf Coast University, the musicologist James A. Grymes presented research based on archival evidence he had gathered in Budapest, in a paper entitled "Ernst von Dohnányi: A Forgotten Hero of the Holocaust Resistance." It credits Dohnányi with (in the author's summary) 1) with "blocking the creation of a Hungarian Chamber of Music that would have excluded Jews from the music profession, just as the infamous Reichsmusikkammer did in Nazi Germany," 2) with resigning "from his position as Director General of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music instead of carrying out orders to fire Jewish instructors," 3) "as the conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic, Dohnányi [disbanding] the ensemble rather than dismiss its Jewish members," and 4) assisting "a number of individual Jewish musicians. These included impresario Andrew Schulhof, whom Dohnányi helped to emigrate from Germany to the United States in 1939. Pianist Lajos Hernádi [hu] was discharged from the labor service when Dohnányi wrote a letter declaring Hernádi and his hands to be irreplaceable national treasures. When the famous violinist Carl Flesch and his wife were in grave danger of being deported to a concentration camp, Dohnányi helped to reinstate their Hungarian nationality, enabling them to travel through Germany, back to Hungary, and ultimately to Switzerland. Dohnányi personally saved the pianist György Ferenczy, Ferenczy's wife, and several other Jewish musicians from the death trains. Zoltán Kodály later reported that Dohnányi had signed dozens of documents that had saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust. In Ernst von Dohnányi: A Song of Life, Dohnányi's widow placed that number in the hundreds. Jewish violinist, violist, and composer Tibor Serly went so far as to credit Dohnányi's frequent interventions for the fact that "not one Jewish musician of any reputation living in Hungary lost his life or perished during the entire period of World War II."[20]

Grymes notes that after the war, Dohnányi "was investigated and cleared several times by the U.S. Military Government" – as a precondition to his postwar move to Florida. He comments that Dohnányi was "repeatedly defended by prominent Jewish musicians who had worked closely with him in Hungary, including violist Egon Kenton [Kornstein], pianist Edward Kilenyi, musicologist Bence Szabolcsi, and composer Leó Weiner. The latter wrote at least two testimonials pointing out that the majority of Dohnányi's students had been Jewish and that Dohnányi had consistently programmed Weiner's own compositions, even during the Nazi regime."[20]

From 1949, Dohnányi taught for ten years at the Florida State University School of Music in Tallahassee. He became an honorary member of the Epsilon Iota chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity there. He and his wife Ilona became American citizens in 1955.[21]

 
Dohnányi's gravesite at Roselawn Cemetery, Tallahassee, Florida

In the United States, he continued to compose and became interested in American folk music. His last orchestral work (except for a 1957 revision of the Symphony No. 2) was American Rhapsody (1953), written for the sesquicentennial of Ohio University and including folk material, for example, "Turkey in the Straw", "On Top of Old Smokey" and "I am a poor wayfaring stranger".[21]

His last public performance, on January 30, 1960, was at Florida State University, conducting the university orchestra in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, with his doctoral student, Edward R. Thaden, as soloist. After the performance, Dohnányi traveled to New York City to record some Beethoven piano sonatas and shorter piano pieces for Everest Records.[21] He had previously recorded a Mozart concerto in the early 1930s in Hungary (No. 17, in G major, K. 453, playing and conducting the Budapest Philharmonic), for Columbia, and also his own Variations on a Nursery Tune issued by HMV in England and RCA Victor in the United States, the second movement of his Ruralia hungarica (Gypsy Andante), and a few solo works (but no Beethoven sonatas) on 78 rpm.[citation needed] He had also recorded various other works, including Beethoven's Tempest Sonata and Haydn's F minor Variations, on early mono LPs.

Death

Dohnányi died of pneumonia on 9 February 1960, in New York City, ten days after his final performance, and was buried in Tallahassee, Florida, where he had taught at the university for ten years.[21]

Influence and legacy

  • The BBC issued an LP recording taken from one of his last concerts, heard in 1959 at Florida State University, in which he played Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 31 No. 1 and Schubert's piano sonata D. 894. The Testament label has reissued the recital on CD in a set that also includes three of the pianist's own short pieces that he played there as encores, a short recital of his works that he played at the 1956 Edinburgh Festival, and a few that were broadcast on the BBC in 1936.
  • Dohnányi's three volumes of Daily Finger Exercises for the Advanced Pianist were published by Mills Music in 1962.
  • The Warren D. Allen Music Library at Florida State University's College of Music holds a large archive of Dohnányi's papers, manuscripts and related materials.
  • The Hungarian government posthumously awarded him its highest civilian honor, the Kossuth Prize, in 1990.[22]
  • An International Ernst von Dohnányi Festival was held at Florida State University in 2002. The LSU professor Milton Hallman was a student of his and in 1987 recorded a CD called Works For Piano containing some of Dohnányi's most notable music.

Compositions

Dohnányi's composing style was personal, but very conservative. His music largely subscribes to the romantic idiom. Although he used elements of Hungarian folk music, he is not seen to draw on folk traditions in the way that Bartók or Kodály do. Some characterize his style as traditional mainstream Euro-Germanic in the Brahmsian manner (structurally more than in the way the music actually sounds) rather than specifically Hungarian, while others hear very little of Brahms in his music. The very best of his works may be his Serenade in C major for string trio, Op. 10 (1902) and Variations on a Nursery Tune for piano and orchestra, Op. 25 (1914). His Second symphony is a major work which he composed during the Second World War. It is uncharacteristically sombre, notably in the third movement, which is grotesque and dissonant.

Stage

  • Der Schleier der Pierrette (The Veil of Pierrette), Mime in three parts (Libretto after Arthur Schnitzler), Op. 18 (1909)
  • Tante Simona (Aunt Simona), Comic Opera in one act (Libretto by Victor Heindl), Op. 20 (1912)
  • A vajda tornya (The Tower of the Voivod), Romantic Opera in three acts (Libretto by Viktor Lányi, after Hans Heinz Ewers and Marc Henry), Op. 30 (1922)
  • A tenor (The Tenor), Comic Opera in three acts (Libretto by Ernő Góth and Carl Sternheim, after Bürger Schippel by Carl Sternheim), Op. 34 (1927)

Choral

  • Szegedi mise (Szeged Mass, also Missa in Dedicatione Ecclesiae), Op. 35 (1930)
  • Cantus vitae, Symphonic Cantata, Op. 38 (1941)
  • Stabat mater, Op. 46 (1953)

Orchestral

Solo instrument and orchestra

  • Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 5 (1898) (the opening theme was inspired by Brahms's Symphony No. 1)
  • Konzertstück (Concertpiece) in D major for cello and orchestra, Op. 12 (1904)
  • Variations on a Nursery Tune (Variationen über ein Kinderlied) for piano and orchestra, Op. 25 (1914)
  • Violin Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 27 (1915)
  • Piano Concerto No. 2 in B minor, Op. 42 (1947)
  • Violin Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 43 (1950)
  • Concertino for harp and chamber orchestra, Op. 45 (1952)

Chamber and instrumental

  • String Quartet in D minor, 1893 (unpublished, manuscript at British Library) (Grymes, Ernst von Dohnányi: A Bio-bibliography, p. 32)
  • String Sextet in B♭ major, 1893 (revised 1896, revised and premiered 1898. Recorded on Hungaroton, 2006.) (Grymes, p. 32)
  • Minuet for String Quartet, 1894 (Grymes, p. 32. Manuscript at the National Széchényi Library)
  • Piano Quartet in F♯ minor, (1894)
  • Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 1 (1895)
  • String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 7 (1899)
  • Sonata in B♭ minor for cello and piano, Op. 8 (1899)
  • Serenade in C major for string trio, Op. 10 (1902)
  • String Quartet No. 2 in D♭ major, Op. 15 (1906)
  • Sonata in C♯ minor for violin and piano, Op. 21 (1912)
  • Piano Quintet No. 2 in E♭ minor, Op. 26 (1914)
  • String Quartet No. 3 in A minor, Op. 33 (1926)
  • Sextet in C major for piano, strings and winds, Op. 37 (1935)
  • Aria for flute and piano, Op 48, No. 1 (1958)
  • Passacaglia for solo flute, Op. 48, No. 2 (1959)

Piano

  • Four Pieces, Op. 2 (1897, pub. 1905)
  • Waltzes for four hands, Op. 3 (1897)
  • Variations and Fugue on a Theme of E[mma].G[ruber]., Op. 4 (1897)
  • Gavotte and Musette (WoO, 1898)
  • Albumblatt (WoO, 1899)
  • Passacaglia in E♭ minor, Op. 6 (1899)
  • Four Rhapsodies, Op. 11 (1903)
  • Winterreigen, Op. 13 (1905)
  • Humoresque in the form of a Suite, Op. 17 (1907)
  • Three Pieces, Op. 23 (1912)
  • Fugue for left hand (WoO, 1913)
  • Suite in the Old Style, Op. 24 (1913)
  • Six Concert Etudes, Op. 28 (1916)
  • Variations on a Hungarian Folksong, Op. 29 (1917)
  • Pastorale on a Hungarian Christmas Song (WoO, 1920)
  • Valses nobles, concert arrangement for piano (after Schubert, D. 969) (WoO, 1920)
  • Ruralia hungarica, Op. 32a (1923)
  • Waltz for Piano from Delibes' "Coppelia" (WoO, 1925)
  • Waltz Suite, for two pianos, Op. 39a (1945),
  • Limping Waltz for solo piano, Op. 39b (1947)
  • Six Pieces, Op. 41 (1945)
  • Three Singular Pieces, Op. 44 (1951)
  • Twelve Short Studies for the Advanced Pianist (1951)

References

Notes

  1. ^ Dohnányi 2002, p. 2. Deborah Kiszely-Papp. . Archived from the original on 2004-07-08. Retrieved 2013-01-17. The "von" implies nobility, and according to a biography by his third wife, Ilona, his family was ennobled in 1697 and received a coat of arms, which she describes.
  2. ^ "Ernő (Ernst) von Dohnányi". www.geni.com. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
  3. ^ Over the years it was called also the College of Music (1919–1925) and from 1925 the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, its current name.
  4. ^ a b c Grymes 2005, p. 4.
  5. ^ "Full review". www.gramophone.co.uk. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  6. ^ "Greta mention". blog.sharmusic.com. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  7. ^ "Table in Ilona Kovács: Dohnányi Ernő zongora művészeti pályája (The piano career of Ernst Dohnányi). Part I" (PDF). zti.hu. p. 65. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
  8. ^ . Archived from the original on 2014-01-16. Retrieved 2013-01-04.
  9. ^ Elsa Galafrés: Lives... Loves... Losses (Vancouver: Versatile, 1973)
  10. ^ Carnes 2002, p. 146.
  11. ^ Grymes 2005, p. 6.
  12. ^ Grymes 2005, p. 7.
  13. ^ Grymes 2005, p. 10.
  14. ^ Dohnányi 2002, p. [page needed].
  15. ^ Péter Halász (2007). Österreichische Musik-Zeitung. Vienna.
  16. ^ Grymes 2005, p. [page needed].
  17. ^ Budapest Symphony Orchestra, or as it is known in Hungary, the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
  18. ^ Balint Vazsonyi, "Erno Dohnányi", Grove Music Online (New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians)
  19. ^ . Fgcu.edu. Archived from the original on 14 October 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  20. ^ a b "Dohnányi and the Hungarian Holocaust". jamesagrymes.com. 17 March 2014. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  21. ^ a b c d Kusz 2020, pp. 75–76
  22. ^ Grymes 2005, p. xiv.
  23. ^ Grymes, James A. (1999). "Ernő Dohnányi's Revision of His Symphony in E major, Op. 40". Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. Budapest, Hungary: Academiae Scientiarum Hungarica. 40 (1/3): 71–84. doi:10.2307/902553. JSTOR 902553.

Sources

  • Carnes, Mark Christopher, ed. (2002). American National Biography: Supplement 2. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-522202-9.
  • Dohnányi, Ilona von (2002). James A. Grymes (ed.). Ernst von Dohnányi: A Song of Life. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34103-5.
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication that prior to 1923, is in the public domain: "The Etude Gallery of Musical Celebrities, Etude Magazine. November, 1912", The Etude, Philadelphia: Theodore Presser Company
  • Grymes, James A., ed. (2005). Perspectives on Ernst von Dohnányi. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0810851252. Retrieved 2014-01-20.
  • Kusz, Veronika (2020). A Wayfaring Stranger: Ernst von Dohnányi's American Years, 1949–1960. California Studies in 20th-Century Music. Vol. 25. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520301832.

Further reading

  • William Lines Hubbard et al., eds., The American History and Encyclopedia of Music, vol. 1 (London: Irving Squire, 1908), pp. 183–184 available online

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ernő Dohnányi.
  • Ernő Dohnányi at AllMusic
  • Ernő Dohnányi Profile at The Remington Site
  • Dohnanyi String Quartet Nos 1 & 2 sound-bites
  • Warren D. Allen Music Library at Florida State University
  • on piano music of Dohnányi
  • Ampico Piano Solo "Music Of The Spheres" (Sphärenmusik) from "Winterreigen" Opus 13, by Ernst Von Dohnanyi, played by E. V. Dohnanyi on the Ampico Reproducing Piano (7 ft grand piano)

Sheet music

Videos

  • Serenade – Tema con variazioni on YouTube played by Classical Jam
  • Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 1 – Allegro on YouTube, Scherzo. Allegro vivace on YouTube, Adagio, quasi andante on YouTube, Allegro animato on YouTube

March 09, 2023
ernst, dohnányi, native, form, this, personal, name, dohnányi, ernő, this, article, uses, western, name, order, when, mentioning, individuals, this, article, includes, list, general, references, lacks, sufficient, corresponding, inline, citations, please, help. The native form of this personal name is Dohnanyi Erno This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals This article includes a list of general references but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations November 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message Ernst von Dohnanyi Hungarian Dohnanyi Erno ˈɛrnoː ˈdohnaːɲi 27 July 1877 9 February 1960 was a Hungarian composer pianist and conductor He used a German form of his name on most published compositions 1 Ernst von Dohnanyi Contents 1 Biography 2 Death 2 1 Influence and legacy 3 Compositions 3 1 Stage 3 2 Choral 3 3 Orchestral 3 4 Solo instrument and orchestra 3 5 Chamber and instrumental 3 6 Piano 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External linksBiography EditDohnanyi was born in Pozsony Kingdom of Hungary Austria Hungary today Bratislava capital of Slovakia He was the son of Frigyes Dohnanyi and his wife Ottilia Szlabey 2 He first studied music with his father a professor of mathematics and an amateur cellist and then when he was eight years old with Carl Forstner organist at the local cathedral In 1894 in his 17th year he moved to Budapest and enrolled in the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music studying piano with Istvan Thoman and composition with Hans von Koessler a cousin of Max Reger 3 Istvan Thoman had been a favorite student of Franz Liszt while Hans von Koessler was a devotee of Johannes Brahms s music These two influences played an important part in Dohnanyi s life Liszt on his piano playing and Brahms on his compositions 4 Dohnanyi s first published work his Piano Quintet in C minor earned approval from Brahms who promoted it in Vienna Dohnanyi did not study long at the Academy of Music in June 1897 he sought to take the final exams right away without completing his studies Permission was granted and a few days later he passed with high marks as composer and pianist graduating at less than 20 years of age 4 After a few lessons with Eugen d Albert another student of Liszt Dohnanyi made his debut in Berlin in 1897 and was recognized at once as a performer of high merit Similar success followed in Vienna and on a subsequent tour of Europe He made his London debut at a Richter concert in Queen s Hall with a notable performance of Beethoven s Piano Concerto No 4 He was among the first to conduct and popularize Bartok s more accessible music During the 1898 season Dohnanyi visited the United States where he gained a reputation playing Beethoven s Piano Concerto No 4 for his American debut with the St Louis Symphony Unlike most famous pianists of the time he did not limit himself to solo recitals and concertos but also appeared in chamber music In 1901 he completed his Symphony No 1 his first orchestral work Although he was heavily influenced by established contemporaries notably Brahms it displayed considerable technical skill in its own right 5 Ernst von Dohnanyi c 1900 Dohnanyi first married Elisabeth Elsa Kunwald also a pianist who bore him a son Hans in 1902 Hans was to be the father of the German politician Klaus von Dohnanyi and of the conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi long Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra Hans distinguished himself as a leader of the anti Nazi resistance in Germany and was ultimately executed in the final stages of World War II In addition to Hans Dohnanyi and Elsa Kunwald also had a daughter Greta 6 Following an invitation by the violinist Joseph Joachim a close friend of Brahms Dohnanyi taught at the Hochschule in Berlin from 1905 to 1915 There he wrote The Veil of Pierrette Op 18 and the Suite in F sharp minor Op 19 Returning to Budapest he appeared in a remarkable number of performances over the following decade notably in the Beethoven sesquicentenial year of 1920 1921 7 Before World War I broke out Dohnanyi met and fell in love with a German actress also described as a singer 8 Elsa Galafres who was married to the Polish Jewish violinist Bronislaw Huberman They could not yet marry as their spouses refused to divorce them but nonetheless Dohnanyi and Elsa Galafres had a son Matthew in January 1917 Both later gained the divorces they sought and were married in June 1919 Dohnanyi also adopted Johannes Elsa s son by Huberman 9 10 11 During the short lived Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 Dohnanyi was appointed Director of the Budapest Academy but a few months later the new interim government replaced him with the prominent violinist Jeno Hubay after Dohnanyi had refused to dismiss the pedagogue and composer Zoltan Kodaly from the Academy for his supposedly leftist political position 12 However in 1920 with Admiral Horthy becoming Regent of Hungary Dohnanyi was named Music Director of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and as such promoted the music of Bela Bartok citation needed Zoltan Kodaly Leo Weiner and other contemporary Hungarian composers That same 1920 season he performed the complete piano works of Beethoven and recorded several of his works on the Ampico player piano roll apparatus He gained renown as a teacher His pupils included Andor Foldes Mischa Levitzki Ervin Nyiregyhazi Geza Anda Annie Fischer Hope Squire Helen Camille Stanley Bertha Tideman Wijers Edward Kilenyi Balint Vazsonyi Sir Georg Solti Istvan Kantor Georges Cziffra and Ľudovit Rajter conductor and Dohnanyi s godson In 1933 he organized the first International Franz Liszt Piano Competition 13 In 1937 Dohnanyi met Ilona Zachar who was married with two children By this time he had separated from his second wife Elsa Galafres He and Ilona travelled throughout Europe as husband and wife but were not legally married until they settled in the United States After Dohnanyi s death Ilona in her biography launched a campaign to quell his hardly deserved reputation as a Nazi sympathizer 14 Peter Halasz continued this in an article titled Persecuted Musicians in Hungary between 1919 1945 which portrayed him as a victim of Nazism 15 and by James Grymes who in his book called Dohnanyi saw him as a forgotten hero of the Holocaust resistance 16 In 1934 Dohnanyi was once again appointed Director of the Budapest Academy of Music a post he held until 1943 According to the 2015 entry on Dohnanyi in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians From 1939 much of Dohnanyi s time was devoted to the fight against growing Nazi influences By 1941 he had resigned his directorial post at the Budapest Academy of Music rather than submit to the anti Jewish legislation In his orchestra the Budapest Philharmonic 17 he managed to keep on all Jewish members until two months after the German occupation of Hungary on 19 March 1944 in Operation Margarethe when he disbanded the ensemble In November 1944 he moved to Austria a decision which drew criticism for many years In fact Dohnanyi was criticized either from the left or from the right for most of his deeds from his student days on The explanation may be found in his unassailability on musical or ethical grounds The accusations levelled against him always took the form of rumours This and the magnitude of the so called charges never substantiated made it impossible for Dohnanyi to defend himself 18 At a March 2014 conference The Holocaust in Hungary 70 Years On New Perspectives 19 at the Center for Judaic Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Florida Gulf Coast University the musicologist James A Grymes presented research based on archival evidence he had gathered in Budapest in a paper entitled Ernst von Dohnanyi A Forgotten Hero of the Holocaust Resistance It credits Dohnanyi with in the author s summary 1 with blocking the creation of a Hungarian Chamber of Music that would have excluded Jews from the music profession just as the infamous Reichsmusikkammer did in Nazi Germany 2 with resigning from his position as Director General of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music instead of carrying out orders to fire Jewish instructors 3 as the conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic Dohnanyi disbanding the ensemble rather than dismiss its Jewish members and 4 assisting a number of individual Jewish musicians These included impresario Andrew Schulhof whom Dohnanyi helped to emigrate from Germany to the United States in 1939 Pianist Lajos Hernadi hu was discharged from the labor service when Dohnanyi wrote a letter declaring Hernadi and his hands to be irreplaceable national treasures When the famous violinist Carl Flesch and his wife were in grave danger of being deported to a concentration camp Dohnanyi helped to reinstate their Hungarian nationality enabling them to travel through Germany back to Hungary and ultimately to Switzerland Dohnanyi personally saved the pianist Gyorgy Ferenczy Ferenczy s wife and several other Jewish musicians from the death trains Zoltan Kodaly later reported that Dohnanyi had signed dozens of documents that had saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust In Ernst von Dohnanyi A Song of Life Dohnanyi s widow placed that number in the hundreds Jewish violinist violist and composer Tibor Serly went so far as to credit Dohnanyi s frequent interventions for the fact that not one Jewish musician of any reputation living in Hungary lost his life or perished during the entire period of World War II 20 Grymes notes that after the war Dohnanyi was investigated and cleared several times by the U S Military Government as a precondition to his postwar move to Florida He comments that Dohnanyi was repeatedly defended by prominent Jewish musicians who had worked closely with him in Hungary including violist Egon Kenton Kornstein pianist Edward Kilenyi musicologist Bence Szabolcsi and composer Leo Weiner The latter wrote at least two testimonials pointing out that the majority of Dohnanyi s students had been Jewish and that Dohnanyi had consistently programmed Weiner s own compositions even during the Nazi regime 20 From 1949 Dohnanyi taught for ten years at the Florida State University School of Music in Tallahassee He became an honorary member of the Epsilon Iota chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity there He and his wife Ilona became American citizens in 1955 21 Dohnanyi s gravesite at Roselawn Cemetery Tallahassee Florida In the United States he continued to compose and became interested in American folk music His last orchestral work except for a 1957 revision of the Symphony No 2 was American Rhapsody 1953 written for the sesquicentennial of Ohio University and including folk material for example Turkey in the Straw On Top of Old Smokey and I am a poor wayfaring stranger 21 His last public performance on January 30 1960 was at Florida State University conducting the university orchestra in Beethoven s Piano Concerto No 4 with his doctoral student Edward R Thaden as soloist After the performance Dohnanyi traveled to New York City to record some Beethoven piano sonatas and shorter piano pieces for Everest Records 21 He had previously recorded a Mozart concerto in the early 1930s in Hungary No 17 in G major K 453 playing and conducting the Budapest Philharmonic for Columbia and also his own Variations on a Nursery Tune issued by HMV in England and RCA Victor in the United States the second movement of his Ruralia hungarica Gypsy Andante and a few solo works but no Beethoven sonatas on 78 rpm citation needed He had also recorded various other works including Beethoven s Tempest Sonata and Haydn s F minor Variations on early mono LPs Death EditDohnanyi died of pneumonia on 9 February 1960 in New York City ten days after his final performance and was buried in Tallahassee Florida where he had taught at the university for ten years 21 Influence and legacy Edit The BBC issued an LP recording taken from one of his last concerts heard in 1959 at Florida State University in which he played Beethoven s piano sonata Op 31 No 1 and Schubert s piano sonata D 894 The Testament label has reissued the recital on CD in a set that also includes three of the pianist s own short pieces that he played there as encores a short recital of his works that he played at the 1956 Edinburgh Festival and a few that were broadcast on the BBC in 1936 Dohnanyi s three volumes of Daily Finger Exercises for the Advanced Pianist were published by Mills Music in 1962 The Warren D Allen Music Library at Florida State University s College of Music holds a large archive of Dohnanyi s papers manuscripts and related materials The Hungarian government posthumously awarded him its highest civilian honor the Kossuth Prize in 1990 22 An International Ernst von Dohnanyi Festival was held at Florida State University in 2002 The LSU professor Milton Hallman was a student of his and in 1987 recorded a CD called Works For Piano containing some of Dohnanyi s most notable music Compositions EditDohnanyi s composing style was personal but very conservative His music largely subscribes to the romantic idiom Although he used elements of Hungarian folk music he is not seen to draw on folk traditions in the way that Bartok or Kodaly do Some characterize his style as traditional mainstream Euro Germanic in the Brahmsian manner structurally more than in the way the music actually sounds rather than specifically Hungarian while others hear very little of Brahms in his music The very best of his works may be his Serenade in C major for string trio Op 10 1902 and Variations on a Nursery Tune for piano and orchestra Op 25 1914 His Second symphony is a major work which he composed during the Second World War It is uncharacteristically sombre notably in the third movement which is grotesque and dissonant Stage Edit Der Schleier der Pierrette The Veil of Pierrette Mime in three parts Libretto after Arthur Schnitzler Op 18 1909 Tante Simona Aunt Simona Comic Opera in one act Libretto by Victor Heindl Op 20 1912 A vajda tornya The Tower of the Voivod Romantic Opera in three acts Libretto by Viktor Lanyi after Hans Heinz Ewers and Marc Henry Op 30 1922 A tenor The Tenor Comic Opera in three acts Libretto by Erno Goth and Carl Sternheim after Burger Schippel by Carl Sternheim Op 34 1927 Choral Edit Szegedi mise Szeged Mass also Missa in Dedicatione Ecclesiae Op 35 1930 Cantus vitae Symphonic Cantata Op 38 1941 Stabat mater Op 46 1953 Orchestral Edit Symphony in F major 1896 unpublished Hungarian King s Prize in 1897 4 Symphony No 1 in D minor Op 9 1901 Suite in F sharp minor Op 19 1909 Unnepi nyitany Festival Overture Op 31 1923 Ruralia hungarica based on Hungarian folk tunes Op 32b 1924 Szimfonikus percek Symphonic Minutes Op 36 1933 Symphony No 2 in E major Op 40 1945 revised 1954 7 23 American Rhapsody Op 47 1953 Solo instrument and orchestra Edit Piano Concerto No 1 in E minor Op 5 1898 the opening theme was inspired by Brahms s Symphony No 1 Konzertstuck Concertpiece in D major for cello and orchestra Op 12 1904 Variations on a Nursery Tune Variationen uber ein Kinderlied for piano and orchestra Op 25 1914 Violin Concerto No 1 in D minor Op 27 1915 Piano Concerto No 2 in B minor Op 42 1947 Violin Concerto No 2 in C minor Op 43 1950 Concertino for harp and chamber orchestra Op 45 1952 Chamber and instrumental Edit String Quartet in D minor 1893 unpublished manuscript at British Library Grymes Ernst von Dohnanyi A Bio bibliography p 32 String Sextet in B major 1893 revised 1896 revised and premiered 1898 Recorded on Hungaroton 2006 Grymes p 32 Minuet for String Quartet 1894 Grymes p 32 Manuscript at the National Szechenyi Library Piano Quartet in F minor 1894 Piano Quintet No 1 in C minor Op 1 1895 String Quartet No 1 in A major Op 7 1899 Sonata in B minor for cello and piano Op 8 1899 Serenade in C major for string trio Op 10 1902 String Quartet No 2 in D major Op 15 1906 Sonata in C minor for violin and piano Op 21 1912 Piano Quintet No 2 in E minor Op 26 1914 String Quartet No 3 in A minor Op 33 1926 Sextet in C major for piano strings and winds Op 37 1935 Aria for flute and piano Op 48 No 1 1958 Passacaglia for solo flute Op 48 No 2 1959 Piano Edit Four Pieces Op 2 1897 pub 1905 Waltzes for four hands Op 3 1897 Variations and Fugue on a Theme of E mma G ruber Op 4 1897 Gavotte and Musette WoO 1898 Albumblatt WoO 1899 Passacaglia in E minor Op 6 1899 Four Rhapsodies Op 11 1903 Winterreigen Op 13 1905 Humoresque in the form of a Suite Op 17 1907 Three Pieces Op 23 1912 Fugue for left hand WoO 1913 Suite in the Old Style Op 24 1913 Six Concert Etudes Op 28 1916 Variations on a Hungarian Folksong Op 29 1917 Pastorale on a Hungarian Christmas Song WoO 1920 Valses nobles concert arrangement for piano after Schubert D 969 WoO 1920 Ruralia hungarica Op 32a 1923 Waltz for Piano from Delibes Coppelia WoO 1925 Waltz Suite for two pianos Op 39a 1945 Limping Waltz for solo piano Op 39b 1947 Six Pieces Op 41 1945 Three Singular Pieces Op 44 1951 Twelve Short Studies for the Advanced Pianist 1951 References EditNotes Dohnanyi 2002 p 2 Deborah Kiszely Papp Dohnanyi Yearbook 2002 Abstracts Archived from the original on 2004 07 08 Retrieved 2013 01 17 The von implies nobility and according to a biography by his third wife Ilona his family was ennobled in 1697 and received a coat of arms which she describes Erno Ernst von Dohnanyi www geni com Retrieved 1 September 2022 Over the years it was called also the College of Music 1919 1925 and from 1925 the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music its current name a b c Grymes 2005 p 4 Full review www gramophone co uk Retrieved 21 June 2020 Greta mention blog sharmusic com Retrieved 21 June 2020 Table in Ilona Kovacs Dohnanyi Erno zongora muveszeti palyaja The piano career of Ernst Dohnanyi Part I PDF zti hu p 65 Retrieved 21 June 2020 Elza Galafres Huberman info Archived from the original on 2014 01 16 Retrieved 2013 01 04 Elsa Galafres Lives Loves Losses Vancouver Versatile 1973 Carnes 2002 p 146 Grymes 2005 p 6 Grymes 2005 p 7 Grymes 2005 p 10 Dohnanyi 2002 p page needed Peter Halasz 2007 Osterreichische Musik Zeitung Vienna Grymes 2005 p page needed Budapest Symphony Orchestra or as it is known in Hungary the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Balint Vazsonyi Erno Dohnanyi Grove Music Online New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Center for Judiaic Holocaust and Genocide Studies Conferences Fgcu edu Archived from the original on 14 October 2017 Retrieved 14 October 2017 a b Dohnanyi and the Hungarian Holocaust jamesagrymes com 17 March 2014 Retrieved 14 October 2017 a b c d Kusz 2020 pp 75 76 Grymes 2005 p xiv Grymes James A 1999 Erno Dohnanyi s Revision of His Symphony in E major Op 40 Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Budapest Hungary Academiae Scientiarum Hungarica 40 1 3 71 84 doi 10 2307 902553 JSTOR 902553 Sources Carnes Mark Christopher ed 2002 American National Biography Supplement 2 New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 522202 9 Dohnanyi Ilona von 2002 James A Grymes ed Ernst von Dohnanyi A Song of Life Bloomington Indiana University Press ISBN 0 253 34103 5 This article incorporates text from a publication that prior to 1923 is in the public domain The Etude Gallery of Musical Celebrities Etude Magazine November 1912 The Etude Philadelphia Theodore Presser Company Grymes James A ed 2005 Perspectives on Ernst von Dohnanyi Lanham Maryland Scarecrow Press ISBN 978 0810851252 Retrieved 2014 01 20 Kusz Veronika 2020 A Wayfaring Stranger Ernst von Dohnanyi s American Years 1949 1960 California Studies in 20th Century Music Vol 25 University of California Press ISBN 9780520301832 Further reading EditWilliam Lines Hubbard et al eds The American History and Encyclopedia of Music vol 1 London Irving Squire 1908 pp 183 184 available onlineExternal links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Erno Dohnanyi Erno Dohnanyi at AllMusic Erno Dohnanyi Discography Erno Dohnanyi Profile at The Remington Site Dohnanyi String Quartet Nos 1 amp 2 sound bites Warren D Allen Music Library at Florida State University Lecture by D Kiszely Papp on piano music of Dohnanyi In Memoriam concerts Ampico Piano Solo Music Of The Spheres Spharenmusik from Winterreigen Opus 13 by Ernst Von Dohnanyi played by E V Dohnanyi on the Ampico Reproducing Piano 7 ft grand piano Sheet music Free scores by Ernst von Dohnanyi at the International Music Score Library Project IMSLP Videos Serenade Tema con variazioni on YouTube played by Classical Jam Piano Quintet No 1 in C minor Op 1 Allegro on YouTube Scherzo Allegro vivace on YouTube Adagio quasi andante on YouTube Allegro animato on YouTube Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Ernst von Dohnanyi amp oldid 1139738258, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.