Release Date: 01 January 2000
Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099433228
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: DOHNANYI
Description
Erno Dohnanyi (1877 - 1960)Six Concert Etudes, Op.28 (1916)Variations on a Hungarian Folk Song, Op.29 (1916)Pastorale (Hungarian Christmas Song) (1920)Ruralia Hungarica, Op.32a (1924) Hungary has given us some of the most extraordinarymusicians. Franz Liszt (1811-1886), Franz Lehar (1870-1948), Bola Bartok(1881-1945), Zoltan Kodaly (1882-1967), Fritz Reiner (1888-1963), JosephSzigeti (1892-1973), George Szell (1897-1970) and Eugene Ormandy (1899-1985),just to name a few. The world pantheon would of course be incomplete withoutErno Dohnanyi, the elder colleague and promoter of both Bartok and Kodaly. Dohnanyi was born in 1877 in a town located 35 miles eastof Vienna, the capital of Austria. The town of Dohnanyi's birth was Hungary'scapital for hundreds of years, known then as Pozsony. In German, when Hungarywas part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867-1918), its name became Pressburg.Now this town's name is Bratislava, and today it is the capital of Slovakia.Erno Dohnanyi's own name also has a German version, Ernst von Dohnanyi. Political turmoils in Europe, affected citizens of manycountries of that continent, not just the Hungarians. The two world wars andthe frequent rearrangements of national borders were, however, far more severein European lands east of France. Many eastern European classicalinstrumentalists and composers born at the end of the nineteenth century foundthemselves displaced and forced to seek safe havens allover the world. The fate of Dohnanyi is especially ironic, because he wasfor a long time Hungary's pre-eminent musical force. He was an internationally acclaimedpianist, world-renowned composer and, for a quarter of a century, conductor ofthe Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, with which he performed more than one hundredprogrammes each season. Dohnanyi championed younger composers, such as Bartokand Kodaly, was the director of Hungarian Radio, gave concertos all over theworld promoting Hungarian music, and presided over the Budapest Academy, wherehe taught piano and composition for many years. In short, from 1915 to 1944Dohnanyi had a powerful influence on the musical development of his native country.Yet by 1948 he was hounded out of Hungary and, after brief periods in Austriaand in England, he found a temporary respite in Argentina, where he chaired thepiano department at the University of Tucuman, some 800 miles north-west of Buenos Aires. From 1949 until his death in 1960, Dohnanyi lived in the United States, thanks in great part to the foresight and largesse of Florida State Universityin Tallahassee, which provided him with a faculty position in its musicdepartment. His appointment by an American institution of higher learning doesnot appear to be an unusual event until one realises that in 1949 Dohnanyi was already72 years old, seven years older than the then standard mandatory retirement agefor employees, including professors. The musical journey that ended with a heart attack and afat
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Various
Various
Lully
