Dohnányi is one of those composers who have been a victim of
their own success based principally upon one piece that has prevented many
from discovering the wealth of compositions that are their legacies. In
Dohnányi’s case that piece,
Variations on a Nursery
Tune, composed in 1914, and to a lesser extent, his
Ruralia
Hungarica, which dates from 1924 are regularly programmed. Both concert
and radio producers have often been guilty of giving too few airings of
others of his works.
As a composer of piano music his compositional style is akin to that
of his mentor Johannes Brahms though similarities with Chopin, Schubert and
Schumann are everywhere to be heard. That he was a brilliant pianist is
evidenced by some of his illustrious pupils such as Andor Földes,
Géza Anda, Annie Fischer, György Cziffra as well as Sir Georg
Solti.
This second volume of his solo piano music concentrates on works
written early in his career between 1897 and 1907. The first of his
Four
Piano Pieces Op.2 is a brilliant scherzo with an extremely catchy core
tune which remains in the memory and could easily become one of those
earworms that continually play themselves in your head. The second, the
first of two intermezzi, is likewise a tune that would be recognisable again
as it is also memorable with its key jumping habit. The second is an
altogether a more sedate affair with an allusion to the famous words from
the biblical book of Ruth which by its position in the Bible also acts like
an intermezzo between the books around it. The work is introduced by three
lines of poetry that Robert Reinick fashioned from Ruth’s famous
declaration that exemplifies fidelity ‘Where you go I will go; where
you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my
God’ (Ruth 1:16) with the words becoming ‘Wherever you go, I am
yours/Wherever you live, you are truly mine,/I truly have you, and my
love!’ Ruth was talking to her mother-in-law while Dohnányi was
alluding to his current love Elsa Kunwald, though in fact she became only
the first of his three wives. The final piece is a
Capriccio that is
considered difficult with the composer broadening the structure and making
it scherzo-like. Again one is struck by the huge talent on display in this
work that is so reminiscent of Brahms, for a man still a student at what is
now the Franz Liszt Academy.
Dohnányi’s
Variations and Fugue on a theme of EG
Op.4 is a fantastic work that he wrote shortly after leaving the
Academy. The EG in the title refers to Emma Gruber who was married to a
wealthy Hungarian and who lived near Munich where Dohnányi was having
piano lessons from Eugen d’Albert. Dohnányi became her piano
teacher and since she prided herself on discovering and promoting new talent
he benefited from becoming a frequent performer in her salon. The work is
huge in scale with a theme followed by thirteen variations and ending with a
fugue. Its gentle opening theme is again very Brahmsian in character and the
variations never wander so far from it that the main theme is lost within
them and that makes for a really satisfying feeling of continuity. I found
variation number 6 a particularly affecting Brahms like tune but all of them
are wonderful and the entire work is pure brilliance. Themes with variations
became a form he returned to for many of his best known works including the
famous
Variations on a Nursery Tune - or infamous if one considers
how it has so often helped obscure his other works.
This disc helps redress the balance and underline how marvellously
inventive a composer he was. I hope it will help in a reappraisal. The
Variations and Fugue on a theme of EG Op.4 formed part of his
inaugural concerts in 1897 from which he launched his career as a
pianist-composer. He went on to become one of the principal pianists of his
generation with concert tours throughout Europe, Great Britain and America.
In 1907 following his appointment as a professor at the Hochschule für
Musik in Berlin he wrote his
Humoresques in the form of a suite Op.17
in which he takes different musical styles from the past and subjects them
to his unique treatment. Thus we have
March, Toccata, Pavane from the
16thcentury with variations 1-5, Pastorale with
an
Introduction and fugue to finish. Once again
Dohnányi’s inventive talent is on display in these superb
little pieces that exude brilliance and wonderful melodies throughout.
The disc’s final offering is a scintillating transcription of
several of Schubert’s
Valses nobles which demonstrate
Dohnányi’s brilliance in taking works by other composers and
‘covering’ them in a way that results in a new and refreshingly
original take.
Martin Roscoe is an absolute master when it comes to repertoire such as this
and
one could well imagine the composer himself looking on as he plays with a
smile
of approval. This disc is number two in a series of four covering all of
Dohnányi’s
solo piano music. Together with his recordings of the two piano concertos
Roscoe
has done this composer a great service in helping him emerge from the
success
of the aforementioned
Variations on a Nursery Tune and show that
there
was very much more to him than that.
Steve Arloff
