Ernst von Dohnányi

Hungarian pianist, composer, conductor, teacher and administrator Ernst von Dohnányi (Ernő Dohnányi) (1877–1960), is the most versatile Hungarian musician next to Liszt and is considered the architect of Hungary’s musical culture in the 20th century. Dohnányi was born in Pozsony (today Bratislava). 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. In 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. 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. 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. Following an invitation by the violinist Joseph Joachim, a close friend of Brahms, Dohnányi taught at the Hochschule in Berlin from 1905 to 1915. In 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. In 1920, Dohnányi was named Music Director of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and as such promoted the music of Béla Bartók, 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 Géza Anda, Annie Fischer, Hope Squire, Helen Camille Stanley, Edward Kilenyi, Sir Georg Solti, Istvan Kantor, Georges Cziffra and Ľudovít Rajter. In 1933, he organized the first International Franz Liszt Piano Competition. In 1934, Dohnányi was once again appointed Director of the Budapest Academy of Music, a post he held until 1943. 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 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. From 1949, Dohnányi taught for ten years at the Florida State University School of Music in Tallahassee. 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. 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. 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).