Dohnányi

Webern's "Symphony" (op. 21) is like light passing through a slowly revolving prism, revealing irridescent hues you've never seen before. Following his "Passacaglia" (op. 1), which clarifies but doesn't break with the Romanticism of Brahms, Webern composed four masterful orchestral miniatures. "6 Pieces" (op. 6) and "5 Pieces" (op. 10) are incredibly brief, in the atonal style pioneered by Webern's teacher Schoenberg. They met with quite different fates – the "6 Pieces" provoked a "Le Sacre"-style riot at its Vienna premiere in 1913, and Webern fled into hiding. The "5 Pieces" wasn't publicly performed until 1924, at a festival in Zurich, 10 years after it was written. It was widely acclaimed, establishing Webern's international reputation.

These are modern, big band, 21st-century readings of Brahms’s Second and Fourth Symphonies. Textures are clear and transparent, so that we hear details of inner voices and the felicities of the composer’s wind-writing for flutes and oboes. Timpani are also quite prominent. Tempos, especially in the Second Symphony’s first movement, strike me as a bit on the measured side, but still within the mainstream.

Ernst von Dohnanyi (Ernő Dohnányi) was for many years a little known and unjustly neglected composer. Chandos' series of recordings of works performed by Matthias Bamert and the BBC Philharmonic significantly increased his profile, and are regarded as best examples of this repertoire.
2010 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Dohnanyi’s death. To commemorate this anniversary, Chandos has packaged the two Piano Concertos on one album, released on the Classics label.

The music of Hungarian composer Ernst von Dohnányi took a dive in concert program frequency after his death in the U.S. in 1960, when the fashion was for Bartók or still more progressive composers. It has been making a comeback, however, and this satisfying release by Britain's venerable Nash Ensemble, largely specialists in contemporary music, should only help it along. Dohnányi was classified as a conservative, and indeed there is a strong Brahmsian streak in his music.

This is a grand, satisfying performance on almost every count. Its stature allows me for the moment to put aside the baggage of all earlier recordings and assess it on its own merits alone. In the first place, following on his successful Rheingold (Decca, 11/95), Dohnanyi conducts a well-paced, thought-through reading that at once creates dramatic excitement and attends to the longer view. From the opening storm right through to the Magic Fire Music there’s a welcome sense of forward movement everywhere, except in the middle of Act 2 where in places Dohnanyi slows down inordinately, allowing the score to become momentarily becalmed.

With all of Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, and Philips catalogs to choose from, why did producers pick for re-release Christoph von Dohnányi and the Cleveland Orchestra's recordings of Schumann's Second and Third symphonies? Among many others, they had Karajan and the Berlin, Solti with the Vienna, and Haitink with the Concertgebouw, so why pick Dohnányi and the Cleveland? Because they are digital recordings? Perhaps: the very word "digital" is still a potent talisman for listeners looking for a first and perhaps only recording.

Ernő Dohnányi (1877-1960) - Chamber Music Vol. I - Beethoven String Trio, Kocian Quartet (2007) {Praga PRD/DSD 250 237}
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© 2007 Praga Digitals | PRD/DSD 250 237
Classical / Early 20th Century / Chamber Music

Brought together for the first time, this anthology of chamber music works ranges from the last flickers of neo-Germanic Romanticism to the nationalism of the early 20th century. Written by great Hungarian musician.

This is an excellent Mahler Ninth. It does not feature the tortured anguish of Bernstein (Sony & DG), the elegant pain of Giulini (DG), or the stately gloom of Walter (Sony), but, like Libor Pesek (Virgin Classics), it successfully straddles more than a few fences. But "straddling fences" does not imply it's middle-of-the-road–it is, in fact, more middle-of-the-night. Dohnányi often makes inner voices turn disruptive, yet coaxes the strings to sound both sweet and eerie in their heavy use of portamento; and he is scrupulous in extracting just about every last meaningful detail in this monumental work.