DOHNÁNYI : Piano Concerto No 1 In E Minor • Piano Concerto No 2 In B Minor (Martin Roscoe · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra · Fedor Glushchenko) (1993) Serie The Romantic Piano Concerto – 6 | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

The name of Ernest Dohnányi (born Hungary, 1877, died USA, 1960) hardly rings a bell today except in Hungary. Even those who remember him are likely to be familiar with only one of his works, his Variations on a Nursery Song for piano and orchestra (1914). His stage works, orchestral compositions including symphonies, concerti etc., vocal compositions such as the Stabat Mater (1953), as well as his numerous chamber music and piano compositions are now seldom played. One would search long to find his music in any concert programme. Yet at his peak he was one of the most versatile and influential musicians of his time. His youthful Piano Quintet (1895) was so highly esteemed by Brahms at its first performance that he personally made arrangements for it to be performed in the Vienna Tonkünstlerverein.

It was his cellist father and Károly Förstner, a cathedral organist, who gave Dohnányi his first lessons in piano and theory. Having completed his secondary education he went to Budapest from his native town Pozsony (now Bratislava) in order to study at the Budapest Academy. (His school friend Béla Bartók followed suit.) There he studied piano with Thomán and composition with Koessler. After receiving his diploma in 1897 he spent the summer of the same year with composer and pianist Eugen d’Albert (Glasgow-born but of German-French-Italian origins) to whom, in 1898, Dohnányi eventually dedicated his First Piano Concerto, a work which received the Bösendorfer Prize.

It was in 1898 that Hans Richter, one of the leading conductors of the time, asked Dohnányi to join him in London as the soloist in Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. This tour, during which he gave 32 concerts in two months, established him as a concert pianist of the first rank. His interpretative power in the Austro-German classics, above all Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, as well as his dedicated involvement in chamber music playing, made him one of the most sought-after performers of his time. His pianistic ability combined with improvisational panache was such that when later his memory deserted him from time to time it was a popular pleasure among connoisseurs to hear how he wriggled out of trouble by stylishly improvising passages that led back to the original notes. It was Richter, too, who in 1902 introduced Dohnányi’s Symphony No 1 in D minor, in Manchester.

The great violinist Joachim, friend of Brahms, was also friend to Dohnányi whom he invited to Berlin where the composer was offered a professorship at the Hochshule in 1905. Ten years there were paralleled and followed by various prestigious appointments not only at the Budapest Academy but also as chief conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra, a position which he held for the best part of 25 years from 1919. In 1931 he became the musical director of Hungarian Radio where he worked until 1944. With all these involvements he found time not only for composition but also for selecting concert repertoire with the aim of raising musical standards in Hungary. He gave as many as 120 performances there in one year. No wonder that Bartók saw in him a leading provider of Hungarian musical life. For four decades Dohnányi dominated the musical scene in his home country and beyond. It is to Dohnányi’s credit that although his musical temperament and outlook were very different from Bartók’s and Kodály’s he put his phenomenal performing ability to their service. In fact he recognised Bartók’s genius well before others and gave him practical support while his own countrymen were predominantly hostile. His long-standing relationship with America made him a welcome refugee when, after a few years stay in Austria (1944-1948), he decided to leave Europe for the New World. There he indefatigably continued his musical activities, not only in his capacity as pianist/composer-in- residence at Florida State University, but also as a touring performer. One of his last concerts was in 1956 at the Edinburgh Festival. Working to the very end of his life, he died during a recording session at the age of 83.

In this series featuring ‘The Romantic Piano Concerto’, Dohnányi’s two works in this form are fitting examples of the genre because he was throughout his life a romantic both at heart and in his musical language. Although he died as late as 1960 he had little to do with the musical developments of the twentieth century. The two Concertos on this recording evoke a world which belongs to the nineteenth century. Dohnányi continued to compose in a style deeply rooted in the Austro-German classical tradition exemplified by Brahms. His merit as a composer is that he was able to prolong meaningfully the classico/romantic past, of which he was one of the last practitioners, well into this century, both in his chamber and orchestral music. This he did with elegance, wit, and stylish virtuosity. The two Piano Concertos are fine examples of his fluent mastery of form and instrumentation.

The Piano Concerto No 1 in E minor, from the years of 1897–8, follows the traditional three-movement structure: fast-slow-fast. However, the first movement Allegro is preceded by an introductory ‘Adagio maestoso’ whose main theme is picked up, albeit in a modified way, by the first Allegro subject proper. It is characterised by a diminished 5th drop resolving upwards a minor second (E-A#-B). The structural importance of the introductory Adagio maestoso gains marked significance as it is reiterated at the end of the movement. There is nothing in the musical language—that is, in the rhythm, melody, harmony and musical structure as well as in the traditional orchestration—which Brahms would have found unfamiliar.

The second movement, with its largely pizzicato orchestral accompaniment, is in A minor. Its melodic contour is also derived in a subtle way from the ‘Adagio maestoso’. The last twenty-eight bars, during which the piano plays the opening theme originally introduced by the orchestra with broad arpeggio chords finally establishing the key of A major (known as ‘tierce de Picardi’), is an old trick, but it works superbly.

The third movement, Vivace, brings to its dramatic conclusion the opening Adagio maestoso theme which, motto-like, gives unity to the whole composition. Of the three movements this is perhaps the most Brahmsian in style with its lush sixths and thirds. A chorale-like theme played by the orchestra interrupts the flow of the cadenza. Then a frenetic coda in 6/8 is approached via a series of trills. Finally the time signature changes again, now to 2/4 Presto, leading the composition to its conclusion—not in E minor, but in the triumphant E major.

The Piano Concerto No 2 in B minor belongs to the post-World War II years, 1946–7. Thus nearly fifty years separate the two Concertos on this CD. The composer’s compositional style, however, shows little change. It is amazing to think that Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto was written two years before this one. The first Allegro movement of this Concerto also opens with a quasi-motto theme. There is something Hungarian to it both melodically and rhythmically. Among several striking passages the one which stands out is the ‘Poco meno mosso’ entry of a theme which more or less dominates the second half of the movement.

The second movement, ‘Adagio poco rubato’, again evokes Hungarian, or rather a stylised Hungarian gipsy style in G minor. It ends in G major with a gradually speeded-up repetition of the note G in the orchestra, leading directly without a break to the third movement, Allegro vivace. The ostinato G is spiced by a minor second clash which gives backing to the entry of the energetic main theme. The motto theme of the first movement reappears, albeit en passant, over a long held E in the bass. This gives way to a spirited unfolding of the material and the eventual conclusion of the Concerto.

It is incorrect to suggest, as some do, that Dohnányi bridged the gap in Hungarian music between Liszt and Bartók. This is not so, since he did not share their innovating and pioneering compositional genius. He got stuck in a style somewhere between Brahms and Saint-Saëns. What he offers, however, is an unfailing romantic spirit which to this day can evoke the musical values of yesterday, which he served and defended with such inspired dedication. Hyperion

Ernő Dohnányi (1877-1960)
    
Piano Concerto No 1 in E minor Op 5 [44'56]
    
Piano Concerto No 2 in B minor Op 42 [29'44]

Conductor – Fedor Glushchenko
Leader [Orchestra] – Geoffrey Trabichoff
Orchestra – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Piano – Martin Roscoe

BRÜLL : Piano Concerto No 1, Op 10 (First Recording) Piano Concerto No 2, Op 24 • Andante And Allegro, Op 88 (First Recording) (Martin Roscoe · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra • Martyn Brabbins) (1999) Serie The Romantic Piano Concerto – 20 | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Volume 20 of our Romantic Piano Concerto series features Ignaz Brüll's two Piano Concertos and the Andante and Allegro, Op 88. The first of the concertos was amazingly composed when Brüll was just 15, the second when he was 22.

A very well respected pianist, Brüll was noted for his sympathetic insight into the essence of a work, which only a virtuoso who is a creative artist can possess. Colleagues such as Franz Liszt, Anton Rubenstein and Clara Schumann, as well as many critics, regarded him as one of the leading exponents of his craft. As a composer, he stood firmly within the tradition of the conservative, Classical school. In the language of the time, this tradition was described as being 'in the direction of Schumann and Mendelssohn'. Its most distinguishing features were a clear awareness of form based on Classical models, and a measured form of expression which shunned excess and exaggeration.

The Andante and Allegro and First Piano Concerto here receive their first recordings. Hyperion

Ignaz Brüll (1846-1907)
        
Piano Concerto No 1 in F major Op 10 [27'03]
        
Piano Concerto No 2 in C major Op 24 [29'29]

Credits :
Conductor – Martyn Brabbins
Leader – Bernard Docherthy
Orchestra – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Piano – Martin Roscoe

FUCHS : Piano Concerto In B Flat, Op 27 ♦ KIEL : Piano Concerto In B Flat, Op 30 (Martin Roscoe · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra · Martyn Brabbins) (2001) Serie The Romantic Piano Concerto – 31 | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Music in Germany in the later 19th century found itself divided into two camps; the modernists, led by Liszt and Wagner, and the traditionalists who took Brahms as their model and who upheld the values of the classical period and Beethoven in particular. Fuchs and Kiel are very much in the later camp and both spent their lives in academic posts, as so often befits such establishment figures. They each wrote only one piano concerto and, as one might expect, these are not vehicles for empty virtuoso display but rather 'symphonic' concertos, both written in the traditional three movements, the first of which is a weighty sonata form allegro. The influence of Beethoven can be heard in each and the later Fuchs piece also shows a debt to Brahms. Interestingly Kiel taught Stanford while he studied in Germany and indeed these composers are very much the German equivalent of Stanford or Parry.

Martin Roscoe, who did such a fine job with the similar Brüll concertos (CDA67069), is our soloist and Martyn Brabbins and the BBCSSO give their usual inspired accompaniment.

Both works are premiere recordings. Hyperion

Robert Fuchs (1847-1927)

Piano Concerto in B flat minor Op 27 [36'19]

Friedrich Kiel (1821-1885)

Piano Concerto in B flat major Op 30 [27'12]

Credits :
Conductor – Martyn Brabbins
Orchestra – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Piano – Martin Roscoe
Violin [Orchestra Leader] – Elizabeth Layton

SOMERVELL : Highland Concerto • Normandy (First Recordings) COWEN : Concertstück (First Recording) (Martin Roscoe · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra · Martyn Brabbins) (2011) Serie The Romantic Piano Concerto – 54 | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

The three world premiere recordings featured here comprise the complete works for piano and orchestra by both composers (an early student concerto by Cowen appears lost).

In his day Cowen was a hugely successful contemporary of Stanford and Parry and it is surprising that his music has not yet been revived on disc. The Concertstück was written in 1897 for Padereswki, who gave the premiere to much acclaim. The work is notable for its orchestral colour and a great understanding of virtuoso piano writing and reveals what a master of his art the composer was.

Sir Arthur Somervell is best known for his songs and he wrote comparatively little orchestral music. The ‘Normandy’ symphonic variations were premiered in 1913 by the great scholar and pianist Donald Francis Tovey who did much to champion them.

The ‘Highland’ concerto is a late work (dating from 1921) which was never published and has consequently been almost forgotten. It was written for, and premiered by, the Scottish pianist Jessie Munro and is an uncomplicated and enjoyable romp based on Scottish-sounding themes which are nevertheless original Somervell. It may not be profound music but once heard, will certainly never be forgotten.

Martin Roscoe and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra are on scintillating form throughout. An entertaining addition to the renowned Romantic Piano Concerto catalogue. Hyperion

Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen (1852-1935)
Concertstück 19:53

Sir Arthur Somervell (1863-1937)
Normandy (Symphonic Variations) 20:56

Piano Concerto In A Minor 'Highland' (27:16)
 Credits :
Conductor – Martyn Brabbins
Leader – Elizabeth Layton
Orchestra – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Piano – Martin Roscoe

CARL NIELSEN : Complete Piano Music (Martin Roscoe) 2xCD (2008) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Though perhaps not the finest recordings of some of the better known works here -- the competition from John Ogdon and Leif Ove Andsnes is particularly stiff -- Martin Roscoe's effort includes everything Nielsen wrote for the instrument including pieces so rarely recorded as to be nearly unknown to all but the most devoted Nielsen aficionado. Where else, for example, can one go to hear both books of the composer's light and lively Piano Music for Young and Old and his grandiose and grandiloquent Festival Prelude for the New Century? Roscoe's performances of these works, indeed, his performances of all the works here, are never less than persuasive. With his powerful technique and refined tone, he's appropriately intimate in the Grieg-inspired Five Piano Pieces as well as appropriately monumental in the craggy Chaconne. And though those who know Ogdon's terrifying Chaconne and Andsnes' frightening "Lucifer" Suite may find Roscoe's readings don't pack quite the same emotional punch, those who want to hear Nielsen's charming contrapuntal fantasy called A Dream about "Silent Night" will perforce have to dip into this set. Hyperion's sound is full, detailed, and deep. by James Leonard  

The Romantic Piano Concerto • 6 - Dohnányi : Piano Concerto No. 1; Piano Concerto No. 2 (1993) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

 
 

The Romantic Piano Concerto • 20 - Ignaz Brüll : Piano Concerto No. 1, Op 10; Piano Concerto No 2, Op 24; Andante and Allegro, Op 88 (1999) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

 

The Romantic Piano Concerto • 31 - Fuchs : Piano Concerto, Op. 27; Kiel : Piano Concerto, Op. 30 (2001) FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

 
 

ERNÖ DOHNÁNYI : The Complete Solo Piano Music, Vol. 1 (Martin Roscoe) (2011) FLAC (tracks), lossless

Ernö Dohnányi's music fell out of fashion when Bartók became the modern composer the avant-garde and the general classical audience could all agree on, but much of it has an elegant charm. Moreover, the two large sets of piano works on this album offer a part of the missing link between Liszt and Bartók: they are late Romantic in conception and generally in harmony, but the emphasis is on structure rather than expression, and they are not especially virtuosic. Consider "An Ada" (track 7) from the set of ten bagatelles entitled Winterreigen (Winter Rounds). It is built on the interval of a fourth, to which slightly differing counterpoints are added, and it's easy to imagine the young Bartók beginning to abstract patterns like this one. The Winterreigen and the Four Rhapsodies, Op. 11, at the beginning of the program are the most interesting, but the Pastorale (track 15) could easily fit on a program of unusual Christmas music. Pianist Martin Roscoe, a specialist in Dohnányi's music who earlier recorded this exact program for the ASV label, approaches the music with a quiet, precise confidence that serves it very well. Recommended for anyone interested in the fin de siècle, but especially for pianists who are looking for something striking and little-known to add to a recital: nearly everything on the program here will fill the bill. by James Manheim  

ERNÖ DOHNÁNYI : The Complete Solo Piano Music, Vol. 2 (Martin Roscoe) (2011) FLAC (tracks), lossless

Ernö von Dohnányi, who lived from 1877 to 1960, was a composer-pianist in the classic Central European mold. His work fell out of fashion during modernist rule but has bounced back to a degree, and his family continues to influence the course of American music. British pianist Martin Roscoe has embarked on a series of recordings covering his complete solo piano music. Such series, especially in individual albums covering a composer's early music (such as this one), can easily seem too much, but the music here runs from enjoyable to revelatory. Each item dates from Dohnányi's student years or shortly after, and all of it is influenced by Brahms. Yet even in the Four Piano Pieces, Op. 2, there is an individual voice. The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by EG, Op. 4 (the EG refers to the work's dedicatee, Emma Gruber), is perhaps the most academic exercise, but the undoubted highlight is the set of Humoresques in the form of a suite, Op. 17, composed in 1907. The work uses a cheerful mixture of antique forms from pavane to fugue, and it draws on the embryonic neo-classicism to be found in Brahms' music. But it has a lyrical impulse that is entirely Dohnányi's own, and the lovely Pastorale (track 10) is worth the price of admission. The final Valses nobles are also intriguing; based on Schubert's waltzes (D. 969), they are neither transcriptions nor variations but somewhere in between, adding fairly elaborate new counterpoints to Schubert's pieces but retaining the original notes. With superior acoustics from Potton Hall in Britain's Suffolk region, this is an enjoyable introduction to a little-known composer. by James Manheim

 

ERNÖ DOHNÁNYI : The Complete Solo Piano Music, Vol. 3 (Martin Roscoe) (2015) FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

British pianist Martin Roscoe has set out to revive the piano music of Ernö Dohnányi, largely overshadowed by Bartók, with a series of recordings of his complete piano music for Hyperion. They are all beautifully and idiomatically recorded at Hyperion's favored recital venue, Potton Hall. This third volume is something of a mixed bag, but is worth the price of admission for the opening work, Ruralia hungarica, Op. 32a. These short pieces, composed in 1923 and 1924, are based on Hungarian folk songs collected and published by Bartók and Kodály, and it's fascinating to hear this material inflected through a voice different from those of the two better-known composers. Dohnányi is more conservative tonally, but he does not smooth out the fascinating rhythms of these tunes. Even better is the imaginative virtuoso treatment of the source material, both here and in the Variations on a Hungarian folksong, Op. 29, with its unique mix of analysis of the tune and big performance fireworks. The virtuoso tradition is present in the final waltz arrangements on the album, reminiscent of what Liszt might have written if he had taken up waltzes. Finally there's an odd forerunner of neo-classicism, the early Gavotte and Musette of 1898. Roscoe gets the ambition of the Ruralia hungarica, which were recorded by Dohnányi himself but are far from common works. Recommended for those interested in the Eastern European interwar scene. by James Manheim  

ERNÖ DOHNÁNYI : The Complete Solo Piano Music, Vol. 4 (Martin Roscoe) (2018) FLAC (tracks), lossless

British pianist Martin Roscoe's survey of Ernö Dohnányi's solo piano music has ranged from worthwhile to revelatory and has helped to place the composer firmly among those unfairly neglected by the modernist nomenklatura. This final installment consists of a variety of pieces held together, in the words of annotator and Dohnányi specialist James A. Grymes, by the idea of demonstrating "Dohnányi's lifelong efforts to solidify his place in the great lineage of composer-pianists by writing in genres in which his predecessors excelled...." Thus you get etudes, character pieces, a passacaglia, and other experiments in Baroque dance forms. There aren't quite the unknown masterpieces here that there are on some of the other albums, but those whose interest has been piqued will enjoy the album. The Six Pieces, Op. 41, were written after the end of World War II in a small town in Austria where Dohnányi had taken refuge; sample Cloches, which deploys the sound of church bells to represent the composer's feelings upon learning that his son had died in a Russian prison camp. The Six Concert Études are in the Chopin tradition but are full of the harmonic surprises and angular rhythms that are characteristic of Dohnányi's style: he never goes quite in the directions that Bartók went, but he is unmistakably Hungarian. The Passacaglia in E flat minor of 1899 derives from the finale of the Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98; it was partially improvised by Dohnányi at its premiere, and Roscoe's performance gives an idea of what must have been the composer's considerable charisma at the keyboard. The Suite in the Olden Style of 1913, a time when the neoclassic movement was just gathering steam, is paradoxically perhaps the most "progressive" piece on the album. Beautifully recorded, and recommended for anyone interested in Hungarian music. by James Manheim