Ernő Dohnányi - Piano Music Vol. 2 (Martin Roscoe)

Information

Composer: Ernő Dohnányi

• 4 Piano Pieces, Op. 2
• Variations and Fugue on a theme of EG, Op. 4
• Humoresques in the form of a suite, Op. 17
• Valses nobles, after Schubert

Martin Roscoe, piano

Date: 2013

Label: Hyperion

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Review

The opening pages of Dohnányi’s Op 2 might well have been penned by Brahms in one of his jollier moods. Yet, though written when Dohnányi was a 20-year-old student in Budapest, the music soon reveals, as James A Grymes observes in his useful booklet-note, ‘an exuberant and distinctive compositional voice’. I thought this Suite (it lasts just over 27 minutes) a real find full of interesting, arresting ideas, impish wit and not a little passion (the Intermezzo is a love song to the work’s dedicatee, Elsa Kunwald, who would become the first of his three wives) and, in the finale, a taste for bravura writing in the great pianist-composer tradition.

The Variations may be Brahms-lite, too, but no less appealing, helped not a little by Martin Roscoe’s sensitive sculpting and dynamic shading. The subtle changes he rings in the repeat of the theme’s initial statement are an indication of the care and imagination he brings to the whole score. If the fugue finale is full of vim and confidence, the four-part fugue which ends the Op 17 Suite is even finer, preceded by a Schumannesque March, a scintillating Toccata, a Pavane with variations and a Pastorale. It’s a delightful, unusual work which, like the two before it, well deserves a place in the regular repertoire. Roscoe rounds off this rewarding voyage of discovery with Dohnányi’s transcription of nine of Schubert’s 12 Valses nobles in performances which surpass the composer’s own somewhat untidy 1956 recording (Hungaroton) and in immeasurably better sound: at Potton Hall (Ben Connellan and Jeremy Hayes) they know how to do these things.

— Jeremy Nicholas

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Ernő Dohnányi (27 July 1877 – 9 February 1960) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and conductor. Dohnányi studied in Budapest at the Royal Academy of Music. As a pianist he traveled widely and established a reputation as one of the best performers of his day. In 1948 he left Hungary as a political exile and became a U.S. citizen in 1955. Dohnányi's music, which was chiefly influenced by Johannes Brahms, was late Romantic and conservative in style, and after 1910 he occupied only a minor place among contemporary Hungarian composers. His works include three symphonies, a ballet, three operas, and chamber works.

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Martin Roscoe (born 3 August 1952) is an English classical pianist. Born in Halton, Runcorn, Cheshire, he studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music with Gordon Green and Marjorie Clementi. Roscoe has played as a soloist under many of the world's leading conductors, and also gives regular recitals at the Wigmore Hall. He has an international reputation and has played in many countries, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, South America, Australia, USA and France. Roscoe has taught at the Royal Northern College of Music, Royal Academy of Music, and Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

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