Ernő Dohnányi - Piano Quintet No. 1; Sextet (András Schiff; Takács Quartet)

Information

Composer: Ernő Dohnányi

• Piano Quintet in C minor, Op. 1
• Sextet in C major for piano, violin, viola, cello, clarinet & horn, Op. 37

András Schiff, piano

Takács Quartet

    Gábor Takács-Nagy, violin

    Károly Schranz, violin

    Gábor Ormai, viola

    András Fejér, cello

&

Radovan Vlatkovic, clarinet

Kalman Berkes, horn

Date: 1987

Label: Decca

-----------------------------------------------------------

Review

Belatedly, and very gradually, we are being made aware of Dohnanyi's chamber music—now being offered, be it noted, by artists from his native Hungary, where he was persona non grata after the war. An immensely accomplished musician pianist, conductor, composer, administrator (he was director of the Budapest Conservatoire from 1919)—his remarkable technical skill was already evident in his Op. 1, the Piano Quintet which he wrote at the age of 17. Brahms programmed this in Vienna in 1895, perhaps touched that this youngster had so patently taken him as a model. His influence is most plainly seen in the second subject of the initial Allegro and in the ensuing Scherzo (which adopts his favourite hemiola cross-rhythms) and its lyrical Trio, though it is Schumann who comes to mind on listening to the slow movement: the finale, in a rather wooden 5/4, is something of a let-down until the advent of a fugue in waltz-time. The performance here is suitably energetic and assured, but the microphone placing picks up too much of the Vienna Schubertsaal's resonance, and its warm acoustics overheat the impassioned writing (particularly in the first movement); the resultant soupiness takes some getting used to.

The first two movements of the harmonically more advanced and rhythmically more flexible Sextet, composed 40 years later, owe more, it is not unfair to say, to technique than to inspiration. The Allegro appassionato overong) only just escapes turgidity, and the most interesting parts of the Intermezzo are march episodes, which have a nightmarish quality; but then comes an extraordinary multi-sectioned movement, beginning with simple charm in a folky Hungarian idiom and later including a deliciously airy 6/8 scherzo, and the merry finale, which follows without a break, is full of high spirits (though not a ''jazz parody'', as the commentator here would have it), incidentally toying with an impudently cross-accented waltz within the 2/4 metre, and teasingly only just not ending in the wrong key. The recording is clearer in this work, but the violin seems disadvantageously placed in relation to the louder clarinet and much louder horn (who, in tutti passages such as the scherzo just mentioned, protrudes somewhat).

— Lionel Salter

-----------------------------------------------------------

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.

***

András Schiff (born 21 December 1953) is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist and conductor. Born in Budapest to a Jewish family, studied piano at the Franz Liszt Academy with Pal Kadosa, György Kurtág, and Ferenc Rados; and in London with George Malcolm. Schiff has performed cycles of complete Beethoven sonatas and the complete works of J.S. Bach, Haydn, Schubert and Bartók, which constitute an important part of his work. Having collaborated with the world's leading orchestras and conductors, he now focuses primarily on solo recital, play-conducting appearances, and exclusive conducting projects.

***

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér. Current members include Edward Dusinberre, Harumi Rhodes (violins), Richard O’Neill (viola) and András Fejér (cello). All members are Christoffersen Fellows and Artists in Residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder. For their CDs on Hyperion and Decca labels, the Quartet has won four Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, three Japanese Record Academy Awards, Disc of the Year at the BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Presto Music Recording of the Year Award.

-----------------------------------------------------------