Ernő Dohnányi - Piano Works (Sofja Gülbadamova)

Information

Composer: Ernő Dohnányi

CD1:

• Winterreigen, Op. 13
• 4 Klavierstücke, Op. 2
• 6 Pieces, Op. 41

CD2:

• Albumblatt
• Gavotte & Musette
• 5 Humoresques in the Form of Suite, Op. 17
• 4 Rhapsodies, Op. 11

Sofja Gülbadamova, piano

Date: 2018

Label: Capriccio

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Review

With a recent live recording of Dohnányi’s Second Piano Concerto (HD Klassik) also to her name, Russian-born Sofja Gülbadamova here offers a selection of his solo repertoire. A decade ago she would have had little competition, other than the composer’s own historic recordings. However, now that Martin Roscoe has almost finished his survey of all the solo works for Hyperion, with the final volume due next year, the prospects of her making an impression are a good deal slimmer.

Gülbadamova’s attractive selection is mainly from the composer’s early and mid career around the turn of the century, omitting works of a more nationalistic character from 1915 after his return to Hungary from Berlin (and thus missing out on the relatively well-known Ruralia hungarica). Echoes of Chopin, Brahms and Schumann abound, above all in Winterreigen (‘Winter Round Dances’), which starts with a quotation from Schumann’s Papillons. Here and in the Five Humoresques in the Form of a Suite, Gülbadamova’s playing is elegant and warm but somewhat distracting in its habitual rubato. Not that she lacks subtlety and musicality, and her voicing of textures can be imaginative and engaging. She eloquently conveys the blend of playfulness and emotion in the Op 2 Pieces, and her full-blooded, stirring interpretation of the Four Rhapsodies is a reminder of Dohnányi’s status as the greatest Hungarian pianist and (before the ascent of Bartók) composer since Liszt. However, in these more technically demanding pieces she tends to be over-eager to impress, while Roscoe’s more contained and atmospherically varied accounts reveal the music’s narrative and emotional power to greater effect. Such miniatures as the 1898 Gavotte and Musette also emerge more naturally in Roscoe’s less interventionist hands.

The only late opus in Gülbadamova’s programme is the Six Piano Pieces, Op 41, composed in 1945, in which year the composer’s son, Hans, a member of the German resistance and rescuer of Jews, would be executed by the Nazis, reportedly hanged by piano wire. Ironically, Dohnányi himself, in the years following the war, would be accused of war crimes; and, although he was exonerated, his reputation still suffers from those smear campaigns. The Six Piano Pieces can be heard on ‘Dohnányi plays Dohnányi: The Complete HMV Solo Piano Recordings 1929-1956’, issued on APR in 2004, which provides a fascinating insight into the composer’s own performing style: marked by restraint and inner force. For all her evident devotion to the music, and Capriccio’s pleasing sound, Gülbadamova does not approach this level of idiomatic understanding. Her own CD booklet essay, although patently sincere, is by no means as informative as James Grymes’s for Hyperion.

— Michelle Assay

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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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Sofja Gülbadamova (born 13 March 1981) is a Russian pianist. Born in Moscow, she studied at the Gnessin State Musical College, the Lübeck Academy of Music, the Conservatoire de Paris, and the École Normale de Musique Alfred-Cortot. Gülbadamova has won several international piano competitions, including the 2008 Concours International pour Piano in Aix-en-Provence and the 6th Concours International Francis-Poulenc. Since 1992, she has performed internationally in piano recitals, chamber music performances, and orchestral appearances in Europe, Russia, South America, and the USA.

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