Ernő Dohnányi - Symphony No. 1; Symphonic Minutes (Roberto Paternostro)

Information

Composer: Ernő Dohnányi

• Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 9
• Symphonic Minutes, Op. 36

Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz

Roberto Paternostro, conductor

Date: 2019

Label: Capriccio

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Review

I’ve asked this before, but is any composer since Haydn better at writing a humorous finale than Ernst von Dohnányi? The finale of his Symphonic Minutes is a fizzing little moto perpetuo for full orchestra, trimmed, polished and delivered in just under two and a half note-perfect minutes. Under Roberto Paternostro the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz play it with exuberant panache, and why wouldn’t they? Like so many of Dohnányi’s smaller-scale works, this is music that takes the sound of an orchestra, bursts it between tongue and palate, and savours the taste. All five movements in this performance are buoyant and zesty.

But Dohnányi’s massive five-movement First Symphony is a very different proposition – the young maestro, with roots somewhere between Vienna and Budapest, straining with every creative muscle to take possession of his classical inheritance. The key is a very Brahmsian D minor but in Paternostro’s performance – with a solo horn emerging from Wagnerian shadows – it’s the spirit of Bruckner that hangs over the opening bars and which characterises the symphony’s successively more epic climaxes.

There’s a feeling of purposeful – if occasionally ponderous – musical argument, which for me gives it the edge over Matthias Bamert’s lusher, more detailed but ultimately slightly affectless performance on Chandos. Paternostro delivers steadily mounting Hungarian passion in the swirling, folk-flavoured rhapsody that emerges from the second half of the Molto adagio. But his Scherzo is monochrome compared to Leon Botstein and the LPO; likewise Paternostro’s viola soloist in the fourth-movement Intermezzo plays it disappointingly straight. Botstein gives the symphony more personality, and more direction overall. But it’s a close-run thing, and it’s certainly nice to have the choice.

— Richard Bratby

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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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Roberto Paternostro was born in 1957 in Vienna where he studied at the University under Hans Swarowsky. Further studies include under György Ligeti and Christoph von Dohnányi in Hamburg. From 1978 to 1984 he was assistant of Herbert von Karajan in Berlin. From 1991 to 2000 he was General Music Director of the Württembergische Philharmonie, from 1997 to 2007 GMD of the State Theatre in Kassel, and from 2009 to 2013 Music Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra. Paternostro received the ECHO Klassik Award in 2012. He is regularly holding master classes and served as a jury in competitions.

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