Description

Testament: Ernő Dohnányi — Piano Recital: Beethoven · Schubert · Dohnányi (2-CD Audio Set)

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Product Details:

Product Type: Audio CD (2-disc set)
Brand / Label: Testament
Catalog Number: SBT2 1505
Artist: Ernő Dohnányi (piano)
Composers: Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Ernő Dohnányi
Release Year: 2014 (digital remastering; original recordings: 1936 & 1959)
Source Recordings: BBC Broadcasts 1936 & Florida University Recital 1959 (previously unpublished)
Genre: Classical / Solo Piano
Style: Romantic, Late Romantic, Solo Recital
UPC: 0749677150525
Sound: Mono / ADD
Condition: Factory Sealed

Product Features

Format: 2 × Audio CD
Discs: 2
CD1 runtime: 65:14 / CD2 runtime: 41:54
Total runtime: approx. 107 minutes
Recording type: Live broadcast and recital; mono
Digital remastering: 2014, Testament
Packaging: Standard double jewel case, factory sealed

Overview

Ernő Dohnányi (1877–1960) was one of the great pianist-composers of the late Romantic tradition — a figure who stood alongside Bartók and Kodály as a pillar of Hungarian musical life, yet followed an entirely different aesthetic path. Where his compatriots turned toward folk music and modernism, Dohnányi remained committed to the Brahmsian inheritance: deep formal rigour, pianistic richness, and a melodic language rooted in the 19th century. This two-disc set documents him in performance — live, in two different decades, playing with the authority of someone who spent a lifetime inside this repertoire.

The BBC recordings from 1936 open the set with Beethoven and Schubert: the Piano Sonata No. 16 in G, Op. 31 No. 1, and Schubert's magnificent late Sonata No. 18 in G, D.894. These are not museum pieces in Dohnányi's hands. The Beethoven has a conversational ease, the Schubert an expansive, unhurried gravity. Both reflect a pianistic generation trained to think in long architectural spans rather than individual gestures. Three shorter Dohnányi pieces round out the disc, including the wry Scherzino and the shimmering Cascade from Op. 41.

The second disc is devoted entirely to Dohnányi's own music, captured at a Florida University recital in 1959, when the composer was in his early eighties. The centrepiece is the Szimfonikus percek (Symphonic Minutes), Op. 36 — one of Dohnányi's most concentrated orchestral works, here performed in his own piano reduction. Alongside it sit Hungarian-inflected pieces including the Variations on a Hungarian Folksong, Op. 29, and the Pastorale on a Hungarian Christmas Song, painting a portrait of a composer deeply rooted in his origins even in his final decade.

All of these recordings were previously unpublished — making this Testament release a genuine archival discovery rather than a repackaging exercise.

Interesting Facts

Ernő Dohnányi was born in Pozsony (now Bratislava) in 1877 and studied at the Budapest Royal Academy of Music; Brahms himself championed the young Dohnányi's early compositions after hearing his Piano Quintet in C minor.
Dohnányi served as director of the Budapest Philharmonic and the Budapest Royal Academy of Music, profoundly shaping Hungarian concert life in the interwar period.
The BBC broadcasts of 1936 captured Dohnányi near his artistic peak — he was then 58 and widely regarded as one of the finest pianists alive.
The Florida University Recital of 1959 took place just one year before Dohnányi's death in February 1960, making it among the last documented performances of his playing.
Dohnányi emigrated to the United States after World War II and spent his final years as a professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee, where he continued to perform and compose until the end of his life.
His Variations on a Nursery Song, Op. 25 — a witty set of orchestral variations on "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" — remains his most internationally performed work, though his piano music is increasingly recognised as of equal stature.
Testament is a UK specialist label dedicated exclusively to historically significant archival recordings, with an emphasis on previously unreleased or out-of-print material.

Track Listing

CD 1 — 65:14

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827): 1–3. Piano Sonata No. 16 in G, Op. 31 No. 1 — 24:42

Franz Schubert (1797–1828): 4–7. Piano Sonata No. 18 in G, D.894 — 31:21

Ernő Dohnányi (1877–1960): 8. Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 41 — No. 2 Scherzino — 2:29 9. Humoreske in the Form of a Suite, Op. 17 — No. 1 March — 3:21 10. Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 41 — No. 4 Cascade — 2:58

CD 2 — 41:54

Ernő Dohnányi (1877–1960):

Variations on a Hungarian Folksong, Op. 29 — 8:42
Four Rhapsodies for Piano, Op. 11 — No. 2 in F sharp minor — 6:12
Pastorale on a Hungarian Christmas Song — 5:01
Ruralia hungarica, Op. 32a — No. 6 Adagio non troppo — 5:49
Three Pieces for Piano, Op. 23 — No. 3 Capriccio in A minor — 3:03
Four Rhapsodies for Piano, Op. 11 — No. 3 in C — 4:10 7–10. Szimfonikus percek (Symphonic Minutes), Op. 36 — 8:53