Dohnanyi, E

COMMON NAME:  Dohnanyi, Erno

 ACHIEVEMENTS: Played a major part in forming the musical culture of

 Hungary

 NICKNAME/ALIAS:  Ernst von Dohnanyi

 DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 27 July 1877, Poszony, Hungary (now

 Bratislava, Slovakia)

 DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 9 February 1960, New York, NY. Age 82

 DISCIPLINE: Music

 FIELD: Pianist, conductor, composer, pedagogue

 LANGUAGE: Hungarian; English

 PARENTS:

 SIBLINGS:

 SPOUSE: Elza Huberman

 CHILDREN: Matthew, Hans

 EDUCATION: Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest Academy of Music

 MAJOR WORKS: “Cantus Vitae, op.38”, Variations on a Nursery Song, Op.

 25, American Rhapsody, concertos, rhapsodies, serenades

 LIFE AND TIMES:

Early in his life, Dohnanyi became a staunch anti-Bolshevik.  As a music and composition student barely out of his teens, Dohnanyi  came to the attention of  Brahms*, when his teacher sent the  great German composer a copy of Erno’s first major work, the Piano Quintet in C Minor, op. 1. 

Brahms, who was not given to praise, said,  “I could have not written it better myself.”  Dohnanyi performed at  Brahms’ funeral in 1897, and took London and England by storm as a  21-year-old pianist. He toured America for the first time in 1899.

Dohnanyi was living in Berlin when World War I broke out, so he  headed home and settled in Hungary, where he quickly became its most  high-profile musical figure. It was said that music was not presented in Hungary without Dohnanyi’s approval.  He premiered several of Bartok’s* (his old school friend) works, even

 though he did not particularly like the music himself. He also championed the music of another young Hungarian composer, Kodaly*.  However, Dohnanyi made enemies with many of the modern Hungarian composers who later turned on him.

 Besides his anti-Bolshevik stance, Dohnanyi was a defender of the Jews, even when the Nazis moved into Hungary as an occupying force.  He closed the Budapest Philharmonic rather than fire the Jewish musicians, and resigned from the directorship of the Liszt Academy  when ordered to dismiss a Jewish professor. Secretly, he helped many

 Jews to escape Europe. 

He was also prominent in the Hungarian Senate,  and when he signed his name to anti-Russian legislation, he also  became unpopular with Stalinists. Although, he was in fact rather  apolitical, his detractors labeled him unpatriotic, a communist  sympathizer, a servant of the Jews, and a Nazi collaborator.

 Dohnanyi’s own family suffered losses under both the Nazis and the  Stalinists. One of his sons was hanged by the Nazis and the other  died in a Soviet prison camp.

When the Russians arrived in Hungary at the end of World War II,  Dohnanyi fled to Austria, where he sought refuge with the American  forces. There he encountered a U.S. Army Captain, Edward Kilenyi, a  friend and former student. Kilenyi kept Dohnanyi out of the hands of  the Soviets, and when he moved to Tallahassee after the war, he recruited Donanyi to come to Florida State University. Starting in  1949, Dohnanyi spent the last eleven years of his life as a professor  at FSU.

OTHER CONNECTIONS:  None

ONELINER: Erno Dohnanyi, Hungarian composer

 ASSESSMENT: A well-regarded composer, pianist, conductor, and  educator in his own lifetime, who exerted much influence on the  musical life of Hungary

 BIBLIOGRAPHY:

 Hinson, Mark. “Finding Dohnanyi: The Search for a Musical Genius.”  Tallahassee Democrat” 27 January 2002.

 Dohnanyi, Erno, The World of Music, The Abradale Press, Inc., New  York, 1963.