Ernst von Dohnanyi - Symphony No.1; American Rhapsody

Ernst VON DOHNÁNYI (1877-1960)

Symphony No. 1, Op. 9

American Rhapsody, Op. 47

Gillian Callow (Solo cor anglaise)

John Bradbury (Solo clarinet)

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Matthias Bamert

Recorded: 19-20 November 1997 at New Broadcasting House, Manchester

Ernst von Dohnányi (1877-1960, originally called Dohnányi Ernö in his native Hungary) wrote only two symphonies and they were separated by more than fifty years in a long and extraordinarily busy and peripatetic life. This first symphony, his Opus 9 written in 1900 when he was only 23, shows mature mastery of compositional skills. Indeed, his Op. 1 Piano Quintet, written five years earlier at eighteen, caught the attention of Brahms who arranged for its première in Vienna. Even though called Opus 1, the Piano Quintet was actually the sixty-eighth completed composition by the young composer, who had shown promise at a very early age. Added to that were his virtuosic abilities as a pianist; in his early years it was his piano playing that brought him the most attention. In the Symphony one hears traces of Strauss, Bruckner, Brahms, Mahler, even Tchaikovsky who were, after all, near-contemporaries and certainly their music was the new music of the era. The opening horn call in movement I could have come from a Bruckner symphony. Still, Dohnányi had developed what was to be his own style by this early age and once one is exposed to very much of it one comes to recognize his musical fingerprints. A mastery of late Romantic counterpoint, incorporation of Hungarian Gypsy rhythms and harmonies, a tendency to write improvisatory-sounding passages that turn out eventually to be used classically, a fondness for pedal points, a penchant for middle-register melodies on the viola, cello, or English horn, and an idiosyncratic formal sense are all features of his style. Yet this cursory description does not really encompass all there is in his style. One has to hear it enough for it to become 'natural' as one does with, say, Mahler or Sibelius, and then it becomes recognizable within a few bars.

Dohnányi was the first major Hungarian symphonist after Liszt (and one has to wonder why Liszt called his two efforts symphonies, but that's for another day). He was a classmate of Bartók. He was involved in the regularization of music education in his country, became head of the conservatoire in Budapest, but eventually emigrated to the United States where he served long and productively in the school of music at Florida State University. And he was the grandfather of the conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnanyi.

The form of the First Symphony is unusual and may be unique for its time. It is in five movements and contains two slow movements bracketing a presto Scherzo of feral intensity. It's as if Dohnányi knew that the central movement was so intense it needed 'cooler' music both before and after it. Further, the two slow movements (Molto adagio, and Andante con moto) share thematic elements. One could even say that the three inner movements comprise a large, loosely organized mega-movement positioned between the large and dramatic first movement and finale, which is glorious theme and variations that concludes with a big fugue. Understood this way we have I at 14 minutes, II, III & IV totalling 20 minutes, and the Finale at 17 minutes. Managing music of this time-frame is quite an accomplishment for such a young composer, particularly since there is little extraneous fat that one could trim from it.

Movement I is the most Brucknerian of the symphony (and for me, if there is a weakest movement, this is it, not because it doesn't have magnificent moments, but because it is the most nearly derivative of the five). Still, there are wonderful horn calls, a melting second subject in the violas, and some stirring march elements. Movement II is graced by a gorgeous English horn solo that recurs throughout and is played beautifully here by the LPO's Sue Bohling. There are some interruptions with Hungarian Gypsy band echoes along the way that ultimately lead back to the English horn theme taken up with almost Rachmaninovian swooning by the violins, but these little detours do set us up for the emotionally over the top and sometimes sardonic movement III.

Movement III could be considered the largest 'interruption' within the overall conception of this 'mega-movement' I've described. Only five minutes long, it takes off with Berliozian ferocity but is cooled down by a short lyrical but three-legged waltz in 5/4 that is then quickly blown away by the return, even more fiercely, of the opening material. This leads to a raw peasant chorale in the brass and percussion that gets more and more frantic before the recapitulation of the opening theme in etiolated orchestration, one last appearance of the 5/4 waltz, and then a build-up to a huge crescendo and an ending in a flash of fire and brimstone.

The brief second slow movement (Movement IV, subtitled 'Intermezzo') is essentially a song movement with one of Dohnányi's characteristically wrenchingly beautiful viola melodies (a rhythmically varied recurrence of II's English horn theme) played with elegance and passion by principal violist Norbert Blume accompanied by pizzicato strings.

V, Tema con variazione e Fuga, sets one up to expect Brahmsian procedures and indeed there is some of that particularly in the harmonic warmth and some elements of the orchestration along the way, but beyond that this is a very complex and un-Brahmsian theme with irregular phrase lengths and unexpected harmonies which Dohnányi complicates further by constant modulation. Frankly, if I had to compare it to anyone else it would be with what encounters at times in Elgar, particularly his 'Falstaff'! (Interesting side-note: The première of this symphony occurred in January 1902 in Manchester with the Hungarian conductor Hans Richter leading his Hallé Orchestra. Could Elgar have been there to hear it? Someone else will have to answer that; I simply don't know.) The fugue is a masterful summing up of both the variations wrought on the theme of this movement, and of the entire symphony.

Amazon reviewer