Deborah Kiszely-Papp

Ernő Dohnányi Archives

2003: The Ernő Dohnányi Archives’ Second Year in Retrospect

In memoriam Bálint Vázsonyi

With its second yearbook, the Ernő Dohnányi Archives continues to expand the multi-faceted operations begun during its first year. Although much of the work on the first yearbook, Dohnányi Évkönyv 2002, continued well into the first months of 2003, the Archives also succeeded in planning and initiating several new, long-term, extensive research and documentation projects. This new volume reports the results of the first phases of this research, while the next stages are planned for the 2004 yearbook and later volumes.

The year began on a sad note with the passing away on January 17^th of Bálint Vázsonyi, the author of the first full-length biography of Dohnányi.[1]  In retrospect, it seems like the foresight of divine providence that during 2002 the Dohnányi Archives sponsored two memorable and, judging by the general response, useful round table discussions,[2] conceived with the dual purpose of reawakening interest in the composer in his native country and providing an appropriate forum for Vázsonyi to discuss his views and experiences in Hungary during the late 1960’s.  These two events provided Vázsonyi with the unprecedented opportunity to speak freely to Hungarian audiences about the decades he had devoted to the research of Dohnányi’s lifework, and, in particular, the many obstacles he had to overcome during the writing of the first edition of the biography. During the latter discussion session, he continuously — and prophetically — forewarned of the shortage of time, and criticized the musicology profession for what he perceived as the lack of effort to continue the work that he had begun in his biography.  He cited the pressing need for expansion of the Dohnányi Archives, while simultaneously bequeathing us with a plethora of urgent tasks. It was here that he publicly declared his intention to donate to the Archives the valuable collection of Dohnányi-related research materials that he had accumulated over the years.  Vázsonyi’s participation in the festive dedication ceremony of the newly-named Dohnányi Room at the Ferenc Liszt University of Music (Liszt Academy) was to become his swan song, as his plans for a subsequent visit to Hungary in the spring of 2003 were never realized.  We are pleased to be able to present in this volume the memorial speech honoring Vázsonyi made by Dr. Alan Walker.[3]  It is a moving testimony of a true friend, and recalls an earlier occasion when Vázsonyi thanked Walker: “who, partly through his work at the BBC, and partly through his own personal interest, opened the doors and pointed the way to Dohnányi’s resurrection.”[4] Vázsonyi’s deep devotion to Dohnányi assumed many forms.  In addition to writing a biography of his teacher and numerous other articles about him, he and Zoltán Kocsis compiled and edited the Dohnányi album which introduced and made available to the public the most important of the artist’s late, hitherto unknown piano recordings.[5]  Another significant contribution were three presentations he made for Hungarian Radio, first broadcast in 1970, shortly before the publication of the biography, which offered a personal and keenly insightful view of Dohnányi’s unique gifts.[6]  The fostering of Bálint Vázsonyi’s legacy will remain a priority of the Dohnányi Archives.

It has been a source of continuous encouragement to receive such overwhelmingly positive feedback on our first yearbook since its arrival in the spring of 2003, especially because the seeming disadvantage of being a Hungarian language publication did not prevent non-Hungarian readers and researchers from expressing interest in the work of the Dohnányi Archives.  As a result of this far-reaching enthusiasm, three musicologists from abroad have contributed chapters to the current volume: Alan Walker (Canada), Tünde Kalotaszegi-Linnemann (Germany) and István P. Korody (Liechtenstein).  This was made possible through the participation of three highly-skilled and dedicated translators: Boldizsár Fejérvári, Erzsébet Mészáros, and Nóra Wellmann. 

In addition to international participation, an equally important goal is to encourage the newest generation of Hungarian graduate students by assuring a forum for publication of their research pertaining to Dohnányi.  In this spirit, an analysis by Veronika Kusz of Dohnányi’s use of variation form and a review by Anna Dalos of two new CD’s on the Hungaroton label featuring some hitherto unrecorded opuses both make a welcome contribution to the current yearbook.

The large-scale research projects initiated and supported by the Dohnányi Archives were primarily made possible through inter-institutional cooperation.  Colleagues from the participating institutions were commissioned to complete specific research tasks as outlined by the Archives for the twofold purpose of building databases of pertinent information regarding Dohnányi and to systematically make this information available to the public through publication in the yearbooks.  At the outset, the scope and precise nature of these extensive projects can only be planned and gauged in an approximate way, because the amount and nature of the material to be researched only becomes clear as the work progresses.  One of these long-term research projects is a comprehensive examination of Dohnányi’s relationship with the Hungarian Radio, with particular emphasis on the most important accomplishments of his nearly fourteen-year tenure as music director (1931–44) and the cataloguing of relevant documents.  Three chapters in this volume are devoted to various aspects of this study: 1) the first of a planned three-part series details all known Hungarian broadcasts of Dohnányi’s compositions and of his performances as conductor and pianist during the years 1925-31, based on program calendars and articles in the journal, Rádióélet [Radio Life], and other contemporary radio periodicals; 2) the designing and construction of Hungarian Radio’s acoustically superior, modern Studio VI during the 1930’s; 3) Dohnányi’s only known reading of his childhood reminiscences, broadcast on Hungarian Radio in January, 1944.  Cooperative efforts between the Dohnányi Archives and the Hungarian Radio have characterized the relationship of the two institutions since the establishment of the Archives in 2002, when archival radio recordings were made available for the commemorative exhibit honoring the 125^th anniversary of Dohnányi’s birth, co-produced and housed by the Institute for Musicology’s Museum of Music History.  Since then, a far greater number of reports about Dohnányi have been broadcast, and the work of the Archives has been featured regularly.  The diligent and enthusiastic participation of two colleagues, archivist Tamás Sávoly and Museum of the Hungarian Radio director László Szűcs, is reflected in their significant contributions to this volume.

Another notable area of research begun during 2003 chronicles Dohnányi’s pedagogical activities during the 1920’s, 30’s, and 40’s, and, beginning in 1934, his work as director of the National Hungarian Royal Academy of Music, today known as the Ferenc Liszt University of Music.  Related documents from the institution’s archives and library have been compiled and are hereby brought to light for the first time through the editorial skills of veteran librarians Gábor Szirányi and Ágnes Gádor.  The first part of this study lists and presents a representative selection of extant documents from the period 1928–38, ranging from daily tasks to crucial decisions which had potentially greater impact on cultural developments. Among the latter are his appointments and advancements of teachers, details of a proposed sacred music department, and comprehensive plans for a musicians’ league to address the vocational and social needs of the profession.  A major obstacle in this undertaking has been that an unusually large number of documents appear to be missing from the archives, for which reason the University’s yearbooks were occasionally utilized as supplemental sources for the presentation of certain prominent events.  Similarly to the Hungarian Radio, cooperative efforts between the Liszt Academy and the Dohnányi Archives began in 2002, when an initiative by the Archives to establish a Dohnányi Room at the former institution was accepted, resulting in the dedication and renaming of teaching studio XII in memory of Ernő Dohnányi.  On the same day, October 31^st, the University hosted the previously-mentioned professional round table discussion session entitled “The Life and Works of Ernő Dohnányi”, organized by the Dohnányi Archives at Bálint Vázsonyi’s request. 

One of the most extensive long-term projects introduced in the Dohnányi Évkönyv 2003, and one which has, since its outset, received the highest percentage of the Archives’ human and  financial resources, is the systematic preservation and documentation of Dohnányi’s press reception as a composer and performing artist during his lifetime.  This involves the cataloguing, chronological reprinting, and, where necessary, translation into Hungarian of as many significant newspaper articles as possible dealing with the various facets of Dohnányi’s career.  The first part begins with the earliest known newspaper review of a concert in which Dohnányi participated (29 January 1887, Pozsony) and extends until 30 April 1898, covering the first season of his activities as a professional musician.  Following his brilliantly successful London debut early in the next season on 24 October 1898, the number of press clippings detailing Dohnányi’s international career mushrooms to such immense proportions that it exceeds the scope of the current volume.  If the present, chronologically subdivided method continues to be employed in the future, a maximum of several years worth of material could be reprinted per volume.  The credit for the original idea of attempting to compile and republish as many newspaper reviews as possible pertaining to Dohnányi must be given to György Horváth, librarian of the Ernő Dohnányi School of Music, Budapest, who first approached the Dohnányi Archives in 2002 with various proposals.  It was ascertained that such an inestimably voluminous and complex undertaking could only be responsibly accomplished through the formation of a research group, which involved the enlistment of further outside assistance.  Thus, in addition to the yearbook editors’ participation, translators and foreign-text editors Erzsébet Mészáros and Boldizsár Fejérvári joined György Horváth and László Gombos to form the group whose work is herein represented.  The research was greatly facilitated by the rich variety of source material available through the various major Dohnányi collections, although these had been, for the most part, only partially catalogued or, in some cases, completed uncatalogued.  A further motivational factor has been the noticeable gap between the ever-widening interest and the relatively small amount of published literature on this subject.  Twenty-seven volumes of scrapbooks assembled by Dohnányi’s family, containing newspaper reviews and concert programs which document his career from its earliest days, provide an ideal foundation,[7] while materials in other press and pamphlet collections (for example in the Dohnányi Estates housed by the National Széchényi Library Music Collection and the Library of the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest) offer plentiful opportunities for supplementation.  It has often been necessary to clarify the precise bibliographic details of many of the newspaper clippings.  Bálint Vázsonyi utilized many such articles in his biography of Dohnányi, yet the second edition of his book provided only some of the bibliographic information that was missing from the first edition.[8]  Two subchapters of James A. Grymes’ bio-bibliography of Dohnányi,[9] which feature selected quotes from numerous newspaper clippings in the family scrapbooks, represent a welcome overview in the documentation of the musician’s contemporary press reception.  But the various sources also inspire further research to reach a greater depth of understanding about the development of Dohnányi’s career.  Although the current endeavor was conceived with the goal of building as complete a database as possible, some selection has inevitably occurred in the editing process.  It is hoped that the work of future researchers will be facilitated by this ever-expanding foundation of information, which sheds light on old questions even as it poses new ones.  For example, two important events in Dohnányi’s early life are hereby illuminated: the date of his first public concert has been pinpointed, and the circumstances surrounding the first performance in Vienna of the Op. 1 Piano Quintet in C minor have been clarified (see pp. 141 and 175).

The productive manifestations of inter-institutional cooperation outlined above were complemented by the mutually beneficial relationships that developed with individual scholars who sought out the Dohnányi Archives for their own research purposes.  A case in point: an important part of the preparatory work on the thematic catalogue of compositions by Ernő Dohnányi involves the sorting and identification of as many of the composer’s sketches as possible.  A significant portion of these are found in the extensive Dohnányi Collection of the National Széchényi Library, including two spiral notebooks (Ms. mus. 3.209 and 3.210) and a large boxful of hitherto uncatalogued miscellaneous sketches (Ms. mus. 3.275).  The 351 folios of the latter source had been mechanically numbered without regard for content at the time of initial inventory.  When this author resumed work on the identification and grouping by opus of the box’s contents, a task which had been begun earlier, the resultant new groupings were placed in separate folders and, in some instances, received new catalogue numbers.  At the request of Music Collection director Dr. Katalin Szerző, new folio numbering was assigned, particularly when compositions were found in their entirety, but the original numbering has also been preserved for reference purposes.  Several examples of complete works extracted from Ms. mus. 3.275 are: Gavotte und Musette for solo piano (1898), Köszöntő [Greeting] for five-part mixed choir, the choral work Himnusz Szent Imre királyfihoz [Hymn to Saint Prince Imre], and Menuetto for string quartet (d minor,  1894).  Among these are unpublished compositions and/or works for which no other manuscript has yet come to light.  Complete or nearly-complete sketches of the following works were also identified and sorted: Symphonie (F Major, 1896); Piano Concerto in E Minor, Op. 5, String Quartet in A Major, Op. 7, and the Op. 38 symphonic cantata, Cantus vitae.  Further new groupings consist of short pieces for organ as well as two-, three-, and four-part counterpoint exercises.  In one case, the previously missing title page of another manuscript was found and placed in its rightful location, Ms. mus. 3.254, the autograph manuscript full score of the Symphony in D Minor, Op. 9.  As a result of this work, only a few folios remain to be identified.  In October of 2002, Dr. István P. Korody visited the Dohnányi Archives in search of the composer’s surviving counterpoint exercises, as part of a larger theoretical study analysing the composition teaching principles and sources used by Hans Koessler[10].  Korody assisted in the work of organizing those sketches from the Széchényi Library’s Ms. mus. 3.275 which contain Dohnányi’s counterpoint exercises by preparing detailed notes on a considerable portion of the folios in question, thereby greatly facilitating their subsequent chronological organization and renumbering.  A fascinating discovery was the identification by Korody of Koessler’s corrections in pencil, which were notably rare in Dohnányi’s pieces. The National Széchényi Library Music Collection generously granted permission for a considerable number of these obscure facsimiles to be published here for the first time within Korody’s chapter. One of the pieces, a theme and single variation for string quartet of Ferenc Erkel’s Himnusz [National Anthem] can be considered a work in its own right, as opposed to the numerous exercises built on a cantus firmus.

In November of 2003 the portion of Bálint Vázsonyi’s estate pertaining to Dohnányi and containing related research materials was donated to the Dohnányi Archives by Barbara Vázsonyi, the late biographer’s widow.  A comparatively small number of original documents and Dohnányi’s personal effects were brought back to Budapest by this writer, while the remainder of the materials were mailed to the Archives by Dr. Donald Manildi, director of the International Piano Archives at the University of Maryland (IPAM).  Approximately 75 % of the Vázsonyi collection contains old photocopies of the many documents he accumulated during the late 1960’s, while writing his biography of Dohnányi.  Every item has a coded inventory number according to one of three categories: personal documents, professional documents, and photographs.  The chronological arrangement of the materials further facilitates the study of Vázsonyi’s research system.  The collection also contains approximately 500 frames of microfilm copies of Dohnányi letters and an occasional music manuscript, as well as more than one hundred photograph negatives.  The original documents include:

a)      old books, e.g. Kumlik, Emil: Dohnányi Frigyes 1843–1909. Egy magyar gyorsíró élete és munkássága [Frigyes Dohnányi. The Life and Work of a Hungarian Stenographer] (Budapest: A Gyorsírási Ügyek M. Kir. Kormánybiztossága, 1937); Papp, Viktor: Arcképek a zenevilágból [Portraits from the Musical World] (Budapest: Franklin-Társulat, 1918); Papp, Viktor: Dohnányi Ernő és Szegedi miséje [E. D. and his Mass for Szeged] (Debrecen: Csáthy Ferenc [1930]); Dohnányi, Frigyes: Egyetemes, minden nyelvre való Gyorsírás, Panstenographia…[A Universal Method of Shorthand for Every Language: Panstenography…] (Pozsony–Budapest: Stampfel Károly, 1894); and other books by Frigyes Dohnányi[11]

b)      a small notebook of (Ernő) Dohnányi’s music sketches (1. facsimile)

c)      personal memorabilia: a pair of gloves, decorative box, tie clasp and cuff links in a box, English notebook

d)     1927 commemorative medal of Dohnányi

e)      Elsa Galafrès’ documents, including her writings, choreographic scores (e.g. A múzsa csókja, A szent fáklya ), and keepsake albums

f)       seven letters by Dohnányi to Egon Kenton (Kornstein), dating from 1948–56 (2. facsimile)

g)      concert programs and yearbooks of the Budapest Symphony Orchestra

h)      photographs

i)        miscellaneous concert programs and newspaper clippings (a portion of the latter is arranged in a scrapbook)

j)        correspondence relating to the writing of the Dohnányi biography, including Vázsonyi’s correspondence with the editors, letters for research purposes, letters of thanks, and other responses to the book

k)      Andor Schulhof’s letters to Dohnányi

It must be noted that this writer’s efforts to ensure the de facto bequeathment of the Vázsonyi collection to the Dohnányi Archives would not have succeeded without the good will of Dr. Donald Manildi and the establishment of mutual agreements pertaining to the future cooperation of the two archives.  In April of 2003, Barbara Vázsonyi had transferred her late husband’s estate to the nearby IPAM, partly because of its proximity to her, but also because she had been unaware of her husband’s statements in Hungarian, in the epilogue of the second edition of the Dohnányi biography (Vázsonyi, ibid., p. 368.) and at the above-mentioned second round table discussion session, that he intended to give his Dohnányi research collection to the Dohnányi Archives.  The original agreement with Dr. Manildi prior to my research trip (November, 2003) assured that I would be granted access to the Vázsonyi collection and permission to make copies of the materials for the Dohnányi Archives.  During this period I prepared a list of the contents of the hitherto uncatalogued materials.  It immediately became apparent that the estate consisted of two distinct parts: documents pertaining specifically to the writing of the Dohnányi biography, many of which were in Hungarian, and other materials relating to Vázsonyi’s career as a pianist and his other work.  When Dr. Manildi became aware of Vázsonyi’s expressed intentions, he generously recommended that, in keeping with these wishes, the Dohnányi-related portion of the estate should be permanently given to the Dohnányi Archives.  Barbara Vázsonyi promptly agreed, a situation which was made possible in part because a binding legal statement of bequest had not yet been signed with IPAM.  Thus the final agreement between all involved parties divided the Vázsonyi estate between the two archives: the Dohnányi-related documents were given to the Dohnányi Archives, while the other materials, including recordings of Vázsonyi’s pianistic work, remained at the IPAM.  Both archives agreed to make the respective materials available as needed in the future to each other and to all interested researchers.

            The Dohnányi Archives’ collection expanded still further in November of 2003 with the purchase of a significant portion of the composer’s estate that had remained in the safekeeping of the Ernő Szlabey family, Dohnányi’s maternal relatives in Budapest.  This new acquisition enriched the Archives’ inventory with the following items:

1. Music manuscripts:

a)      autograph manuscript of Dohnányi’s revision of the end of the finale, Act III, of his opera, A vajda tornya (10 pp.), including both a pencil sketch and a fair copy of the piano reduction of the resultant revised version, and four pages of related sketches

b)      three short pieces for piano, probably the work of Dohnányi’s students, with his corrections and remarks

c)      two orchestral parts in a copyist’s hand (celeste and xylophone, and harp II) from the Op. 25 Variations on a Nursery Song

2. Printed music:

a)      Op. 25 Variations on a Nursery Song, 1. complete set of the piano and orchestral parts; 2. page-proofs of the score with the composer’s corrections (Simrock, 1914)

b)      Op. 25 Variations on a Nursery Song, set of orchestral string parts (Simrock, 1914)

c)      Op.19 Suite for Orchestra in F-sharp minor, set of orchestral parts (Doblinger, 1911)

d)     Elsa Galafrès’ personal copy of the piano-vocal score of the pantomime, Der Schleier der Pierrette, Op. 18 (Doblinger, 1910), containing her detailed choreographic instructions and Dohnányi’s corrections; piano arrangement of the Hochzeits-Walzer from the pantomime (Doblinger, 1910, in Gustav Blasser’s simplified arrangement )

3. Miscellaneous printed matter:

a)      plot of the pantomime, Der Schleier der Pierrette  (Doblinger, 1910)

b)      excerpts (those pages containing photographic illustrations) from Emil Kumlik’s book, Dohnányi Frigyes 1843-1909. Egy magyar gyorsíró élete és munkássága (Budapest. 1937) (eight extracted pages of an illustrative supplement, 3–11.)

c)      21 newspaper articles pasted in a notebook

d)     41 miscellaneous newspaper articles

e)      two typed copies of the libretto of the symphonic cantata, Cantus vitae (Op. 38), containing the composer’s handwritten remarks

4. Miscellaneous manuscripts:

a)      two of Dohnányi’s personal address books

b)      family trees: two oversized drawings detailing the lineage of the families of origin of Ernő Dohnányi and Elsa Galafrès, one on hand-made paper, the other on Lichtpaus paper; twenty other personal documents (miscellaneous material, mostly identification papers of Mátyás Dohnányi, as well as the death certificate of József Hessl and Elsa Galafrès’ baptismal certificate); correspondence and notes regarding the genealogical research.

c)      three letters by Dohnányi to his mother (Kisherestyén, summer, 1889), one of which contains a brochure from a concert performance in Léva on his twelfth birthday, 27 July 1889; a letter from Dohnányi to his father (Budapest, 4 July 1900).

d)     three letters to Dohnányi from his friend and neighbor, Dr. Vilmos Manninger and his wife Júlia (Budapest, 1926)

5. Art works and memorabilia:

a)      bronze relief on marble base (50 x 50 cm.) of Ernő Dohnányi, by artist József Reményi, 1927

b)      copper relief on wood base of Elsa Galafrès and Ernő Dohnányi, by artist Edward Kilényi Sr., 1925, New York

c)      copperplate etching of Ernő Dohnányi conducting at the Opera House, by artist Ernő Koch, 1943

d)     standing case for conductor’s baton

e)      wrought-iron lamp

f)       wooden music stand, table style

For the second time since its establishment in 2002, the Dohnányi Archives became the recipient of a major gift from the personal collection of Professor Emeritus Raymond K. Liebau (University of Mississippi),[12] who had been a student of Dohnányi’s at the Florida State University from 1956 until the composer’s death in 1960.  The large box entrusted to this author by Professor Liebau contained twenty published scores of Dohnányi’s compositions, the majority of which are American editions no longer in print, but there are also several European first editions. (4. facsimile)  The donation also included concert programs and other brochures, photographs, personal letters, and a tape recording on reel.

Scores were also purchased from private individuals (e. g. seven scores were sold to the Archives by pianist István Kassai, including valuable and now unavailable first editions), as well as specialty items directly from the publishers, such as full scores of the Op. 18 pantomime, Der Schleier der Pierrette, from Doblinger in Vienna, and of the Op. 38 symphonic cantata, Cantus vitae,  from Editio Musica.  Many other used scores, foreign editions, books, and recordings were obtained from retail music shops.

In an effort to build an inventory of Dohnányi’s oeuvre that would be as complete as possible, copies of many important manuscripts and other documents were procured continuously throughout the year from sources in Hungary and abroad.  Among the largest of these acquisitions was the ordering of microfilm copies of all of the music manuscripts housed in the Dohnányi Collection in the British Library.  The microfilms of the 31 volumes of manuscripts thus obtained were then digitalized and printed by the Reproductions Department of the National Széchényi Library.  In addition, digital photos and paper copies were made of selected manuscripts and printed matter from the scrapbooks in the Dohnányi Collection at The Florida State University (Tallahassee), including materials from the Edward Kilényi Jr. Collection that had recently come to light.[13]  Digital copies of the autograph sketches of the opera, A vajda tornya, and of several early, unpublished orchestral works were ordered from the National Széchényi Library, as were paper copies of numerous newspaper articles.  As a joint effort with the Archives of the Hungarian National Opera House, the Dohnányi Archives co-sponsored the digitalization and restoration of a unique source: that of Elsa Galafrès’ choreographic score for her dance legend, A szent fáklya [The Holy Torch]; the Dohnányi Archives was thus able to add a copy of this valuable original document to its shelves.  Other cooperative efforts with the Opera House Archives included the digital photographing of press material pertaining to A vajda tornya.  The Dohnányi Archives was also allowed to make paper copies of the full score of the opera and of all other pertinent source materials relating to it.

In summary, in 2003 the Dohnányi Archives’ holdings grew extensively with the acquisition of several significant private collections, and with further purchases of scores, books, recordings, and numerous microfilm, paper, and digital copies of various documents.  The number of scores in the catalogue increased from 37 to 127 (this includes volumes containing more than one opus), and of music manuscripts (the majority of which are copies) from 37 to 67.  The number of recordings of individual compositions reached 300, including different recordings of the same work by different artists, but not including the 52 CD’s of archival recordings of Dohnányi’s late years in America that formed the original inventory of the Archives.  Also noteworthy is the growth in the percentage of digitalized materials: more than 2000 digital images of photographs and music now serve as source material for researchers.

            Performances of Ernô Dohnányi’s compositions in Hungary did not wane following the anniversary year festivities of 2002, and several important large-scale opuses that had fallen into oblivion were revived with due celebration during 2003.  These included the new production of the opera, A vajda tornya (op. 30), which had originally been scheduled to open at the National Hungarian Opera House during the 2002 spring season, to commemorate the 125^th anniversary of Dohnányi’s birth.  Instead, the new premiere took place on 16 April 2003 at the Erkel Theatre, under the direction of guest conductor István Dénes.  The postponement caused not only changes in conductor and location (according to the original plans, György Győriványi-Ráth would have conducted the revival of the work in the venue where it was first premiered, the Opera House), but also in modifications to the orchestration.  For example, the six French horns called for in Dohnányi’s score would not have fit in the orchestral pit of the Erkel Theatre; thus fewer horns were used while other parts were reinforced.  The most unfortunate consequence, however, was the cancelation of a contract with the major European radio stations that would have allowed for the broadcast of the opera’s new premiere throughout Europe.  In the words of one expert, this resulted not only in significant financial losses in royalties, but it also turned what had been conceived as an international event into a mere local affair: ironic if one recalls that, following its world premiere in 1922, Kodály described the opera as being “of prime significance not only from a Hungarian perspective, but also in an international context”.[14]  Some restitution was offered by the fact that Hungarian Television aired the revival of A vajda tornya on World Music Day, 23 October, with a verbal introduction by István Dénes that testified to the conductor’s thorough research and strong personal convictions about the composer and the opera.  The Dohnányi Archives utilized the opportunity to contribute to the renewed interest in the work through publication of a detailed analysis of its complicated origin and performance history.  Tünde Kalotaszegi-Linnemann, who had previously conducted extensive research on Dohnányi’s stage works, thus wrote an essay for this volume tracing the various developmental phases of Hanns Heinz Ewers’ and Marc Henry’s libretto and its translation into Hungarian.  Dohnányi had agreed to compose the opera only on the terms that its setting be changed to Hungary. Contrary to much misleading information published by the contemporary press, this new research has confirmed that Dohnányi took a very active part in the Hungarianization process.  In addition to Kalotaszegi-Linnemann’s examination of the important collections in Hungary, she has incorporated into her study pertinent primary sources in Germany as well, such as letters in the Hanns Heinz Ewers estate in the Heinrich Heine Institute, Düsseldorf.

            Dohnányi’s Missa in dedicatione Ecclesiae (op. 35), nicknamed “Mass for Szeged”, was performed during the Szeged Sacred Music Weeks festival at the same site for which the work had originally been composed, the Cathedral of the Pledge in Szeged.  This mass was written in 1930 for the dedication ceremony of the new cathedral, celebrating the long-awaited completion of the rebuilding of the church that had been destroyed 51 years earlier by the devastating floods of 1879.  The 13 June 2003 performance was conducted by Kálmán Strauss and featured soloists Tünde Frankó, Judit Németh, Simon Somorjai and Tamás Szüle, with organist Bertalan Hock, the Hungarian Radio Choir, and the Szeged Symphony Orchestra.  The concert was broadcast live on Bartók Radio, and although a private recording of the performance was issued for restricted distribution, the CD was not released commercially.  Another important limited edition, a double CD of historic performances, was compiled and produced in honor of the 150^th anniversary of the founding of the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, including six archival recordings of Dohnányi conducting the orchestra.  On one of these remarkable sound documents, Dohnányi is both conductor and piano soloist in the third movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in G Major (K. 453).  Due to legal complications involving such problems as royalties, this valuable set is not yet available to the public.  However, the Hungaroton Record Company continues to lead the way in producing new recordings of as many of Dohnányi’s works as possible, with particular emphasis on little-known and unpublished compositions.  Among their most recent releases are a first recording of Dohnányi’s earliest composition to receive international attention, the Piano Quartet in F-sharp minor (composed between 1891–83 and premiered in Vienna in 1894 with the 17-year-old composer at the piano), and an unpublished work for piano and string quartet entitled Hochzeitsmarsch (1910), performed by pianist István Kassai and the Auer String Quartet (HCD 32148) (see Anna Dalos: “Works by Dohnányi on Newly-Released Hungaroton Recordings”, pp. 389-92).  The widening interest in Dohnányi is also reflected in the increased number of concert performances and recordings of his compositions abroad.  One professor from the Philippine Islands, who was noticeably enthusiastic about the Dohnányi piano pieces he had just heard for the first time in one of this writer’s lecture-recitals, complained that in his country only the Four Rhapsodies (Op. 11) and the Variations on a  Nursery Song were known, because those were the only works for which sheet music was available.  This example illustrates the pressing need for publication of as many Dohnányi compositions as possible, especially of those that have never been published or are no longer in print, along with more effective distribution of the editions that are still in print.

 

Illustration captions:

1. facsimile: a page of sketches from one of Ernő Dohnányi’s notebooks (Bálint Vázsonyi estate, Dohnányi Archives)

2. facsimile: postcard from Ernő Dohnányi to Egon Kenton, 1956 (Bálint Vázsonyi estate, Dohnányi Archives)

3. facsimile: excerpt from Ernő Dohnányi’s revision of the finale, Act III, of his opera, A vajda tornya (autograph manuscript, 1937, Dohnányi Archives)

4. facsimile: Ernő Dohnányi: title page of Three Singular Pieces, Op. 44 (Associated Music Publishers, 1954; gift of Raymond K. Liebau)