September 28, 2004, lecture at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music

Melinda Berlász

Dohnányi Yearbook 2003
Edited by Márta Szekeres-Farkas and Deborah Kiszely-Papp
Budapest: Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 2004, pp. 400

It speaks for itself that the youngest institution of Hungarian musicology, the hardly more than two-year-old Dohnányi Archives already publish their second volume of essays and studies. At first glance this volume seems to surpass – as far as its content and size are concerned – the standard of periodicals printed by similar institutes. In retrospection the intellectual value of the edition lies basically in the firm adherence to the objectives set by the recently established research team headed by Deborah Kiszely-Papp and in initiating research into the major fields of Dohnányi’s oeuvre, an undertaking begun with half a century delay and now carried out at a rapid space.

The present edition which represents a variety of thematic and formal approaches within biographic, style analysis and institution-history publications bears evidence of the wide range of accepted goals and the successful centralization of results. It is worth noting that had the Dohnányi Archives accomplished no more than integrating Hungarian and foreign scholars in the field and providing them with publication opportunities, their efforts would even then open a new chapter in the research and literature of Dohnányi’s oeuvre. On the evidence of the first chapter, however, the Archives have followed a double intellectual strategy since their establishment: giving comprehensive intellectual encouragement to the belated basic research and publishing its outcome, on the one hand, and through their well-established international-professional ties making available the intellectual and material documents of the estate scattered all over the world – owned by unknown private persons and public collections – in the recently established Hungarian collection, on the other. The opening study of the volume written by the collection’s director Deborah Kiszely offers a veritable insight into the vast network of personal relationships and written contacts promoting the considerable increase of manuscript, printed and sound documents of the Budapest Dohnányi Archives (The Dohnányi Archives’ Second Year in Retrospect, pp. 5–18). Two remarkable units of the estate should be mentioned as positive examples of the relevant year’s growth of stock: the donation of the Dohnányi-related material of the Vázsonyi estate and the acquisition of important documents from the Hungarian family Szlabey.

Now to the volume in question: the Dohnányi yearbook has eight comprehensive studies and documentary chapters, respectively, surrounded by two smaller writings: an introduction and a concluding chapter. Each of the lesser articles meets an actual obligation. In the already mentioned introductory study the head of the Archives gave an account of the accomplishments of the given year. The second writing was motivated by a sad event: the death of Bálint Vázsonyi, the “father” of Dohnányi scholarship. To commemorate him worthily, the yearbook included Alan Walker’s obituary (In memoriam Bálint Vázsonyi [7 March 1936 – 17 January 2003], pp. 19–26). Anna Dalos’s evaluative survey at the end of the volume of the recent Dohnányi-recordings on Hungaroton label also serves the aim of up-to-date information. (Works by Dohnányi on Newly-Released Hungaroton Recordings, pp. 389–392)

The selection of authors reflects the effort of the Archives’ management to provide publication opportunities both for local staff members and foreign scholars. Alan Walker’s, István Korody P’s and Tünde Kalotaszegi-Linnemann’s contribution to the volume owe their existence to this striving. Of the Hungarian scholars let first me introduce the members of the Archives and of the Institute for Musicology. Deborah Kiszely, Veronika Kusz and László Gombos are research workers at the Institute of Musicology, two of them being staff members of the Dohnányi Archives. The documentary chapters were compiled partly by the learned staff of the Library of the Liszt Ferenc University and partly by members of the Hungarian Radio: of the first Ágnes Gádor and Gábor Szirányi should be mentioned, of the second Tamás Sávoly and László Szűcs. In addition to staff members of the Archives, external collaborators were also involved in editing and translating the large chapter on press reception, notably György Horváth, Boldizsár Fejérváry and Erzsébet Mészáros.

Thematically the eight studies and documentary chapters, respectively can be linked with the three major research trends of Dohnányi’s oeuvre. The first includes essays on the latest results of the composer’s life-work representing different temporal, thematic and methodological approaches. The second thematic unit comprises four writings, each rendering account of the recent basic research into Dohnányi’s work connected to institutions: an essay discusses his work as a professor and director of the Academy and his three different duties as the Hungarian Radio’s music director, conductor and pianist. Considering the fact that Dohnányi was working for both institutions for more than a decade, the relevant research and the writings in the volume make up merely the first part of the planned edition.

. The substantial selection from newspaper reports on Dohnányi’s career is a third topic on its own and a particularly long-range publishing enterprise. Owing to the immense quantity of the material, members of the Archives will evidently need years until they can edit all documents pertaining to the oeuvre.

After surveying the structure and contents of the volume, I will shortly deal with individual studies underneath, starting with writings on the composer’s oeuvre. The first work worth mentioning is István Korody P.’s discussion of Dohnányi’s composition studies at the Academy of Music. Although the essay which forms part of a large-scale research into music theory stresses the continuation of the 19th-century German music theoreticians’ accomplishments in Hungary and scrutinizes Hans Koessler’s intermediary role, it also touches upon relevant essays by Koessler’s students. In this context Dohnányi’s essays of his years of study are described as the last link of chain in this tradition. (A Variation by Ernő Dohnányi on Erkel’s National Anthem and Related Counterpoint Studies from his Music Academy Student Days, with Historical Background, pp. 47–56)

The essay focusing on a hidden but all the more typical point of junction in the composer’s oeuvre deals with the basic research into one of Dohnányi’s significant stage works entitled “Iva’s Tower”. Though it has been common knowledge for years that the Hungarian-born Tünde Kalotaszegi devotes herself to the study of Dohnányi’s stage works, her accomplishments have only been partly accessible. The present essay makes considerable progress in this respect: based on extensive source research, the author presents convincingly and consistently the stages of genesis of the opera’s libretto, with special emphasis on Ernő Dohnányi’s contribution who was actively involved in elaborating the text variants. (Ernő Dohnányi’s Opera, “Iva’s Tower” [Op. 30]. Source Studies. Part One: The Libretto, pp. 57–98)

The third work in this thematic group, a study by Veronika Kusz represents an important approach to the composer’s style by analyzing thoroughly Dohnányi’s attitude as a composer by means of a form typical of him: the variation. The profoundness of the well-chosen model of investigation – namely the variation form – and of the analyses applied were the guarantee for the efficiency of the theoretic approach. The author’s observations are based on the first movement of “Symphonic Minutes”, a model allowing her to outline the overall characteristics of Dohnányi’s variation form. Apart from stylistic and formal phenomena, the range of study extended over conclusions concerning the whole oeuvre, particularly over the traditional sources of creative attitude and over personal stylistic innovations. The consistent use of the theoretical and methodological devices of modern musicology allowed the author to eliminate much of the earlier stylistic stereotypes applied to Dohnányi’s style. (Dohnányi’s Variation Style as Seen Through an Analysis of Movement IV, “Tema con variazioni”, of his Symphonic Minutes for Orchestra [Op. 36], pp. 99–122)

As mentioned above, Dohnányi’s work at the Hungarian Radio is treated in three studies. One of them is the scholarly edition by Deborah Kiszely of an autobiographic essay, the text of Dohnányi’s presentation on the Hungarian Radio. It is from Dohnányi’s last year of life in Hungary: he read the paper on 30 January 1944. Several source variants of the handwritten text survive in London and Budapest. As to its contents, the presentation is an intimate commentary of the author’s childhood and youth, and as such, the primary source of his biography of the period. It should be stressed, however, that the intellectual value of the radio presentation entitled “From My Memoirs“ is much greater than the objective relating of autobiographic facts: its personal tone inspired by the uncertainty of the danger-fraught time and wrought to individual confession reveals great intellectual-emotional wealth. (“From My Memoirs.” Ernő Dohnányi’s Autobiographical Presentation for Hungarian Radio, Budapest I, 30 January 1944, Sunday, 6 p.m., pp. 27–46)

The Construction History of Hungarian Radio’s Studio VI During Dohnányi’s Musical Directorship (pp. 123–136), an essay by László Szűcs treats an interesting event in the history of the wireless, the circumstances of building the sixth studio, a topic seldom discussed in our profession. It is a matter of common knowledge that the event took place during Dohnányi’s assignment as the Radio’s director-general. Tamás Sávoly’s study, a further writing in connection with the Radio, can be regarded as a counterpart to this richly illustrated essay. The study focuses on the first six years of Dohnányi’s work at the Radio (Ernő Dohnányi’ Association with the Hungarian Radio as Reflected in the Radio Weekly Journals. Part One: 1925–1931, pp. 251–326), treating the period from 1925 to 1931 in different forms of documentation. The introductory study and the well-surveyable documents reconstructed with the help of radio news list the six hundred occasions of the first six years when either Dohnányi’s compositions were performed or he appeared on the Hungarian Radio as a conductor or pianist. Through its many-sided approach, the radio historical skeleton provides an important contribution both to the topic in the narrow sense of the word and to the research of 20th-century concert life.

The collection of documents at the Academy of Music representing in the volume a special branch of newspaper reports can be looked upon, just like the previously mentioned topic, as basic research. The documents kept in the Archives of the University cover the second period of Dohnányi’s work as professor and director-general from 1927 to 1938. The sixty-one documents edited by Ágnes Gádor and Gábor Szirányi pertain to Ernő Dohnányi’s work at the Academy in a narrow or wider sense of the word. The published material shows clearly the main features of Dohnányi’s intellectual efforts, his fellow-spirited measures as well as his social and institutional endeavours when a professor heading the Academy. The article richly illustrated with notes, charts and facsimiles serves as fundamental source material for Dohnányi scholarship in respect of the history of the institution. (Documents Pertaining to Ernő Dohnányi in the Archives of the Liszt Ferenc University of Music. Part One: 1927–1938, pp. 327–388)

For reasons of space the press reception of the greatest Hungarian pianist of the 20th century, Dohnányi – a vast enterprise aimed at printing contemporary press documents in the original language and translated into Hungarian – is appended to the end of the volume. Already the firm resolution deserves recognition which did not shrink from time-consuming fiddling with fragmentarily and haphazardly surviving news and from the inevitable labyrinths of supplementary data collection. It cannot be left unmentioned that the edition was based on a comprehensive stock of documents preserved in four institutions: at three public collections in Budapest and the Dohnányi Collection of Florida State University. Naturally, the large-scale project could hardly have been realized without the well-functioning cooperation in which the director and members of staff of the Archives took a lion’s share. Of the latter László Gombos’s many-sided achievements deserve special attention: he had a leading role in designing the edition and the Sisyphean task of supplementing the available library data. In the course of preparations it turned out that for the work of typing and translating external help was needed: had not been the linguistic care and translation of Boldizsár Fejérváry and Erzsébet Mészáros as well as György Horváth’s initiative and contribution, the bilingual publication tracing Dohnányi’s forty-two concert appearances from 1887 to 1898 in one hundred seventy-seven newspaper articles cannot have been realized. The contents and exemplary edition of this late 19th-century press historical edition (supplementary data storage, lists, the manner of taking notes) serve as a model both in Dohnányi-literature and in musical news coverage. Let us hope that the enterprise requiring a further decade will not strand on the unforeseeable obstacles of the coming years. (Press Reception of Ernő Dohnányi’s Career. Part One: The Earliest Years, January 1887 – April 1898, pp. 137–250)

The closing chapter of the volume contains an abstract of all studies in English (Deborah Kiszely-Papp, pp. 393–400).

Last but not least, special acknowledgements are due to the editors Márta Szekeres-Farkas and Deborah Kiszely-Papp for the latest volume of Dohnányi literature. Without their selfless job the second publication of the Dohnányi Archives could hardly have reached such a high level.