Dohnanyi: Piano Concertos

Featuring

Matthias Bamert
Howard Shelley
BBC Philharmonic
Ernö Dohnányi

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Composer's Artistic Vision

While Béla Bartók became a leading musical modernist, Dohnányi extended the more conservative and romantic style of Johannes Brahms (a German composer known for his Romantic-era works) well into the twentieth century.

Composer Biography

Dohnányi was four years older than Béla Bartók, and they attended the same Catholic Gymnasium in Bratislava, leading to a friendship between two major Hungarian composers.

Composer Biography

Dohnányi lost two sons in 1944, both executed for their involvement in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Composer Biography

Dohnányi emigrated to Argentina and then the USA after World War II, finding a post at Florida State University in Tallahassee, where he remained active until his death in 1960 at age eighty-two.

Performer Biography

Howard Shelley, the pianist on this recording, has made over one hundred commercial recordings, all of which have received outstanding reviews.

Composer Biography

Dohnányi vigorously fought anti-Jewish legislation during the early war years in Hungary, but was later branded a traitor and accused by the Communist regime of perpetuating a Germanic tradition.

Composer Biography

Ernst von Dohnányi (born Ernő Dohnányi) was born in Bratislava, a city that has changed national identity multiple times, from Hungarian capital to part of Czechoslovakia and now the capital of independent Slovakia.