James A. Grymes
Monuments to Musical Romanticism
Two Major Compositions by Ernst von Dohnányi
Dohnányi summarized the meaning of the entire symphony with
the two lines of text from The Tragedy of Man that had served as the basis
for the orchestral movement in the Cantus vitæ (No. 15): "The goal is the
end of the glorious fight; the goal is death, life is a struggle." Dohnányi
also quoted lines from The Tragedy of Man to explain the ideas behind the
four movements of the symphony. The first movement is in sonata form, a time-honored
dramatic plot that has often been thought of as a conflict between two themes:
in the first section (the "Exposition") the first theme is always presented
in the key of the symphony (in this case E Major), and the second is always
in a contrasting key (in this case B Major); in the middle section (the "Development")
portions of the two themes are placed in opposition to each other to create
an unstable harmonic environment; and in the final section (the "Recapitulation")
the two themes are again presented in their entirety, but this time the second
theme is resolved into the key of the symphony. Because the second theme returns
in the key originally associated only with the first theme, the first theme
is said to have heroically prevailed. Dohnányi himself stressed that in this
movement, "The strife is merely musical in the development section between
the first subject and the closing themes of the exposition. The first subject
triumphs in the recapitulation."
The second movement was intended to represent Eve in Paradise at the beginning
of Madách's Scene 2, as she says, "How sweet, how beautiful to live." Not
surprisingly, the movement is a slow and sentimental pastorale, in which the
instruments, according to reviewer Stephen J. Haller, enter timidly, "as if
they had been waiting to see whether the strife of the first movement had
truly spent itself." For the third movement, a playful movement labelled "Burla"
(Mockery), Dohnányi did not provide a quotation from Madách but simply wrote
that it is "The opposite of the 2nd." The fourth movement includes variations
on Johann Sebastian Bach's "Komm, süßer Tod" [Come, sweet death], but, according
to Dohnányi, "the movement has nothing to do with actual death. The words
of the chorale tell only of the longing for death of the tired man. The variations
alternate between this feeling and the desire to live, which finally wins
out at the end of the Fugue (a triple fugue) and the beginning of the Coda."
This coda brings back the themes from the first movement of the symphony in
their original key of E major. Dohnányi intended this triumphant ending to
represent "Life's victory over Death!"
After the end of the war Dohnányi was able to publish the symphony but not
the Cantus vitæ. In her biography of her husband Ilona von Dohnányi recounts
Dohnányi's October 1946 meeting with Bernard de Nevers, who was the head of
the London publishing firm of Alfred Lengnick and Company: "Lengnick was interested
in Dohnányi's new works, and de Nevers made a contract with Dohnányi to publish
his Sextet, op. 37, the Suite en valse, op. 39, which Dohnányi had arranged
for two pianos (op. 39a), his Second Symphony, op. 40, and the Six Pieces,
op. 41." Mrs. Dohnányi gives no explanation for the omission of the Cantus
vitæ, op. 38, from this agreement, but it is likely that Lengnick was unwilling
to make the considerable investment of having new parts created to replace
the set that Dohnányi had left behind in Budapest, especially since the market
for the Cantus vitæ was inherently limited by its scoring, length, and difficulty.
The symphony was premiered in London by the Chelsea Symphony Orchestra on
23 November 1948 with Norman Del Mar conducting. The Musical Opinion proclaimed
that, although the symphony lasts almost an hour, "the time is profitably
spent," adding that Dohnányi "has an unending resource and a wealth of ideas,
and his new symphony undoubtedly maintains its hold on our attention throughout
its protracted course." The reviews of the symphony's première demonstrate
that the British critics appreciated Dohnányi's conservative compositional
style. William McNaught of The Musical Times complimented the symphony by
saying, "It has one advantage over many rivals in being thoroughly intelligible,
for the phraseology is late romantic." The Musical Opinion agreed that the
late-Romantic language of the symphony "is vastly preferable to the artificial
and af-fected idioms adopted by certain con-
temporary composers." Oddly enough, Dohnányi's rejection of avant-garde techniques
is one of the main reasons why his musical legacy went largely ignored in
the latter half of the twentieth century.
By the time the symphony was premiered, Dohnányi had left Europe; he eventually
settled in Tallahassee, Florida, where he spent the rest of his life teaching
at The Florida State University. Dohnányi carried with him the final manuscripts
of the Cantus vitæ, which he kept with him until his death. The manuscripts
stayed in his family until 1997, when his grandson, Dr. Seán McGlynn, brought
them to The Florida State University as the cornerstones of what would become
the Ernst von Dohnányi Collection at The Florida State University. On 2 February
2002, over forty years after Dohnányi's death, The Florida State University
School of Music performed the work for the first time since its première,
as part of its International Ernst von Dohnányi Festival.
The symphony, on the other hand, would be performed again during Dohnányi's
lifetime. Although Dohnányi had not heard the Chelsea Symphony Orchestra's
première of the work, he later admitted that he had never been satisfied with
it and felt that it was in an "unperfected form."43 In spite of the fact that
the symphony had already been published and performed, "after ten years sleep
in my [Dohnányi's] desk the symphony underwent a thorough rewriting."44 This
revised version was premiered on 15 March 1957 by the Minneapolis Symphony
Orchestra, conducted by Dohnányi's nephew Antal Doráti. Those who attended
the concert responded to the symphony enthusiastically. The piece received
a standing ovation, and Doráti called Dohnányi to the stage to share the bows.
Dohnányi himself wrote, "The symphony had a tremendous success. Doráti conducted
the complicated work by memory. The performance will be repeated next season
on Nov. 15."45 The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra's 15 November performance
included a revised fifth variation for the symphony's final movement.
Both performances of the revised symphony were well received. Like the British
critics, the Minneapolis reviewers appreciated Dohnányi's conservatism. John
H. Harvey of the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote, "Dohnányi never has felt the
desire or necessity to explore new fields, but can illuminate familiar surroundings
with new lights, and so his traditionalism makes this work both comfortable
and fresh to the listener. The Minneapolis reviews also admired the large
scale of the symphony: Norman Houk of the Minneapolis Morning Tribune praised
the symphony as being "a monumental and extravagantly scored work.," and John
H. Harvey described the symphony as being "of heroic dimensions," adding that
"despite its bigness, both in design and in style, the symphony has none of
the rather lugubrious monumentality often associated with works of this character."
Unfortunately, after the symphony's première, these "heroic dimensions," like
those of the Cantus vitæ, discouraged orchestras from performing it. On 26
February 1957 Bernard de Nevers wrote to Dohnányi, "I am now taking steps
to persuade the B.B.C. to give us a Studio performance here, and the Conductor,
Norman Del Mar, who did the performance in its original version, has already
asked if he may give the first Studio performance." In a 28 November 1957
letter, however, de Nevers lamented, "I fear it will be difficult because
of the length of the work and the large number of Horns required [eight]."
Even Antal Doráti, who conducted the work twice in 1957, promised "to program
the symphony in other places," and even recommended it for a Pulitzer Prize,
never again showed interest in the work. Although Dohnányi and his publisher
hoped that Doráti would record the symphony, the first commercial recording
of the symphony was not made until 1996.
The Cantus vitæ and the Symphony in E Major occupy distinctive positions
in Dohnányi's oeuvre. Dohnányi himself considered the Cantus vitæ his magnum
opus and reportedly said of the symphony, "This work I consider the most monumental
of all I have created, and I know that this is the one which most fully expresses
my way of thinking, the principles by which I live." Furthermore, finding
the means to express the philosophical depth of both works seems to have presented
unique challenges to Dohnányi. He began composing the Cantus vitæ and the
Symphony in E Major in 1900 and 1906, did not complete them until 1941 and
1944, and continued to rework them after their premières, in 1943-1945 and
1954-1957, respectively. This type of long-term compositional effort, which
was very unusual for Dohnányi, seems appropriate for a composer who reportedly
said, "Life is an eternal struggle. - Creation itself is part of this struggle,
is perhaps its centre. It is more demanding, more exhausting, than any other."
After working on both compositions for such a long time, the sixty-year-old
Dohnányi may have been inspired finally to complete them in a desperate attempt
to finish his most important works before it was too late; in addition to
the mounting political turmoil in Hungary, during this period of his life
Dohnányi was beginning to develop health problems. In 1934 he contracted thrombosis,
which left him immobilized for several months. After a concert tour from 2
to 10 April 1937, in which Dohnányi conducted the Budapest Philharmonic in
nine cities in as many days, he collapsed with a fever and subsequently committed
himself for two weeks into a hospital. In 1940 he was hospitalized for three
months after having been diagnosed with nicotine poisoning and having also
contracted thrombosis for the second time in his right arm. Three years later
Dohnányi contracted thrombophlebitis in his leg. Although these illnesses
no doubt served as a constant reminder of his advancing age, they had the
fortunate side effect of finally giving Dohnányi the time he needed to commit
his ideas to paper; during his second affliction of thrombosis he completed
the Cantus vitæ.
Dohnányi also composed the Cantus vitæ and the Symphony in E Major during
a time when his commitments to the Budapest Philharmonic, the Liszt Academy,
the Hungarian Broadcasting Society, and the Hungarian Senate were limiting
the time that he could spend on other activities. In the 1930s Dohnányi's
compositional output reached an all-time low, averaging only one composition
per year, in contrast to the number of works that he had composed in earlier
years of his life (see Figure 1). Dohnányi seems to have been willing to
make time in his busy schedule only for compositions that were deeply important
to him.
James A. Grymes
teaches music history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is the author of Ernst von Dohnányi: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 2001) and the editor of Ilona von Dohnányi's Ernst von Dohnányi: A Song of Life (Indiana University Press, 2002).
