William Lee Pryor

Dohnányi at Tallahassee

A Personal Reminiscence

 

I remember very well the time of Dohnányi's arrival in Tallahassee, Florida's historic capital. My roommate, also from my hometown, was to be a piano student of Dohnányi. He knew of Dohnányi's renown and his anticipation of studying with this great musician had inspired an excitement in me, who, though not a music major as I had been as an undergraduate, had come to The Florida State University to pursue graduate studies in English.
Dohnányi was late in coming to the campus for the 1949 fall semester because of difficulties in leaving Argentina, where he had fled from war-torn Europe and where obtaining proper exit papers was not easily or quickly accomplished. Thus it was a few days after mid-October when I first saw him. I was having lunch in the principal dining hall on campus, a large room modelled after the Refectory of Magdalene College, Oxford University, when my attention was drawn to a table a few feet away. There were a handsome, older gentleman and a beautiful, younger lady engaged in a spirited conversation with a man nearing middle age. I said to my luncheon companion, "I believe that is Dohnányi." As I later learned, my guess was correct. The lady was Mrs Dohnányi and the other man was an official from the School of Music.
It was, of course, the seventy-two year old Dohnányi who had caught my eye. I had never seen a photograph of him, but I knew that this distinguished, white-haired gentleman must be the Maestro. He had a large, well-formed head with a prominent nose and a strong chin. And his highly mobile countenance was often wreathed in smiles, accompanied by a hearty laugh. The thing that first caused me to notice him, however, was his carriage. He sat ramrod straight and his back never touched the chair. He was the only person in the room with such an erect posture. And I now know that this was a real clue to this remarkable man's character.
Not long after that the Dohnányis arranged for the showing of some sculptures by Juan Carlos Iramain, a prominent Argentinean artist who had followed them to Tallahassee and had become the proverbial man who came to dinner and stayed for months. It was at this opening that I was introduced to the Dohnányi family by Professor and Mrs Francizek Zachara. Zachara was another member of the piano faculty, and he and his wife were to become some of the Dohnányis' closest friends. Mrs (Helen) Dohnányi proved to be as charming as she was pretty. Her two college-age children, by a previous marriage, Helen and Julius, whom Dohnányi would later adopt, were enrolled at the University studying art and physics, respectively. I quickly became friends with these bright, engaging young people-a friendship that lasts to this day. Thus it was that I came to know the Maestro; thus it happened that I became an intimate of the Dohnányi household, close enough to the family that Mrs Dohnányi came to call me their son.
Happily, there were members of the music faculty who had previously had firsthand knowledge of Dohnányi's reputation in Europe and could help him feel more at home. It was Dr Karl Kuersteiner, Dean of the School of Music, who had procured Dohnányi's services through the offices of Dohnányi's manager and friend, Andrew Schulhof, another Hungarian. Kuersteiner himself had studied violin in Budapest when Dohnányi was the supreme figure in Hungarian music. Another member of the faculty, the distinguished music historian, Dr Warren D. Allen, had memories of Dohnányi from a still earlier time when Allen was a student in Berlin and Dohnányi actively participated in the musical life of that great cultural center. It was, however, the later addition to the piano faculty of his old student Edward Kilényi that meant the most to Dohnányi, for theirs was a very close relationship, personally as well as professionally.
Dohnányi's title at The Florida State University was "Professor of Composition and Piano," and he taught what in academic circles is termed a "full load." In addition to teaching a course in composition, he taught several piano students, and conducted a biweekly piano repertoire class. Later he also taught a course in conducting.
Dohnányi was, of course, world-renowned as a teacher. Among his students had been Andor Földes, Ervin Nyiregyházi, György Cziffra, Géza Anda, Tamás Vásáry, Annie Fischer, Miklós Schwalb, and Sir George Solti. Béla Bartók himself had studied piano with Dohnányi for a short period. His American students, who had studied with him in Budapest, included Mischa Levitzki and, of course, Edward Kilényi. Another American, the conductor Arthur Fiedler, studied chamber music with him in Berlin. In Tallahassee he taught his last student to make a name for himself on the concert platform as a pianist, Bálint Vázsonyi, who would become Dohnányi's Hungarian biographer. And during 1951-52 Christoph von Dohnányi-destined to become one of the leading conductors of his time-lived and studied with his grandfather in Tallahassee.
Dohnányi's Florida State piano students spoke of his gentleness and understanding in teaching them. They were, of course, usually not of the caliber of the budding concert artists he had been accustomed to in Budapest; but this in no way seemed to detract from his interest in them. His method of instruction was not a particularly verbal one, although he often applied le mot juste at the right moment and this put things into their proper perspective. The word he used most often was "espressivo," seemingly the magical order of doing away with the mechanical and the dull. More often than not, Dohnányi would teach by example: he would play part or all of what the student was studying. This was inspiring but it was also sometimes frustrating. Boris Goldovsky, another of Dohnányi's Budapest pupils-who had also studied with Arthur Schnabel, once performed with his opera troupe in nearby Thomasville, Georgia, where we met. He told me that there was some ineffable quality in Maestro's playing which Dohnányi could not explain and which others could not copy. Goldovsky recalled that during a lesson on Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor he asked Maestro to play the opening for him. It was surpassingly beautiful, and Goldovsky asked Dohnányi to repeat it several times, but he could never quite figure out what Dohnányi had done to effect such a result. "Schnabel I could always imitate," Goldovsky exclaimed, "Dohnányi, never!"
Dohnányi's playing was not only inimitable; it was also unforgettable. His mastery was such that there was a fresh, almost improvisatory quality about it - as if he had composed it himself, even if he had not! He produced a big sound when required, but it was not effected by the exaggerated movements one so often encounters in some other pianists. The tone, moreover, was always beautiful, never strident or harsh. There was, in addition, no accompaniment of grunts and grimaces. He played with a minimum of physical movement, with simplicity and dignity; and there was, in addition, a serene expression of his countenance. Many observed, in fact, that years dropped away from his appearance when he was at the keyboard. His playing was always musical
and fluid, never inflexible, and it provided a wide range of colors and many subtleties of phrasing. He used the pedal sparingly. For example, he never used the pedal when playing a Bach fugue, as he illustrated in class one day. His control was so great that he produced a singing line and, at the same time, the utmost clarity. There was both a sovereignty and a nobility about his playing that could only have come from a deep, inner repose. Goldovsky, who remarked that nobody could play the slow movements of Beethoven sonatas like Dohnányi, summed up his evaluation of the Maestro by saying that he was the only person he had ever met to whom music was a completely native language.
The first of Dohnányi's Tallahassee piano students of which there is record was Joan Holley, who did some concertizing before and after studying with him. She has written,

As a teacher he is ever alert with suggestions for improvement but never forces his own musical ideas on a pupil to the detriment of his own creative feeling. Rather, he encourages his students to develop their own individual style and musical personalities. It has been remarked that no two Dohnányi pupils play in the same manner.

Another of Dohnányi's Florida students, Catherine Anne Smith, then an Assistant Professor of Music at Eastern Illinois University, has the distinction of being the one of the only ones of his charges to complete the Doctor of Music Degree (in piano literature), and is thought to be the first woman to obtain this degree in the United States, where it had previously been an honorary one.
Dohnányi did not like to teach conducting in a large-class setting. He preferred to have a student conduct a score while he observed. Afterwards he would go over the score with the student in a private session, pointing out the things that he felt would enable the student to improve.
In a letter written to Dean Kuersteiner before he came to Tallahassee, Dohnányi, in a moment of candor that I have not seen recorded elsewhere, revealed his opinion of much modern music and also gave a hint as to what he would stress in his composition seminars:

There are nowadays very-very few composers in the whole world who should be allowed to compose. That there are so many is the "merit" of the so-called modern style, which allows you to write any kind of rubbish. Now I don't mind "modernity" if the composer knows his "business" but generally he knows nothing, generally he hardly can harmonize decently a simple melody, not to speak of his urbanity to solve the easiest task of counterpoint. Here most probably I shall want an assistant teacher; at least my demand will be that the student is well acquainted with the rules of harmony and the elements of counterpoint.
After I got to know the Maestro, I asked him if I could audit his repertoire class, or masterclass as it would probably be called in most institutions. He graciously assented and I attended faithfully for a number of years. It was an experience I shall never forget. To this class came all of the majors in piano literature, often accompanied by various members of the faculty. Dohnányi presided over these classes in the most genial way. There was no formal structuring involved. Each time he would simply ask the students what they wished to play for him. After each one played, he would first note any technical flaws that he had observed and then he would comment on matters of style, etc.: "In such and such a passage, you played an A flat; it should be an A natural." Giving another specific reference, he would say, "I think you will find that is a dotted eighth note, not a whole note, as you suggested." He wrote down none of these comments; he remembered them. Nor did he use the score much of the time.
He simply knew the music that well. I saw him close his eyes while a student played a Bach fugue, and if the student faltered, he would call out the next note or notes that the student had forgotten. Sometimes in such an instance he would reach over to the keyboard and strike the necessary notes. His me-mory was the most remarkable I have ever encountered. He could play all of the Beethoven piano sonatas at will, as well as many other works of the classical and romantic periods. Often, as it was with his private pupils, his primary comment on the interpretation of a piece would be his own playing of the work, and in this way his commentary was voluminous. Again, more often than not, he did this from memory. On one occasion, after a student had played Mendelssohn's Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, op. 35, Dohnányi then played it himself from memory. Kilényi, who was present, was flabbergasted. He knew Maestro's active repertoire well. Between the two of them, they figured out that it had been approximately twenty-five years since Dohnányi had last played it!

For the programm notes of Dohnányi's 15 March 1957 performance with Antal Doráti and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, Donald Ferguson wrote, "His memory was phenomenal. I have heard, from William Lindsay, the story of his taking an [sic] MS. composition into an adjoining room, emerging fifteen minutes later and playing it by heart!"
Dohnányi greatly stressed the importance of sight-reading in his teaching, and he himself was probably unequaled in this respect. Boris Goldovsky remarked to me that only two people in the world could sight-read like that; the other was Nadia Boulanger. It was nothing for Dohnányi to play at sight the orchestral part of a concerto for a student and afterward critique in detail how the student had performed the solo part. Once when a student-not Dohnányi's- who was to play Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto forgot to bring the full score and offered quickly to return with it, Dohnányi bade him stay and proceeded to play the orchestral accompaniment from memory! I might add that when he did sight-read it was without glasses!
Further testament to Dohnányi's musical prowess came from a Hungarian musicologist, Laszló Böhm, who related to me a fascinating episode that had occurred many years before in Budapest. Dohnányi and two other pianists engaged in a friendly musical contest to see who was the best sight-reader. Dohnányi won hands down when, after he had brilliantly played the new music put before him, he then offered to play it in another key to be suggested by the onlookers. Finally, he asked, "In what mode would you like it?"
Dohnányi's contract allowed him to leave the campus for short periods of time in order to accept performing and teaching opportunities elsewhere. Over the years, he gave recitals and masterclasses at a number of other academic institutions, including the University of Kansas, the Music and Arts Institute of San Francisco, and the University of Wisconsin. He had return engagements at several of these and he went every year to Ohio University, which awarded him an honorary Doctor of Music degree in 1954.
In Tallahassee in January of 1951 Dohnányi bought a comfortable red brick house that had a living room, dining room, library, study, and several bedrooms. In the back of the house was a terraced garden that gave the Maestro much pleasure, for he liked to do some of the planting himself. Inside, the walls were covered with pictures that he especially enjoyed. In this house the Dohnányis were gracious hosts; it was a home of warmth and love. Mrs Dohnányi and the children were most solicitous of the Maestro, and did everything they could to contribute to his happiness and his well-being. The Dohnányis had brought with them a housekeeper who was a splendid cook, and this was to the liking of Dohnányi, who very much enjoyed eating, although he always stayed trim.
On the surface life was very pleasant for the Dohnányis, but a cloud that had formed in Europe still followed them in the New World. When Dohnányi left Hungary in 1944, he was wrongly accused of being a Nazi sympathizer who had acquiesced in anti-Semitic activities in Budapest. This was highly ironic in view of the fact that he resigned as the head of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music when he was told that he had to dismiss a piano teacher, formerly his student, because he was half-Jewish. Similarly, Dohnányi had resigned his post as the Director of the Budapest Philharmonic, which he had disbanded rather than carry out strictures against the Jewish musicians. Thus, even though these charges of anti-Semitism were demonstrated to be completely untrue through careful research and documentation both by the American Occupation authorities and, later, by the American Civil Liberties Union, the rumors persisted. Even after prominent Jewish Hungarians, including the famous composer Leó Weiner, spoke out on behalf of Dohnányi, many people still believed these falsehoods. To compound Dohnányi's problems in his homeland, the new Communist government of Hungary, angry that as a member of the Hungarian Senate he had signed anti-Soviet legislation, branded him as a war criminal. These charges, along with the other falsehoods created by his enemies, produced a terrible aura that would accompany him to America. In this country an unofficial ban was placed upon Dohnányi appearances, especially with major orchestras. The result was that-in the early years especially-Dohnányi was restricted to performing on college and university campuses, where reason seemed to prevail over emotion.
This state of affairs greatly reduced the Maestro's earning power-and he needed the money. He was virtually without funds when he came to Tallahassee. All of his royalties had been held up by the political difficulties alluded to; and although he made a good salary at Florida State, he had many debts, acquired since leaving Hungary. He had a household of five people to support, and this number was enlarged by a stream of needy visitors, who came to live with him for varying lengths of time. He also regularly sent money back to loved ones in Hungary.
Throughout all of his troubles since leaving Hungary-and there were many-his family said that he never once complained. And sometimes he held unpleasant things back from them as long as possible while maintaining a cheerful demeanor himself. This is borne out by an episode that his stepchildren related to me. While the Dohnányis were refugees in Austria, the Maestro learned of the death of Matthias, his favourite son by a previous marriage. He had been a captain in the Hungarian army fighting against the Russians and died in prison. Dohnányi kept this information to himself for days before revealing it to his new family, having never given any sign of his deep grief. Later he learned that his eldest son, Hans, a leading German jurist, was hanged in a Nazi prison for his part in the failed plot of Count Claus von Stauffenberg to assassinate Hitler. Again, Dohnányi bore this news with great control.
At a time when most men have retired, Dohnányi was sentenced to work continually to support himself and his family, for since he came to the University past the age of seventy, by state law he was not entitled to a pension. Without royalties and unable to get lucrative concert engagements, he had to continue teaching-but always without complaint. He told his adopted daughter, Helen, that once as a young man he had stayed at an inn where he could see animals being slaughtered from his window. He became very ill and turned away; but the next day he forced himself to watch this procedure, for he believed that one must develop the courage to face the truth. As I learned more about this man's extraordinary discipline, I remembered my first sight of him sitting in the University dining hall, his back not touching the chair. Revealingly, he once told me that he never saw his mother-who lived to an advanced age-touch her back to her chair while she dined. This attitude in him was more than an exercise of a kind of stoicism; it was an ability to dwell on a higher plane, to transcend the pettiness that plagues most men and to use his energies in a more positive and meaningful way. This kind of control did not, however, take from him the ability to commiserate with others and to give them warmth and affection, for his was a most engaging and empathetic personality.
He once confided to me what was clearly one of the governing principles of his life: "When I see something that needs changing, I do my utmost to change it; but if I cannot, I try to accept that fact with as much grace as possible." In every respect that I could observe or learn about, Dohnányi implemented this philosophy in actual practice. A good example of this comes to mind. I was in the Dohnányi home shortly after Dimitri Mitropoulos called the Maestro to say that he was obliged to cancel Dohnányi's scheduled three appearances with the New York Philharmonic because the Jewish members of the orchestra refused to play with him. Dohnányi said nothing and Mrs. Dohnányi exclaimed, "Sometimes I get mad with him because he won't get mad." The Maestro smiled and shrugged his shoulders. His stepdaughter Helen told me that she never saw him lose his temper or even raise his voice!
Dohnányi was essentially a kind person with very winning ways. It was his very positive attitude that allowed him to move forward in life, even when he was confronted with major problems. He liked to laugh and his wit and humor, so much a part of his character, are readily apparent in his compositions as well.
Two examples of his wit in respect to the English language give insight into his humorous personality. Once while riding in my Buick convertible, he looked at the dashboard and saw two parallel rows of knobs. The top knob on the left read, "Lights." On the right, directly opposite, the inscription was "Lighter." "Ah," the Maestro observed, "the comparative form!" When I brought a photograph of him to be autographed, he said, "What shall I write?" I replied, "To my good friend, Lee Pryor." "No," he quickly responded. "To write 'to my good friend' implies that there is such a thing as a bad friend. You are either a friend or not. I shall write 'to my old friend, Lee Pryor.'"
My favorite Dohnányi humorous retort was relayed to me by the pianist Irving Laszlo, who had much earlier studied with him in Budapest, and, later, one summer in Tallahassee. The story had been told to Irving by the great violinist Misha Elman, who had gone to Budapest to play with the orchestra under Dohnányi. On the day before the concert, Elman admiringly recited to Dohnányi a long list of great Hungarian musicians, but when he returned to his hotel he realized to his chagrin that he had omitted the name of Dohnányi himself. The next day when Elman attempted to apologize, Dohnányi smilingly interrupted by saying, "When in Rome it is not necessary to mention the name of the Pope!"
In respect to concertizing on a national level, a slight breakthrough occurred when Dohnányi appeared in the first concert given by the newly formed Atlantic City Symphony on 9 April 1953, playing his Second Piano Concerto. A reviewer wrote, Dohnányi "held his audience spellbound with the perfection of his
technique and the artistry of his interpretation." This success seemed to lend to Dohnányi's return, after an absence of nearly a quarter of a century, to New York City's Carnegie Hall, where he had played to marked acclaim in earlier years. This time his engagement was with another relatively new group, the National Symphony Orchestra, made up of youthful players, many of whom had recently graduated from music schools and conservatoires, led by Leon Barzin. Dohnányi again chose to play his Second Piano Concerto, heard for the first time in that city. Both Dohnányi and his music were most enthusiastically received. Typical of the reviews was that of the well-known critic Paul Affelder, who wrote:

Not only did the Concerto turn out to be one of the most attractive new orchestral works to reach here this year, but it was performed with the vigor, the tonal wealth and the technical mastery of a man half his age. It is perfectly safe to say that few artists before the public today would be anywhere near equal to the technical and musical demands of this concerto, yet this remarkable septuagenarian dashed it off with complete ease. there is no doubt about it; Dohnányi is still the wizard of old.

Although the audience and the critics welcomed Dohnányi back with a lengthy ovation and glowing reviews, he was not invited back to New York City except to participate in a group concert for Hungarian relief some years later. For all intents and purposes it was his last major appearance in the city. A year later, 1954, he appeared twice with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra-and again to rave reviews. Seymour Raven, for example, wrote, "Both as a pianist and composer, Mr Dohnányi goes forward in this concert to the prime of life, not back to it." But in spite of these successes, invitations for major appearances were few and far between. Great exceptions were his concerts at the Edinburgh Festival, almost two years later, in August 1956. Headlines of the British reviews of these appearances indicate his reception: "Dohnányi Gave a Great Lead," "Ovation for Composer," "Still Superb at 79," "Superb Playing By Dohnányi," "Dohnányi (79) the Great Youngster," "Dohnányi Sparkles," and "A Triumph for von Dohnányi." In spite of these most enthusiastic notices, however, he had to wait for more than a year for his next major appearance, this time with Thor Johnson and the Cincinnati Symphony on 1 and 2 November 1957. Shortly after this, on 15 November, he played with the Minneapolis Symphony, conducted by Antal Doráti. Both in Cincinnati and Minneapolis he received marvelous reviews (the lead of The Minneapolis Star review was, "As Pianist, Composer, Dohnányi is 'Giant'"), but it was almost two years before another orchestral invitation came. In February 1959 he appeared with the University of Miami Symphony Orchestra, guest conducted by Fabien Sevitzsky. One critic wrote, "At 82 he is still one of the world's great keyboard artists." Another observed that the audience shouted "bravos and compliments in the first spontaneous standing ovation we have seen in Miami Beach Auditorium in many years."11 The following 22 and 23 October, Dohnányi appeared with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, both as a soloist in his Variations on a Nursery Tune and as a conductor of his Suite in F-sharp Minor. The beginning of the report in The Atlanta Constitution was "Dohnányi at 82 a Musical Whiz."12 This was his final appearance with a professional orchestra.
Dohnányi, of course, gave many public performances on the campus of The Florida State University in solo recital, as a duo pianist with Edward Kilényi, with chamber ensembles, and with orchestra, as soloist and as conductor. I heard many of these concerts, but one remains indelibly stamped on my mind. It was on 27 July 1955, Dohnányi's seventy-eighth birthday. The featured work was his famous op. 1, the Piano Quintet No. 1 in C Minor, performed by the Maestro and a faculty quartet. The music began and all was proceeding beautifully when suddenly a tremendous Florida thunderstorm occurred and all of the lights went out. Dohnányi continued to play in the dark, but, naturally, the others could not. After a time candles were brought to the stage and the per-formance was continued and concluded. As I listened to the musicians play on a stage lit only by candles, I imagined that I was hearing it as it was performed when it was given its premiere in Vienna in November of 1895 in the Tonkünstler Verein. Johannes Brahms, who had said of this work when it had been played privately for him, "I could not have written it better myself," sponsored this first performance and sat in the front row. Dohnányi played the piano part; he was eighteen. This was nearly sixty years before!
Dohnányi was not the only famous European composer to live in Florida. In 1884 the English master Frederick Delius moved to an orange-growing plantation outside of Jacksonville and two of his best works were inspired by that stay. Many years later the notable Czechoslovakian opera composer Jaromir Weinberger also moved to Florida, settling in St. Petersburg, where he died in 1967.
In Dohnányi's case, he was most prolific as a composer during his early years, especially during the first three decades of his creative activity. He remained active as a composer after this period, but concertizing, conducting, teaching, and administrating made inroads into the time he might have devoted to composition. After 1944, when his opus numbers had reached forty, he composed a remarkable amount when one considers the vicissitudes he endured and how hard he had to work. After coming to Tallahassee he completed the Violin Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, op 43, which was commissioned by Frances Magnes and premiered by her with the San Antonio Symphony, conducted by Victor Allesandro, on 26 January 1951. Next came Three Singular Pieces for
piano, op. 44, which Dohnányi premiered in Tallahassee on 21 March 1952. Dohnányi's op. 45 was a Concertino for Harp and Small Orchestra. In 1952-53 he wrote a Stabat Mater for six-part boys' chorus with orchestra, op. 46, commissioned by George Bragg, Founder-Director of the Denton Civic Boys' Choir of Denton, Texas, and premiered by these forces on 16 January 1953. An American Rhapsody for orchestra, op. 47, written in 1953, was commissioned by Ohio University and premiered by the Ohio University Symphony, conducted by Dohnányi, 21 February 1954. His last works, an Aria for flute and piano, op. 48, no. 1, and a Passacaglia for solo flute, op. 48, no. 2, were written for Ellie Baker, the young daughter of Dr. John Baker, the president of Ohio University. In 1954-56 Dohnányi revised his Second Symphony in E Major, op. 40, premiered by Antal Doráti and the Minneapolis Symphony, 15 March 1956.
Dohnányi also wrote a number of works to which he did not assign opus numbers. Two of these were composed in Tallahassee: Twelve Short Studies for the Advanced Pianist (1950) and Daily Finger Exercises for Advanced Pianists (1960).
In his composing, as in his living, Dohnányi was unabashedly romantic. In Tallahassee one of his colleagues, responding to one of his earlier works, once asked, "Were you in love when you wrote that?" "Yes," replied Dohnányi. "I am always in love."
In 1985 David Mason Greene wrote, "Dohnányi seems at last to be recovering his reputation-though even in the worst of times a handful of his works insisted on remaining popular." The role of Dohnányi's Tallahassee compositions (including revisions) has been very great in reestablishing his deserved place in music history. By 2002 nearly all of these works had entered the active repertoire and many have been recorded, including the Concertino for Harp and Small Orchestra and a large number of piano pieces. Moreover, there are three recordings each of the American Rhapsody and the Second Violin Concerto, which a British commentator, Malcolm MacDonald, has called "one of the last great neo-Romantic violin concertos." Reviewing a recording (by Matthias Bamert and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra) of Symphony No. 2 in E Major, Peter J. Rabinowitz wrote, "The Second Symphony turns out to be such an astonishing piece-so much more assured and more powerful than any of Kodály's orchestral efforts-that its forty-year hibernation seems inexplicable." He concluded his review by writing, "All in all, this is easily the outstanding orchestral recording I've come across this year."
Dohnányi did not regard phonograph recordings to be a very good way of preserving how an artist performed. He thought that they did not adequately capture the dynamics, the subtleties, and the nuances of live performance. Additionally, for the first half of this century, not many recordings issued from Central Europe. For the most part, they were made in such centers as Berlin, London, and Paris. At any rate, Budapest did not become one of these recording centers, and since after the twenties Dohnányi tended to remain in his homeland, these factors no doubt contributed to his making few recordings. However, in his early years as a touring
pianist, Dohnányi made a number of piano rolls and some of them have been newly manufactured for lovers of the player piano. Additionally, some have been recorded on LP records; and, still more recently, some have been issued in a compact disc format. Dohnányi also made a few 78 recordings, notably Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, but his total recording output was small.
Interestingly, it was during his Tallahassee years that Dohnányi began-after a lapse of many years-to make records, perhaps the improvements made in recording techniques encouraged him to do so. For whatever the reasons, it was at this time that Dohnányi made more recordings than he ever had before. In the spring of 1949, Columbia Records issued his Suite en valse, arranged for two pianos, which Dohnányi recorded with Edward Kilényi. Then, in the early 1950s, Dohnányi made a number of recordings for Remington Records, including some of his own piano music and his violin sonata. The latter he made with his old friend Albert Spalding, with whom he also recorded the three sonatas for violin and piano of Brahms. He also recorded Haydn's Variations in F Minor, Schumann's Kinderscenen, as well as Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 17, op. 31, and Andante favori in F Major. In September 1956, after playing at the Edinburgh Festival he made his finest records: two LP discs of his own piano music (for His Master's Voice)16 and a third (for Angel) containing his Second Piano Concerto and the Variations on a Nursery Tune, with Sir Adrian Boult and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The latter was chosen by a distinguished group of critics for inclusion in "The 100 Greatest Recordings of All Time," published by the Franklin Mint Record Society. About this recording Sedgwick Clark has written, "This is the kind of performance for which the phonograph was invented."
In late January of 1960, Dohnányi, now six months past his eighty-second year, journeyed to New York City to make for Everest Records what turned out to be his last recordings: Beethoven's Piano Sonatas Nos. 30 and 31 and Andante favori in F Major, as well as an LP disc of his own piano music. In a subsequent review of the latter recording, the famous critic Irving Kolodin wrote, "That anyone at the age of eighty-two can play in the manner heard on this disc is little short of amazing."
However, the strain of working in great temperature variations inside and outside of the recording studio took its toll. On 5 February Dohnányi was diligently making these recordings when he suffered a heart attack, followed by a bout with influenza. In four days he was dead.
Dohnányi's body was returned to Tallahassee where he was buried in beautiful Roselawn Cemetery, on a hill that is populated with large and ancient trees. On his marble tombstone, which is engraved with a lyre, are the two names by which he was known during his long and productive life: Ernst von Dohnányi and Dohnányi Ernő.
In the end he had survived long enough, in the words of Charles Osborne, "to become, in extreme old age, the Grand Old Man of Hungarian Music."
Five years earlier Dohnányi and his wife had become American citizens. After his death, the governor of their adopted state, LeRoy Collins, proclaimed his next birthday, 27 July 1960, as "Ernst von Dohnányi Day." In 1961, the new governor, Farris Bryant, repeated this proclamation, "in recognition of the pride felt by our citizens that Ernst von Dohnányi chose to live among them for the last twelve years of his life and chose Florida for his final resting place."
Dohnányi had become a beloved figure in Tallahassee, where his memory and his influence are still very much alive. In 1987 a new building was added to the School of Music at The Florida State University, which thirty years earlier had awarded Dohnányi an honorary doctorate. In this new building is the Ernst von Dohnányi Recital Hall. In 1998 the School of Music established the Ernst von Dohnányi Collection in the Warren D. Allen Music Library and in 2002 the school hosted the International Ernst von Dohnányi Festival, in association with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Hungary and the newly-founded Ernő Dohnányi Archives of the Musicology Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. The School of Music also awards to outstanding students and alumni who have excelled in performance or composition the "Ernst von Dohnányi Citation."
Wherever Dohnányi performed, people commented on his youthfulness.
A critic in Cincinnati observed, "I think this Hungarian-born composer must have stumbled upon Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Eternal Youth while teaching in Florida. It is amazing." And there were many others who wrote variations on that theme. Indeed, to those of us who were permitted to know him-who know that he would have been a great human being even if he had not been a musician-he seemed to have accomplished what Ponce de Leon never did: he not only found the fountain of Eternal Youth in Florida, but he also shared it with everyone he touched.
When I think of him in respect to his final resting place, I recall vividly a walk we made from the music school to his home on a lovely spring day. He commented on what a beautiful village Tallahassee was; and then very evenly, and very quietly he said, "This is the happiest time of my life."

 

William Lee Pryor
is Professor Emeritus of English, The University of Houston. He has published in the areas of literature, art and music. For fifteen years he was Editor of Forum, an international journal of the humanities and fine arts. He is a founding board member of the International Dohnányi Research Center.