Born in Pozsony, Hungary in1877, Erno Dohnányi belonged to the same fertile generation thatproduced Bartók, Ravel, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and others whoformed the backbone of early 20^th-centurycomposition. Those who came of age in the early 1900s witnessedthe first masterpieces of free atonality, impressionism andradical dissonance, though the composer in Dohnányiinstinctively felt at home using more conventional means ofexpression.

Erno grew up with a strongmusical awareness. His father, a mathematics and physicsprofessor, was a fine amateur cellist who introduced his son tomusic and gave him his first lessons in piano and violin.Continued study in piano and organ, then composition, wassupervised by the local church organist. The family cultivatedfriendships with some of the foremost musicians who passedthrough Eastern Europe, with live music-making taking centerstage in household activities. It was in this milieu that youngDohnányi developed his lifelong love of chamber music. Indeed,as a nine-year-old boy he publicly played Mozart's G Minor PianoQuartet, and wrote much chamber music before his teens. A debutsolo recital came at 13, with a difficult program of Chopin,Mendelssohn, Liszt and several of his own works.

While continuing to study music,Dohnányi originally intended to obtain a liberal arts degreefrom Budapest University. At 17, though, already a veteranpianist and composer, he knew that music was his future andenrolled at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music. He studiedpiano with Bartók's teacher István Thomán and was latercoached by the famous Liszt pupil Eugen d'Albert. After a widelypraised and publicized graduation recital, Dohnányi – incommon with Rachmaninoff five years earlier in Russia – wasgranted Artist's Diplomas in Piano and Composition.

As with his contemporary, thesingular composer-pianist Nikolai Medtner, Dohnányi reveredBeethoven, was superficially perceived under the wing of Brahms,and employed traditional harmonic language while most peerssought new conceptions of musical form. It should be made clearthat Dohnányi's gifts produced an original thinker whose worksstand on their own, though the Brahms connection is especiallyclose. Not only had d'Albert played both Brahms concertos undertheir composer's direction, but Dohnányi's composition teacherat the Academy, Hans Koessler, was a great admirer and friend ofBrahms. While vacationing together in Austria, Koessler told thevenerable composer about his pupil's Piano Quintet and showed himthe manuscript. The famed conductor Arthur Nikisch played thepiano part with the Kneisel Quartet for Brahms, who loved it andarranged the Viennese premiere in late 1895, with Dohnányi atthe piano. This inspired Quintet became Op. 1, the first creationits composer deemed worthy of publication, after some 70 earlierpieces.

Dohnányi thus began his careerwith all possible advantage, armed with Brahms' endorsement andimportant musical connections. One of these was the greatviolinist Josef Joachim, who immediately recognized the youngcomposer's gifts in conceiving and performing chamber music.

Dohnányi was acknowledged as atop-flight pianist from the beginning. After successfulappearances in Berlin and Vienna, he made his London debut at21, performing Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto to rapturousacclaim. In 1900, he set out on a groundbreaking American tour,playing his own First Concerto with the Boston Symphony duringpart of that sojourn. Dohnányi won Bösendorfer's von BülowPrize for the concerto, after having previously received twoRoyal Prizes in composition. Thus began a long series of awardsand honors he continued to receive throughout life. Critics andaudiences began to speak of Dohnányi as Hungary's greatestpianist-composer since Liszt. He also made appearances at thattime in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and St. Louis.(Returning there in 1955, newspapers recalled his performances 55years earlier in Beethoven's Fourth, a signal event in thehistory of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.)

Over the next five years,Dohnányi consolidated his reputation as one of the world's greatpianists with solo, chamber and orchestral appearances throughoutEurope and Russia. Though presently considered derigeur for famous pianists to performchamber music publicly, it was a rarity at the turn of thecentury. Dohnányi also continued to compose actively in manymusical forms, and in the summer of 1902, he taught piano andcomposition to his friend Bartók.

In 1905, he was invited byJoachim to teach at Berlin's prestigious Hochschule für Musik,becoming a full professor three years later. It was during thistime that he came to prefer his name's Germanic spelling, Ernstvon Dohnányi.

During his Berlin years, hecomposed many chamber works, as well as the Variationson a Nursery Song (“Twinkle, Twinkle,Little Star”), famous then and now primarily because of itsnovelty and for instigating laughter in the concert hall. It wasa joke written, he said, “for the enjoyment of fun-loversand the annoyance of others.”

After the onset of World War I,Dohnányi returned to Hungary and his alma mater (renamed theFranz Liszt Academy), where he accepted a professorship. He alsobecame chief conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra.Engagements as guest conductor and pianist increased and theresulting performances cemented Dohnányi's reputation as one ofhis country's greatest musicians.

Dohnányi left Hungary in 1918to avoid living under the Communist dictatorship, returning in1919 as Director of the Liszt Academy. He again left briefly toprotest intolerable political circumstances, then was finallydismissed after he flatly refused to fire composer ZoltánKodály and others because of their political beliefs. Thefollowing year, though, he became president and director of theBudapest Philharmonic Society, a position from which hetirelessly championed deserving young Hungarian composers,including Bartók. He also generously and consistently aidedvarious charities.

From 1921 to 1927, Dohnányifrequently toured Europe, the United States and Hungary. For asingle season in 1925, he became chief conductor of the CitySymphony in New York. The year 1928 saw Dohnányi back at theLiszt Academy, casting his considerable influence over a newgeneration of students including Annie Fischer, Edward Kilenyiand Georg Solti. In his Memoirs,Solti remembers Dohnányi as a brilliant musician andsight-reader. This admiration was tempered, however, byDohnányi's habit of teaching by example – a methodill-suited to some students. He always tried to help and nurtureyoung artists, though, and left a legacy that remains stronglyimprinted on new generations of Hungarian composers and pianists.

For these biographical notes,Kilenyi shared the following thoughts about his former teacherand close friend:

I first met Dohnányi as an11-year-old boy in 1921 in New York, where he had a tremendoussuccess. After I played for him, he agreed to oversee my musicaleducation and suggested that I move to Hungary, which is exactlywhat happened. I began immediately with a teacher he recommended,and when I was 15, commenced private lessons with him. For thesehe never charged a fee. Dohnányi was a stern yet generousteacher. He was quite insistent that I lead as normal a life aspossible, and following his own precepts, warned againstpracticing too much. It is true that he practiced very little,especially his own works. After devoting so much time to theircomposition, he felt that limited practice would keep them fresh.As a performer, he was very still, not at all flamboyant, yet thegiven impression was endlessly expressive and inspiring.Throughout my own concert career, I always programmed at leastone work by Dohnányi on my recitals. We later played duets andrecorded together. His pieces can be extremely difficult, butthey are melodic, very well crafted and unquestionably effective.For many years his music was out of favor, but I am optimisticabout its place in the repertoire, as Romantic works have comeback into acceptance. His musical inspiration, as well as ourlong friendship, was a pivotal and joyous presence in my life.

Dohnányi became music directorof the Hungarian Broadcasting Society in 1931, and assumed theAcademy directorship three years later. Combining his roles asprofessor and virtuoso, he performed an extraordinary series often piano recitals in 1937, designed to provide a Baedeker ofpiano style through the centuries. Beginning with pre-classicalpieces, the concerts concluded with then-contemporary Hungarianmusic, including his own works and those by Bartók and Kodály.That year Dohnányi became an honorary deputy in the Upper Houseof Parliament. He stayed on after the Nazi takeover of hiscountry, but resigned as head of the Academy during World War IIto protest anti-Semitic decrees as well as a demand by theHungarian Nazi party that he fire his half-Jewish assistant. Heshielded the Jewish members of his orchestra until just afterGermany occupied Hungary, finally being forced to disband it in1944. After both of his sons were killed during the War, he hadhad enough, leaving for Vienna, England, Argentina and thenAmerica.

Dohnányi lacked the guile ofthe political animal and was actually a rather uncomplicated manwith huge gifts, which he accepted naturally and without undoego. He was, however, unshakably principled in his artisticbeliefs and controlled Hungary's rich musical life with sovereigncommand in a turbulent era of his country's history. This stokedjealousy among some colleagues who mistook his positions andabilities as arrogance. He also alienated a crop of lessercomposers by refusing to perform works he considered not up tohis standards. After the war, Dohnányi became the victim ofdumbfounding attacks that he was pro-Nazi, largely incited bythose he alienated. It took many years to see his reputationrestored. He was eventually and completely vindicated of anylingering accusations and ultimately became professor andcomposer-in-residence at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

In February of 1960, Dohnányidied while making a final series of records in New York. Towardthe end of his life he resumed recording, though these laterdiscs do not show him at his best. He disliked the sterileprocess of making recordings, always reveling in the interplaywith an audience. Serious though he was toward his craft andprofessional obligations, Dohnányi was playful, humorous andsocially endearing; in short, here was a highly popular figure.

The early 20^thcentury saw the likes of Busoni, Rachmaninoff, Medtner andDohnányi, musicians who could go in front of audience andorchestra alike, persuasively introducing their own works. In ourcurrent era of specialization, Dohnányi was among the last ofhis breed. Reflecting an astonishing level of personalachievement, he became an able conductor and administrator.Comparisons with Rachmaninoff – who similarly took onsignificant administrative and conducting duties – godeeper. On top of everything else, they composed symphonic,operatic and chamber music, and both suffered from overwork andexhaustion that hastened their deaths. Each enjoyed great successplaying his own Second Piano Concerto, and they had their noveltypieces: Dohnányi's Variations on a NurserySong to Rachmaninoff'sRhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Rachmaninoff's music generallyhas more obvious melodic appeal, though Dohnányi's gifts in thisregard were highly distinctive and are beautifully on displayhere. Pianists will note remarkably idiomatic keyboard writing,and though often quite difficult in speed and polish, Dohnányi'scompositions characterize a craftsman who knew the instrument'scapabilities intimately.

Extravagantly celebrated andbeloved during his lifetime, Dohnányi's posthumous descent frompublic awareness and favor was precipitous; he was largelywritten off as an historical tangent trailing Brahms' coattails.Only now has the climate changed. In an irony worthy of music'sgreat stories, Bartók – previously unknown to the largerpublic outside a core group of influential cognoscenti – hasnow become synonymous with Hungary's best and is acknowledged instone as among history's greatest composers.

Dohnányi's friends and fellowstudents at the Budapest Academy, Bartók and Kodály, took fargreater inspiration from their country's folk music. Though thethree are often called the Hungarian triumvirate, Dohnányi didnot generally follow their path in forging a new style based onnative Hungarian rhythms and national folk songs. Thecosmopolitan Dohnányi was not a stylistic groundbreaker, nomatter how finely crafted and appealing his music can be.Ultimately, though, listeners and performers judge music on itsvisceral impact. Pianists are invited to explore Dohnányi'smusic in the spirit of inevitable discovery.