On ClassicsToday: World-Première Orchestral Songs From Ernő Dohnányi

World-Première Orchestral Songs From Ernő Dohnányi

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: ?

Sound Quality: ?

Given its 1944/45 date, the Second Symphony that Ernő Dohnányi—a.k.a. Ernst von Dohnányi—wrote, is an arch-conservative, anachronistic, post-Brahmsian work: A behemoth of grand romantic gesture in four movements. Brass, wind, and timpani push the symphony into hard-edged action with the opening subject of a very properly constructed sonata-form first movement. It’s all a bit mighty and on the nose but it also has that late-romantic appeal that you know you either love or don’t, depending on how you react to Pfitzner or Zemlinsky (whose work is more chromatic) or Joseph Marx or the like... [continue reading]

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