Output details

"Complete solo piano music of Dohnányi - Volumes 1 and 2"

This REF output comprises the first two CDs of what will become the first recording made by a single performer of Dohnányi’s complete works for solo piano.

Although most of the composer’s works have been recorded – many by Dohnányi himself - some are no longer commercially available. In addition, the existing recordings inevitably display the widely differing interpretive traditions and intentions of the many performers whose idiosyncrasies are presented. (Dohnányi’s own recordings are also of very variable quality – both from a technical recording point of view and sometimes pianistically, in that some were made when the composer’s performing abilities were clearly waning.) This wide range of interpretative vision poses a real problem for a balanced understanding of Dohnányi’s work, for the subtly varied ranges of style the composer employs from piece to piece is too easily confused by the equally varied intentions of the works’ different performers. The current researcher’s project removes this variable.

Dohnányi’s piano music often reveals a considered debt to Liszt and Brahms, although the influence is seldom explicit and never overwhelming. The researcher has performed and recorded much of the piano music of both composers and this knowledge contributed to the research process in preparing Dohnányi’s music for recording, the aim being to present for the first time a single coherent account of his solo piano music from a stylistically and historically aware point of view.

The claim is based on the complex and extensive period of studio practice (REF 01.2012; page 86; para. 64; bullet 5) required for the completion of the output.

Dohnányi’s writing for solo piano is extensive – more than twenty works, many of which have several movements or are themselves collections of discrete pieces. Most are highly complex to prepare and perform reflecting the virtuosic piano technique of their composer. They appeared over the whole of Dohnányi’s career and so also require the researcher’s performances to display an understanding of the composer’s evolving style in response to many national and international influences.