The Last Romantic in His Own Words – A New Perspective on the Oeuvre of Ernő Dohnányi

If I were to ask you in casual conversation what the first thing is that comes to your mind about Dohnányi, what would you say?

When I hear his name, it means homeliness and love – I love the oeuvre, I love this research topic. If I think of him as a person, I think of music: Ernő Dohnányi (1877-1960) was a phenomenally talented,

natural and universal musician,

whose whole life, almost all his thoughts, revolved around music and music-making.

Ernő Dohnányi’s American students on a tour (circa 1954) Ernő Dohnányi’s American bequest (MZA-DE-Ta-Ph 2.014/34)

What do you see as the significance of The Last Romantic in His Own Words?

Although Dohnányi was one of the most important figures in 20th-century Hungarian music history as a composer, pianist, conductor and musical leader, research into his oeuvre only began long after his death, around the turn of the millennium. Also following his emigration in 1944 – he lived in America from 1949 until his death – his works were not performed here in Hungary. Fortunately, the situation has changed since then: not only have musicians discovered Dohnányi for themselves, but more and more serious scholarly work is being written about him. This new volume is not only a new discovery for the composer, but also a new body of scholarship. This new volume not only makes available

his most important writings and statements

– which became available in a collected volume in Hungarian only a few years ago – but also summarises them, or at least

attempts to summarise all the knowledge that has been accumulated about Dohnányi over the past 25 years.

It is not simply a matter of editing texts, because the documents are accompanied by longer introductions, and when read together, a complete, brief monograph focusing on the problems of his oeuvre unfolds before the reader. It is perhaps not too much to hope that

musicians and music lovers alike will find the volume a welcome and useful resource.

Ernő Dohnányi: Cantus vitae. Clarification of the Piano Excerpt (op. 38) Ernő Dohnányi’s American bequest (MZA-DE-Mus 1.003)

What layers of Dohnányi’s creative and personal life does the new book reveal?

We have selected a wide variety of sources for the volume: official interviews, various teaching materials and programmes, statements and speeches by the heads of institutions, but also nostalgic radio broadcasts about childhood memories and even love letters are included in the chronological flow of documents. We see the composer trying to present his compositions, albeit tersely: the globetrotting performer whose breakfast even journalists are curious about; then the leader who, at first enthusiastically and energetically, but later more and more wearily and tediously, trying to manage the institutions entrusted to him (the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and the music department of The Hungarian Radio Corporation); and, at the same time, the man: the child immersed in music at home, the man in love, the father, and finally the emigrant artist, plagued by political accusations and other difficulties, but who kept up his spirits to the end.

Ernő Dohnányi’s American students on a tour (circa 1954) Ernő Dohnányi’s American bequest (MZA-DE-Ta-Ph 2.014/34)

What is the significance of Dohnányi’s American bequest, which since 2015 has been owned by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and is held by the ELTE RCH Institute for Musicology, Archives for 20th-21st Century Hungarian Music? What are the most significant pieces of this bequest?

It is no exaggeration to say that the volume could not have been completed without the collection, not only because some of the documents published are from it, but also because

the proximity of the source material provides extraordinary inspiration and perspective for the research work that is difficult to put into words.

The material arrived in Hungary in two rounds, in 2014 and 2015, from Dohnányi’s former home in Tallahassee, Florida. The first part was donated to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the second part was purchased from Dohnányi’s heir. Since then, it has been in the care of the Archives for 20th-21st Century Hungarian Music, established by Anna Dalos with the support of a Momentum (Lendület) grant (which also inherited the collection of the Dohnányi Archive, founded in 2002 by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the then Ministry of Culture, and operated for a few years by Deborah Kiszely-Papp and, later, Melinda Berlász).

Ernő Dohnányi’s pocket diary Erno Dohnányi’s American bequest (MZA-DE-Ta-Script 9.290)

The American bequest consists of musical manuscripts, sheet music, recordings, letters, documents, diaries, photographs and objects, and it is significant that the sources are by no means exclusively related to Dohnányi’s American years, as the composer’s wife, Ilona Zachár, systematically collected earlier material as well, much of which was uncovered by relatives and friends who remained in Hungary and sent it to Florida. I could highlight the “most important” items – such as autographs, important letters, political documents, or special concert recordings that preserve the elder Dohnányi’s piano playing – but I feel rather that

the strength of the collection lies precisely in its complexity, which allows us to approach a single event, problem or issue from a wide variety of sources.

You are one of the publishers of this revelatory book. How did you get to know Dohnányi’s work?

In 1996, as a high school student, I sang Dohnányi’s wonderful late oratorio, Stabat Mater, at a summer choir festival. I was preparing for a very different career at the time, but this musical experience had a huge impact on me and I was also

fascinated by the fact that ‘forgotten’ works could be so beautiful and valuable

– I wanted to be part of such discoveries. So I applied to the Academy of Music with a Dohnányi work, and it so happened that I have been able to work with Dohnányi ever since.

How many years of research work have gone into this book?

In 2015, I won my first János Bolyai Research Scholarship, through which I undertook the publishing of Dohnányi’s writings in Hungarian. However, I wanted these writings to be available in English, so I asked James A. Grymes, whom I had known for many years, to join the project as co-author and language advisor. In the end, this volume – due to the inspiration and new ideas that arose from our working together – turned out to be quite different from the starting point. Grymes also suggested that we approach the most prestigious publisher with the manuscript – it seemed incredible at first that Oxford University Press immediately accepted it.

The book’s cover: The Last Romantic in His Own Words (Oxford University Press, 2024) global.oup.com

Regarding your co-author, what are Professor Grymes’s professional research ties to and interests in the oeuvre of Dohnányi?

Grymes came into contact with Dohnányi’s oeuvre in the late 1990s as a musicology student and later as a doctoral student at Florida State University in Tallahassee, where Dohnányi taught during the last years of his life. Although his name is well known at FSU through a small concert hall named after him, his memory had not been well preserved there. However, Grymes’s intensive work has brought Dohnányi’s oeuvre into focus not only through his own dissertation, but through several other volumes: a research manual (Ernst von Dohnányi: A Bio-Bibliography); the memoir-biography by Dohnányi’s wife, Ilona Zachár (Ernst von Dohnányi: A Song of Life), which he published; and a book of essays (Perspectives on Ernst von Dohnányi) on Dohnányi; in addition to which he also organised an international conference and did research in Hungary. He is currently a professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, and apart from our co-written book, he is working on other topics at the moment. We met when I spent a year in Tallahassee on a Fulbright scholarship in 2005-2006. We very much hope to meet again in person for this volume – the work was done entirely online, but I must add, in perfect harmony throughout.

This volume is the result of a collaboration between you and James A. Grymes. Are there any other people who helped the book come to fruition?

In addition to all the institutions that have made available to us the documents in their collections or provided financial support as the Hungarian Academy of Arts, we are particularly grateful to Dohnányi’s step-grandson and heir, Sean Ernst McGlynn, who, significantly, keeps his beloved grandfather’s name as his middle name: he has been a happy and unreserved supporter of all Dohnányi-related initiatives and our work – both collaborative and individual – for 20-25 years now.

Do you have any plans for further research into Dohnányi’s oeuvre in terms of an individual project or a collaborative one?

I am currently working on a monograph on the political accusations against Dohnányi – their origins and consequences – and in 2027 we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of Dohnányi’s birth with an international conference, educational programmes and an exhibition. The latter will focus on the magnificent and largely untapped photographic and video material of the Dohnányi bequest.

Ernő Dohnányi conducting the Ohio University Symphony Orchestra (1954) Ernő Dohnányi’s American bequest (MZA-DE-Ta-Ph 2.014/13)

Veronika Kusz PhD, is a musicologist, Senior Research Fellow at the ELTE RCH Institute for Musicology, and curator of its Dohnányi Collection of the Archives for 20th-21st Century Hungarian Music. She was plenary speaker of the 194th General Assembly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She is a speaker at national and international conferences, author of more than a hundred publications, and her papers have appeared in renowned international journals such as American Music and Notes. Among her previous publications is her English-language monograph A Wayfaring Stranger: Ernst von Dohnányi’s American Years (University of California Press, 2020).

Dr James A. Grymes is a music historian, Professor of Musicology at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, an internationally renowned author and lecturer, and a scholar of Ernő Dohnányi’s life and work. He is author of Ernst von Dohnányi: A Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 2001), the editor of A Song of Life: Ernst von Dohnányi (Indiana University Press, 2002) and author of Perspectives on Ernst von Dohnányi (Scarecrow Press). His articles on Dohnányi have appeared in academic journals such as Acta Musicologica, Hungarian Quarterly, Music Library Association Notes and Studia Musicologica.