British pianist Martin Roscoe's survey of Ernö Dohnányi's solo piano music has ranged from worthwhile to revelatory and has helped to place the composer firmly among those unfairly neglected by the modernist nomenklatura. This final installment consists of a variety of pieces held together, in the words of annotator and Dohnányi specialist James A. Grymes, by the idea of demonstrating "Dohnányi's lifelong efforts to solidify his place in the great lineage of composer-pianists by writing in genres in which his predecessors ...
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British pianist Martin Roscoe's survey of Ernö Dohnányi's solo piano music has ranged from worthwhile to revelatory and has helped to place the composer firmly among those unfairly neglected by the modernist nomenklatura. This final installment consists of a variety of pieces held together, in the words of annotator and Dohnányi specialist James A. Grymes, by the idea of demonstrating "Dohnányi's lifelong efforts to solidify his place in the great lineage of composer-pianists by writing in genres in which his predecessors excelled...." Thus you get etudes, character pieces, a passacaglia, and other experiments in Baroque dance forms. There aren't quite the unknown masterpieces here that there are on some of the other albums, but those whose interest has been piqued will enjoy the album. The Six Pieces, Op. 41, were written after the end of World War II in a small town in Austria where Dohnányi had taken refuge; sample Cloches, which deploys the sound of church bells to represent the composer's feelings...
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