Volume 2 of Dohnányi piano works

Martin Roscoe’s second volume of the complete piano music of Dohnányi focuses on the works written between 1897 and 1907. A highlight of the album is the Variations and Fugue on a theme of EG, Op 4—a monumental work that would soon be hailed by the Viennese press as ‘the most valuable enrichment of music literature since Brahms’.

Label: Hyperion
Catalogue number: CDA67932

‘Connoisseurs of late Romanticism and aficionados of early twentieth-century music all owe Martin Roscoe an immense debt of gratitude … It would be difficult to overpraise Roscoe’s accomplishment … The music simply flows unimpeded and we are left to bask in Dohnányi, whose music, at its very least, is always subtle, charming, cultivated and immensely communicative. Very warmly recommended’
International Record Review

‘You can’t help but be impressed by Dohnányi’s compositional assuredness … All performed with consummate technical mastery and musical insight’
BBC Music Magazine

‘The opening pages of Dohnányi’s Op 2 might well have been penned by Brahms in one of his jollier moods … The finale reveals a taste for bravura writing in the great pianist-composer tradition. The Variations may be Brahms-lite, too, but no less appealing, helped not a little by Martin Roscoe’s sensitive sculpting and dynamic shading. The subtle changes he rings in the repeat of the theme’s initial statement are an indication of the care and imagination he brings to the whole score … Roscoe rounds off this rewarding voyage of discovery with Dohnányi’s transcription of nine of Schubert’s 12 Valses nobles in performances which surpass the composer’s own … and in immeasurably better sound’
Gramophone

Dohnányi Piano Works Vol. 1

Dohnányi Piano Works Vol. 2