Ernő Dohnányi - Piano Quintet No. 2 in E-Flat minor Op. 26 [score + audio]

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Ernö Dohnányi (1877 – 1960)
Piano Quintet No. 2 in E-Flat Minor, Op. 26 (1914)
00:00 I. Allegro non troppo
09:09 II. Intermezzo. Allegro
13:57 III. Moderato
audio: https://www.claves.ch/products/dohnan...

The Second Piano Quintet in E flat Minor, op. 26, was written almost twenty years later after the first one, in 1913¬–1914. During these two decades many things changed in the composer’s life, even though in these times he was still before the most staggering setbacks of his life such as the World Wars and especially his emigration to America in the late 1940s. The 37-year-old Dohnányi, composer of the Second Quintet, had already given unnumbered tremendously successful concerts as a pianist–composer throughout the continent, England, and the United States; he became the renowned professor of piano of the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, and was the highly praised creator of many popular stage, orchestral, chamber and piano works. On the other hand, his personal life came into a crisis, which must have been in connection with the death of his father who served as a moral support till the end of his life. Now Dohnányi’s first marriage had come to a painful end, and a new, much more passionate love started with the actress Elsa Galafrés, Dohnányi’s future second wife. The struggling tone of the Second Quintet can be interpreted as a musical reflection of their struggle for each other. If the beginning of the First Quintet is captivating and intense, that of the Second should be described as mesmerizing and almost macabre – it grips the listener from the very first second when one hears the empty octave-parallels of the strings above the sullen pedal of the piano. The dramatic tableau of Movement I is completed by a passionate, but somehow questioning second theme, a mysterious third theme, an unrestful development section, and a desperate closing in pianississimo E flat Minor. The Intermezzo (Movement II) not only has a unique form (a special variation structure) but a unique tone as well: one should rightly feel it (self)- ironic, bittersweet and heart-breaking at the same time. The last movement starts from the deepest query: a string fugue which is interrupted by choral-like com - ments of the piano. The movement clears up more and more and the ending is simi - lar to that of “Opus 1”: we hear the major transformation of the very first theme. A very similar technical solution – but a very different dramaturgical and psychological effect. We may agree with Dohnányi, who himself liked much better his less popular Second Quintet than Opus 1, and may doubt whether Dohnányi’s style remained really unchanged throughout his life as his critics stated.
-Veronika Kusz

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