Ernst von Dohnanyi was only twenty when he made his first appearance as a concert pianist, stepping at once into the very front rank of executants. A year later, having won laurels in all the principal music centres of Germany and Austria-Hungary, he appeared with no less success in this country, and, in 1899, in the United States. As a composer he was known at first by his fresh and attractive music for his own instrument; for a good many years, however, he has been steadily gaining wider recognition as a composer of orchestral and chamber music, and latterly of music for the stage. Although making comparatively little use of actual folk tunes, most of his music is strongly characteristic of his native Hungary; it is all distinguished not only by very able craftsmanship, but by a genuine gift of invention, flavoured with a happy sense of laughter.
The work to be played this evening consists of seven numbers in which he sets forth, in a vivid and picturesque way, something of rural life in his native Hungary.