HERBERT HEYNER (Baritone)
ORREA PERNEL (Violin) ; REBECCA CLARKE (Viola); MAY MUKLE (Violoncello); LESLIE
HEWARD (Pianoforte) (ORREA PERNEL, MAY MUKLE, and LESLIE)
HEWARD (ORREA PERNEL, REBECCA CLARKE and MAY
MUKLE)
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 1890, iu tho 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 littlo 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.
In this Serenade ho contrives to make wonderfully full effects from the three instruments, and the hearer never has any sense of the team's being too small. The movements are all short and compact; the first is a March, the second a Romance in which the viola first has the melody, handing it over to the violin later. The third is a Scherzo with an alternative section like the conventional Trio, except that it is more closely knit up with the opening part than the strict old tradition demanded. The fourth movement is a short and very simple theme followed by variations, and the last is a bustling Rondo which comes to an end with an echo of the sturdy rhythm of the opening March.