by Ernst von Dohnanyi

Ernst von Dohnanyi, who was born at Pressburg in 1877, is one of Hungary's foremost musicians, and has won high distinction as a composer, pianist, and conductor. He studied at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music, Budapest, and later under Eugen d'Albert; in 1908 he became professor of the piano at the Berlin Hochschule, and in 1919 director of the Budapest Conservatoire. Since 1897, when Dohnanyi made his debut in Berlin, he has become world famous as a pianist. He appeared in England for the first time in the following year, when he played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G under Richter, at Queen's Hall. 'Not only', says J.B. Trend, 'is his technical accomplishment extraordinarily complete, but the breadth of his phrasing, his command of tone-gradation, and the exquisite beauty of his tone, are such as to satisfy the most exacting lover of classical and modern music, and in both an intensely poetical nature is revealed'.