Kusz Veronika

”A Wayfaring Stranger” – Dohnányi’s American Rhapsody
Veronika Kusz

Dohnányi's last orchestral work, the American Rhapsody, was written for the 150th anniversary of Ohio University. On the model of Brahms' Academic Festival Overture, the composer wanted to use some Ohio student songs in his piece, but later on, experiencing the musical insufficiency of this material, he decided to arrange American folk songs - a decision by which the national character of the work was strengthened a lot. We could assume that the Rhapsody should be interpreted as a symbol of the adjustment (or, at least, the desire of adjustment) to Dohnányi's new cultural environment, and „a tribute to the New World" as one of the former analysts of the piece emphasized. This study, however, attempts to prove: basically that the Rhapsody should not be interpreted either like this, or in the context of 20th-century musical Americanism. Regarding the free use of the source material and the piece's general musical language, these aspects do not seem to be essential for the composer. The arrangement of the white spiritual entitled The Wayfaring Stranger - which clearly plays a central role in the one-movement work - reminds us so much of Dvořák's slow movement of his Symphony From the New World that we must regard it as a conscious decision. It seems that Dohnányi wanted to emphasize a similar special musical situation: the composer is a stranger in a given – musical – environment. Like the many other, similar examples (e.g. Gershwin's An American in Paris), the nostalgic elements seem to be much more significant in the Rhapsody than its „message" to the new home. Moreover, the arrangement of the spiritual - and actually many other parts of the work - show definite similarities with certain of Dohnányi's earlier orchestral compositions (chiefly with parts of the Symphonic Minutes, the Suite in F sharp minor, and the Variations on a Nursery Song). The melodic, textural and dramaturgical connections are so strong that the Rhapsody's series of colourful pictures seem to be a sort of summary, a film-like playback of the composer's own personal and musical past. As the wayfaring stranger of the text wanders the earthly world preparing for the comfort of the beyond, so Dohnányi roams through his earlier periods, recalling the tone of his brightest works. Below the shiny surface, however, the composer and listener have to face the fact that for the Rhapsody's present, only a slightly aimless recalling of the brighter past remained; the attractive appearance hides a lack of actual content.
Nevertheless, the composition has a moving and symbolic significance in Dohnányi's oeuvre or, at least, in his late period.

Dohnányi’s Reception in the United States
Press Revies, 1949-1960
Veronika Kusz

At the age of 72, Ernõ Dohnányi arrived to Tallahassee, Florida to take up his position offered by the Florida State University Music School. Because of his financial difficulties, the last decade of the old composer proved to be very active in many aspects. In the course of his frequent concert tours as a pianist, chamber musician and director, he appeared on the concert podium of big cities and small towns, as well. However, the enthusiastic reports of the provincial towns, the rather reserved expressions of New York and the intimate informations of the Tallahassee press draw a many-sided and sometimes contradictory picture. This paper attempts to investigate Dohnányi’s American reception on the basis of the scrapbooks and other documents of the Dohnányi Collection of FSU Warren D. Allen Music Library.

The String-quartets of Johann Georg Lickl (1769-1843)
Veronika Kusz

The composer Johann Georg Lickl, who was Austrian by origin, served as a chorus master in the cathedral of Pécs from 1807 to his death. As a versatile musician and a productive composer of sacred music he must be considered as one of the most outstanding figures of the Hungarian history of music of the early 19th century. Evaluating his oeuvre, however, it should not be forgotten, that before his arrival to Pécs he had been a famous and popular composer of chamber music and opera in Vienna. This study presents his three string quartets (Trois quatuor concertans, composed c.1799), which are composed with good sense of musical form, with consciousness and with much adaptability of a well-trained master. Unfortunately, after 1807 he completely lost his relationship with the Viennese musical life, and did not compose operas and pieces of chamber music any more.

Free and "Free" Variations in Dohnányi's Works
Veronika Kusz

The variation form played a central role in Ernst von Dohnányi's musical ouvre: the composer utilized it very often from his earliest years until his last opus. In one of his most popular pieces, the Variations on a Nursery Song (op. 25), Dohnányi wrote free character variations on an internationally known children's song. It is important to note, however, that in contrast to the reputation and popularity of the work, he rarely employed this type of variation strategy. Though one can find many Dohnányi variations that are apparently liberated from their themes, the freedom of these examples derives from a basically different musical conception. The first type of these "free" variations follows the strategies of Beethoven's developmental variations (also called "formal outline' , "fantasy" or "free" variations) by excerpting a musical motive (a "variation seed") out of the theme, developing it, and creating a texture so different from the starting point that it actually seems to be a "free" variation. A second type appears in multi-movement instrumental cycles, in which Dohnányi recalls a motive or a theme of another movement, and uses the strategy of free variations as a device to organize the cycle. This study examines these types of "free" variations in Dohnányi's Variations and Fugue on E. G.'s Theme (op. 4) and Symphonic Minutes (op. 36).