Martin Roscoe (piano) Hyperion CDA 67871****

“Musical Life in Budapest today may be summed up in one name,” wrote Bartók in 1920. He was referring to the ubiquitous Ernö Dohnányi (1877-1960), composer, pianist (the leading Hungarian virtuoso after

Liszt), conductor, teacher and administrator, whose career encompassed being director of the Liszt Academy, music director of Hungarian Radio, and conductor of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. Martin Roscoe begins his survey of Dohnányi's piano music in good style, finding individuality as well as influences (Brahms, Liszt, Rachmaninov) in the early Rhapsodies, Op 11, slightly heavy wit in the Three Singular Pieces, Op 44 (written in the US in exile from communist Hungary in 1951), as well as the essential delicacy of the arrangement of the Waltz from Delibes's Coppélia.Also included are Winterreigen(a Schumann homage) and the Pastorale on a Hungarian Christmas Song. url.ie/4qdb