The Ernst von Dohnanyi Collection at the Florida State University

Abstract

Between the years 1949 and 1960, the pianist, composer, conductor, and pedagogue Ernst yon Dohnanyi (1877-1960) was on the faculty of the Florida State University (FSU). Having already commemorated his contribution to the school in 1987 through the naming of the Ernst yon Dohnanyi Recital Hall, the university has now established the Ernst von Dohnanyi Collection, containing books, scrapbooks, manuscripts, photographs, letters, and recordings, as well as Dohnanyi's personal collection of facsimiles and published music. Dohnanyi was considered one of the great musicians of his time. He appeared as a pianist and conductor in numerous concert venues throughout Europe and the United States between 1897 and 1944, giving fifteen hundred concerts during the first thirty years of his career. While receiving much critical acclaim for his piano-playing, conducting, and composing, Dohnanyi taught at the Hochschule fur Musik in Berlin and the Liszt Ferenc Zenemuveszeti Foiskola (Franz Liszt Academy of Music) in Budapest. He eventually became director of the academy, and served as conductor of the Budapesti Filharmoniai Tarsasag (Budapest Philharmonic Society) and music director of the Magyar Radio (Hungarian Radio) as he continued to tour internationally. When Hungary became aligned with Nazi Germany, Dohnanyi refused to implement anti-Semitic regulations and resigned from all of his positions. He fled his war-torn homeland when the Soviets began to attack in November 1944. Because he had stayed in Hungary throughout the German occupation, Dohnanyi was accused of being sympathetic to the previous regime and became a target for political persecution by the new communist government. Among other things, he was accused of delivering ailing Jewish-Hungarian musicians from a local hospital to the gestapo on his way out of the country. Ironically, these accusations were propagated by a man whom Dohnanyi had anonymously saved from the concentration camps - something he had done for numerous Hungarians. Dohnanyi was eventually able to disprove the allegations that he was a Nazi war criminal. In 1945, the Allied Occupation Authority exonerated him of all charges, and the communist Hungarian government itself rejected the accusations. Although several prominent Jewish-Hungarian musicians testified in Dohnanyi's favor, new rumors arose that Dohnanyi was an anti-Semite. Even after this was also refuted, Dohnanyi was attacked by communist authorities simply because he was not a communist. A barrage of false accusations would follow Dohnanyi for the rest of his life, damaging his reputation and preventing him from reestablishing himself as an international performer. In an attempt to protect his family and rejuvenate his career, Dohnanyi fled Europe in 1948. For this, he drew even more criticism. One Hungarian newspaper asserted that Dohnanyi was to be granted American citizenship as a reward for his treacherous activities against Soviet-dominated Hungary.(1) Shortly after this article appeared, Dohnanyi was officially declared a war criminal by the Soviet-controlled Hungarian government. Even in America, Dohnanyi's performances were frequently canceled because of the lingering rumors. After an exhausting immigration process, Dohnanyi settled in Tallahassee, Florida, to teach at FSU. The attacks on Dohnanyi abated enough for him to make a triumphant re-debut at Carnegie Hall in 1953 at the age of seventy-six. Dohnanyi continued to teach and perform up to the time of his death in 1960; he died in New York City, where he was making recordings for the Everest label. Following the 1945 death of Bela Bartok, who was Dohnanyi's last powerful Hungarian supporter, the Hungarian establishment attempted to deny Dohnanyi had ever lived.(2) Even after his death, Dohnanyi's reputation continued to be assaulted. In 1968, however, Hungarian Prime Minister Janos Kadar amended national policy to allow for noncommunist thought. …