The American estate of world-renowned pianist and composer Ernő Dohnányi has arrived to Hungary, donated beforehand by his grandson to the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Monika Balatoni, State Secretary for Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade have announced jointly with Pál Richter, director of the Institute for Musicology in Budapest last Friday that the caretaker of the estate will be the Lendület-kutatócsoport (Momentum Research Group) of the Institute – the 20th-21st Century Hungarian Music Archive and Research Group led by Anna Dalos, which inherited the collection of the former Dohnányi Archives as well. Pál Fodor, director of the Institute of Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences stressed that is gratifying to see how Hungarian science and cultural diplomacy worked very well together in the repatriation of the estate.

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Dohnányi left Hungary in 1944 and settled in the United States in 1949, where he became a professor of piano and composition at Florida State University. Until his death in 1960, thousands of musical manuscripts, letters, photographs, documents, books, sheet music and other memorabilia have accumulated in his Florida home. Seán Ernst McGlynn, step-grandson of the composer and current owner of the Dohnányi House, decided recently that he grants all estates left in the house to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. This is about the third of the full Dohnányi-estate and a significant part of it is composed of books and sheet music; among there are more than a hundred previously unknown photographs, the diary of his wife as well as personal items such as the composer’s suitcase and the piano keyboard cut-out with which the artist could keep his fingers in training during long trips. After processing and digitalisation, all documents will be available for research.

Monika Balatoni also announced that the Hungarian government is committed to purchase an additional one-third of the full estate which is deposited at the Department of Music of the Florida State University. The government supports the retrieval of this deposit with a sum of $60,000 (almost HUF 14 million). The remaining one-third of the estate is located in the British Library; currently negotiations are running on its re-obtainment. Monika Balatoni said that in order to mark the 55th anniversary of Ernő Dohnányi’s death, a memorial plaque will be inaugurated on the wall  of the Dohnányi House located in Tallahassee, Florida on 9 February 2015.

(MTI, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade)