Dohnanyi - Symphony nr. 1

These days I'm not very much tuned into music. And certainly I'm not in the mood for the kind of grand, laborious symphonic concoction such as this First Symphony by Ernö Dohnanyi, the most conservative of the batch of Hungarian composers that took over the baton from Liszt at the beginning of the 20th century. This symphony was written at an early stage of Dohnanyi's career as a composer (it's an op. 9, and dates from 1900). It stretches over 55 minutes. Stylistically it's a safe mix of Brahms and Dvorak without the intellectual cogency of the former and the magnanimity of the latter. There was very little for my mind to latch onto in this interminable and undifferentiated symphonic tapestry. There's also an American Rhapsody, written by a mature Dohnanyi (1953!), which sounds like a watered down version of Dvorak's New World. I really got bored listening to this one. Didn't really feel compelled to give it another hearing.