The musical highlight here is the wartime Waltz Suite, four separate pieces, all of them abundantly tuneful, the first cast on a fairly symphonic scale, the second resembling a sentimental song, the third a playful scherzo alternating different time signatures (hence the title ‘Lop-Sided Waltz’) and the fourth a Strauss-type waltz medley. Dohnányi himself recorded the piano version but this is my first encounter with the orchestral alternative, which, in terms of its scoring, sports a spruce, well-tailored profile, very much à la Richard Strauss. The performance by the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra under László Kovács fits the bill, just about, but makes me long for a Fischer or Kocsis upgrade.

Both the Symphony and Zrínyi Overture won the 20-year-old Dohnányi the Emperor Joseph Prize, the dramatic overture being the stronger piece. The Symphony goes through the predictable motions of German late-Romanticism, though the Adagio slow movement is affecting and some points of scoring (the beginning of the Scherzo, for example) are fairly original. It’s an enjoyable if ephemeral piece but I shan’t be running back for more. The recording quality is perfectly adequate. I see from the booklet than Kovács has also recorded Leo Weiner’s orchestration of Liszt’s B minor Piano Sonata. Now I would certainly like to hear that.