Peter Donohoe

Piano

At a glance

Peter Donohoe

Piano

I cannot imagine a living pianist capable of improving upon Donohoe’s outstanding artistry.
Robert Matthew-Walker, Musical Opinion

http://www.peter-donohoe.com

Since his success as joint winner of the 1982 International Tchaikovsky Competition, Peter has gained international renown as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility and commanding technique.

Biography —

Peter Donohoe was born in Manchester in 1953. He studied at Chetham’s School of Music for seven years, graduated in music at Leeds University, and went on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music with Derek Wyndham and then in Paris with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod. He is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility and commanding technique.

In recent seasons Donohoe has appeared with Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic and Concert Orchestra, Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, St Petersburg Philharmonia, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Belarusian State Symphony Orchestra, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He has undertaken a UK tour with the Russian State Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as giving concerts in many South American and European countries, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Russia, and USA. Other past and future engagements include performances of all three MacMillian piano concertos with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; a ‘marathon’ recital of Scriabin’s complete piano sonatas at Milton Court; an all-Mozart series at Perth Concert Hall; concertos with the Moscow State Philharmonic Orchestra, St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall; and a residency at the Buxton International Festival.

Donohoe is also in high demand as a jury member for international competitions. He has recently served on the juries at the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow (2011 and 2015), Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels (2016), Georges Enescu Competition in Bucharest (2016), Hong Kong International Piano Competition (2016), Harbin Competition (2017 and 2018), Artur Rubenstein Piano Master Competition (2017), Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition and Festival (2017), Alaska International e-Competition (2018), Concours de Geneve Competition (2018), Ferrol Piano Competition (2022), and Hong Kong International Piano Competition (2022), along with many national competitions both within the UK and abroad.

Donohoe’s most recent discs include six volumes of Mozart Piano Sonatas with SOMM Records. Other recent recordings include Haydn Keyboard Works Volume 1 (Signum), Grieg Lyric Pieces Volume 1 (Chandos), Dora Pejacevic Piano Concerto (Chandos), Brahms and Schumann viola sonatas with Philip Dukes (Chandos), and Busoni: Elegies and Toccata (Chandos), which was nominated for BBC Music Magazine Award.

Donohoe has performed with all the major London orchestras, as well as orchestras from across the world: the Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Vienna Symphony and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras. He has also played with the Berliner Philharmoniker in Sir Simon Rattle’s opening concerts as Music Director. He made his twenty-second appearance at the BBC Proms in 2012 and has appeared at many other festivals including six consecutive visits to the Edinburgh Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron in France, and at the Ruhr and Schleswig Holstein Festivals in Germany.

The 23/24 season kicked off with Peter Donohoe performing as a soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle with four performances of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie in London, Edinburgh, and Bucharest. In January 2024, Peter returns to Philadelphia for performance with the Ama Deus Ensemble and will then travel to Dubai to adjudicate the 3rd Classic Piano Competition 2024.

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Reviews —

...jaw droppingly virtuosi stuff - the sheer finger-memory involved is awesome... Donohoe was self-effacingly magisterial in this marathon.

Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

I cannot imagine a living pianist capable of improving upon Donohoe’s outstanding artistry.

Robert Matthew-Walker, Musical Opinion, January 2017

Donohoe achieves what must be a perfect realisation of Prokofiev’s emotions, style and state of mind.

Quarterly Review on Peter's Prokofiev Sonatas disc (Volume 2)

Donohoe was the complete virtuoso in this celebrated concerto, his incomparable delicacy of touch and beauty of tone especially noticeable in the composed cadenza of the first movement

Cambridge News on Peter's performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra

Donohoe’s performance was monumental, rhythmically charged, beautifully nuanced and utterly compelling

Ken Walton, The Scotsman

Donohoe was finely attuned to Prokofiev’s expressive lyricism and humour… here he appears to have regained a fluency and unselfconscious approach to this music, bringing its expression to full bloom.

BBC Music Magazine, 5*, on Peter's Prokofiev Sonatas disc (Volume 2)

One of our greatest home grown performers

Petroc Trelawny, BBC Radio 3

Donohoe gave one of those performances, unfortunately rare in the concert hall, with which it was impossible to find fault.

Seen and Heard International

Peter Donohoe played as if visited by the spirit of Rachmaninov…The fire and passion of the closing part of the last movement brought the performance to a magnificent climax. Not surprisingly, the audience erupted

Rian Evans, The Guardian

Ravel's music was brought to life with delicacy, clarity and dazzling virtuosity. I was struck by the maturity and masterly precision so audible in his playing, alongside the brilliance and imagination that always were there in abundance.

Robert Beale, Manchester Evening News

Donohoe’s delivery of the solo part was formidable, crisply articulated, dynamics beautifully judged.

Christopher Morley, Birmingham Post

Donohoe always sets the right tone, sometimes – most befittingly – with a wink.

Bachtrack

Donohoe is very special. He's a lion of the keyboard, but he's also a poet. From Donohoe you will experience thunder and steel; but you will also experience exquisite lyricism and sensitivity. There's something about his playing that suggests him as the man for this mission…Expect insights galore.

Michael Tumelty, The Herald, Scotland

...an atmosphere of Mozartian delicacy, simplicity and beauty prevailed, was convincingly communicated by Donohoe.

Bachtrack

Selected Discography —

Peter Donohoe Plays Granados & Albeniz

Peter Donohoe may, by his own admission, have come to this repertoire relatively late, but informed by his experience as a player of Debussy and Ravel, these fine renditions are convincingly idiomatic throughout. His performance of ‘Evocación’ is a perfect introduction, drawing the listener into the narrative with magical control of timing and rubato.

BBC Music Magazine

Taneyev & Schumann: Piano Quintets

All five musicians play with requisite intensity and do a terrific job in ratcheting up the tension over long paragraphs...If you’re obsessed with the Taneyev Quintet, as I am, this beautifully engineered Signum recording is certainly worth hearing.

Gramophone

Rachmaninoff: Variations on a Theme of Chopin & Chopin Sonatas Nos 2 & 3

Throughout, Donohoe’s approach has a robust honesty and an appealing straightforward feel, with an instinct for the emotional rises and falls

BBC Music Magazine

Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words Vol.2

The pianist’s straightforward temperament and respect for the text emphasise truth over charm...Donohoe’s cogent and articulate annotations bring welcome personal and musical perspectives to this repertoire. In all, a fine and well-engineered release.

Gramophone

Mozart Piano Sonatas Vol. 6

surely only a dedicated ideologue would deny that Donohoe has here found a playing style that feels exactly right for the idiom of the music itself.

BBC Music Magazine

Felix Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words (lieder Ohne Worte) Vol. 1

Technically, of course, Donohoe is absolutely secure, as well as generously displaying the love of this music that he mentions in his note.

BBC Music Magazine

Haydn: Keyboard Works Volume 1

“An arresting start to Peter Donohoe’s new series of Haydn’s complete keybard works on Signum Records…It’s a stunner”

Slipped Disc

Mozart Piano Sonatas Vol. 5

Potential takers who fancy a punt need not fear that Mozart and Donohoe are ever at loggerheads. The unforced brilliance of his playing falls very happily on the ear.

Gramophone

Grieg Lyric Pieces Volume One

Donohoe, with a devotion to Grieg’s music dating back to his early years, clearly has the measure of this repertoire. He gets inside the gentler pieces, such as ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Summer Evening’, with beautifully poised playing. Grieg in his more overtly national mood, as in the famous and virtuoso ‘Halling’, is presented with infectious enjoyment and the simpler pieces are never patronised.

BBC Music Magazine

Dora Pejacevic: Piano Concerto / Symphony

[The Piano Concerto] boasts attractive melodies, warmly lush orchestration and technically demanding piano writing. Peter Donohoe revels in its manifold opportunities for virtuosic display...

BBC Music Magazine

Brahms/Schumann - Viola Sonatas etc

Dukes’s powerful tone, with its mixture of sweetness and sinew, reminds me of Primrose’s…The chiselled clarity of Peter Donohoe’s playing proves an excellent foil for Dukes’s robust lyricism.

Gramophone

Busoni: Elegien, etc.

Donohoe, always musically convincing, overcomes all technical challenges with apparent and disarming ease.

The Sunday Times

Mozart Piano Sonatas Vol. 3

K576 stands at the centre of this enormously satisfying third volume of Donohoe’s Mozart cycle….Donohoe invests this music with a real sense of pathos and world-weariness, extracting a wealth of startling colours and varied dynamics from his Bechstein piano.

BBC Music Magazine

Tchaikovsky: Solo Piano Works

Donohoe, while never underplaying the Sonata’s moments of explosive rhetoric, finds a more poetic, Chopinesque poise…Instead of being rushed off its feet, the final possesses a glorious, Lisztian integrity…Even when Tchaikovsky’s Russianness becomes unmistakeable, Donohoe wisely leans more towards the cosmopolitan than overplaying the nationalist card.

BBC Music Magazine

Mozart Piano Sonatas Vol. 2

His sensitivity to Mozart’s music and identification of its quality is multifaceted... More than that, Donohoe’s Mozart is well considered and satisfying.

Musicweb International

Mozart Piano Sonatas Vol. 1

Immediately apparent in Peter Donohoe’s all too belated engagement with Mozart on disc is a light, liquescent lyricism shot through with moments of fragile, lambent beauty

Classical Ear

Mozart: Piano Concertos for One, Two and Three Pianos

[Valerie Tyron] modifies the composer’s Sturm und Drang in his D minor Concerto K466 with all of her impeccable taste and musicianship. Closer to Clara Haskil’s sobriety than to Argerich’s tempest-tossed recording, her clear and unaffected playing rises above the orchestra’s seething unrest in the opening Allegro and achieves a true sense of drama in the Romance’s central downpour.

Classical Music

Stravinsky: Music for Solo Piano and Piano and Orchestra

Admirers of the angular Stravinsky have plenty to engage with in the Piano-Rag-Music and the Tango as well as the three concertante works. These- The Concerto, Capriccio and serial Movements-are winningly performed. A splendid and engrossing issue.

International Piano Magazine

Shostakovich: Piano Concertos and Piano Sonatas

Donohoe’s needle-sharp articulation and firmness of tone set the nerves appropriately on edge, carving out the music’s contours with glacial insistence.

The Scotsman

Shostakovich 24 Preludes and Fugues

Donohoe treats these piano miniatures with utmost sincerity. His new recording of the complete set isn’t introspective or showy; it isn’t overly reverent or sensationalist. Above all his playing is frank, sometimes to the point of plainness...there is immense dignity and power in Donohoe’s directness.

The Guardian

Musorgsky: Pictures from an exhibition; Ravel: Miroirs; Messiaen: Cantéyodjayâ

Messiaen’s exotic-experimental Cantéyodjayâ is a perfect musical realisation of an abstract mosaic, not least in Donohoe’s brightly faceted interpretation, whose chiselled textures and sharply defined lines make this, for me, by some distance the highlight of the disc.

Gramophone

Scriabin’s Ten Piano Sonatas

There are fine sets available of the ten piano sonatas of Alexander Scriabin , but none better than this. This is a most distinguished issue

Musical Opinion

Prokofiev: Piano Sonatas Vol. 3

Peter Donohoe is a pianistic superman. The British pianist chews through repertoire like most people eat handfuls of peanuts, and his technical level is truly awe-inspiring

Pianist Magazine

Arnold: Symphony No. 7, Philharmonic Concerto & Fantasy on a theme of John Field

This useful anthology brings together three of Malcolm Arnold's most powerfully distinctive and deeply personal works...[Donohoe] plays with coruscating aplomb, his partnership with Yates and the RSNO evincing a wealth of character, valiant emotional scope and sense of danger that compel from start to finish.

Gramophone

Sergei Prokofiev Piano Sonatas (Volume 2)

Big-boned and unwieldy, Mignone’s Piano Concerto leans a little too heavily on Rachmaninov, but the sultry Albeniz is worth getting to know. Passionate performances of both.

BBC Music Magazine

Sergei Prokofiev Piano Sonatas 1-5 (Volume 1)

Donohoe’s unerring instincts for the shape and colour of these scores - their topography, if you will - is what sets him apart from all his rivals...Top-notch Prokofiev, commandingly played; this is as good as it gets.

Musicweb International

Alan Bush: Africa Piano Concerto, Symphony No. 2 & Fantasia on Soviet Themes

Cyril Scott: Piano Concerto in D & Cello Concerto

This is an ecstatic outpouring of unknown music...Donohoe's stunning performance makes the best possible case for this to become a repertoire piece.

Gramophone

Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F major, Rhapsody in Blue

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23, etc.

John Gardner: Piano Concerto No. 1

This coupling of two of John Gardner's major works, plus a sparkling comedy overture, could not be more welcome...By rights this disc will bring renewed attention to the music of a most attractive composer.

The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music

Foulds: Dynamic Triptych

Peter Donohoe... gives a superb performance. This is a really first-rate programme, a worthy follow-up to Oramo's first Foulds CD (A/04) and a revealing window onto an unusual and innovative area of English music.

Gramophone

Hamilton Harty: Piano Concerto

Donohoe's bravura is frequently jaw-dropping and there's no lack of enthusiasm or sensitivity about the orchestral support. A refreshing and instructive display.

Gramophone

Tippett: Piano Sonata No. 1 'Fantasy Sonata', etc.

Peter Donohoe presents dynamically muscular yet thoughtful and affectionate readings of the first three of Tippett's four piano sonatas, in first-rate recorded sound…

BBC Music Magazine

Thomas Pitfield: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2

The First Concerto has a highly resourceful second movement, but Concerto No. 2 (1958), all over in 11 minutes, is even more remarkable for its concentrated invention, bonhomie and expert craftsmanship. First-rate performances from both soloists, who clearly relish every note...

BBC Music Magazine

Alwyn: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2

Alwyn (whose centenary year fell in 2005) is a composer of strong communicative gifts and the best of his music exhibits a disarming emotional candour, generous lyricism, powerful sense of argument...

Gramophone Classical Music Guide

Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphony, Quatuor pour la fin du temps & Le merle noir

Simon Rattle's 1986 account with the City of Birmingham Symphony never had the field to itself but is set an interpretative standard yet to be surpassed. Not only is the placing of piano (Peter Donohoe) and ondes martenot (Tristan Murail) ideal but the reading balances insight with a firm grasp of the formal interplay between movements.

Gramophone

Bliss: Piano Concerto

Concerto for Two pianos is the most lively, attractive work on the disc, full of quick, spiky wit and delight on colour, all well brought out by Donohoe and Roscoe

BBC Music Magazine

Bliss - Chamber Music Volume 2

The Maggini Quartet and Peter Donohoe give a commanding performance of the Piano Quartet, locating an underlying toughness of argument and urgency of expression in both outer movements to make..

Gramophone Classical Music Guide

Rawsthorne: Piano Concertos 1 & 2

Donohoe's brilliant solo contribution has all the sparkle you could want...

Gramophone Classical Music Guide

Finzi: Cello Concerto, Eclogue & Grand Fantasia & Toccata

The Romantic Piano Concerto 26 - Litolff

Litolff's dauntingly ambitious structures accommodate every possible style, looking forwards and backwards Janus-style, yet reaching out in the strange almost Alkanesque oddity of the Fifth...

Gramophone Classical Music Guide

Walton: Piano Quartet (1921) & String Quartet (1947)

Peter Donohoe a powerful and incisive presence, and the Maggini Quartet again playing most persuasively, the early Piano Quartet is also given a performance of high contrasts, enhanced by a refined recording which conveys genuine pianissimos that are free from highlighting.

Gramophone Classical Music Guide

Walton: Selected Orchestral Works

As soloist Peter Donohoe plays with power and flamboyance, brought home the more when the piano is very forwardly balanced...

Gramophone Classical Music Guide

Henze, H: Undine

The DG version of the score is given with sensitivity and authority by Oliver Knussen, one of Henze's most eloquent interpreters...it is the product of Knussen's enthusiasm for the music, and this shows throughout. It is superbly realized by these fine musicians

The Penguin Guide of Recorded Classical Music

Elgar: String Quartet and Piano Quintet

the Maggini Quartet impress with the luminous refinement and beguiling tonal beauty of their music-making

Gramophone Magazine

Beethoven: Quintet, Octet & Symphony No. 7 arr. for winds

Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Peter Donohoe – Sonatas

Beethoven: Piano Sonata Op. 101 & Diabelli Variations

Bartok: Piano Concertos • Klavierkonzerte • Concertos Pour Piano 1-2-3

The Academy Collection: Rachmaninov - Thirteen Preludes Op.32, Debussy - Images Ire Serie pour Piano

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 In B Flat Minor / Piano Concerto No. 3 In E Flat

Peter Donohoe: Liszt, Berg, Bartók – Piano Sonatas

PETER DONOHOE - MULDOWNEY Piano Concerto, Saxophone Concerto

Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphonie / Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps

Peter Donohoe plays Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov

Britten: Young Apollo / Canadian Carnival / Four French Songs / Scottish Ballad

See full discography

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