Dora Pejačevic symphony

[Dave2002]

I'm currrently listening to - and very much enjoying - the symphony op 41 on R3 now - by Dora Pejačevic.

I wonder if I have heard any other pieces by her - perhaps even in live performance during the last year or so. I have vague recollections of hearing one piece by someone I'd not heard of before within the last year - but this symphony does seem much more striking than anything I can recall hearing.

Has any more music by this composer been played on R3 or recorded during the last year?

[Barbirollians]

As well as the symphony weren't some other works played at the Proms last year ?

[Dave2002]

As well as the symphony weren't some other works played at the Proms last year ?

That's what I'm wondering - we may have heard something fairly nondescript. Presumably we can check the schedule for the 2024 Proms season. Actually nothing similar - I checked - it couldn't have been the 2023 or 2024 Proms, though a few pieces were played - just not in concerts we went to.

I wonder if we heard a sonata at a chamber music concert in the last few months - maybe a cello sonata or some other chamber work. Whatever it was, it wasn't anything like as striking as this Fsharp minor symphony.

Found it - we heard a piece for violin and piano in a concert on the Black Isle nearby last year.

[oddoneout]

I'm currrently listening to - and very much enjoying - the symphony op 41 on R3 now - by Dora Pejačevic.

I wonder if I have heard any other pieces by her - perhaps even in live performance during the last year or so. I have vague recollections of hearing one piece by someone I'd not heard of before within the last year - but this symphony does seem much more striking than anything I can recall hearing.

Has any more music by this composer been played on R3 or recorded during the last year?

I first encountered her music courtesy of the R3 morning schedules some years ago. Before the general R3 big push on women composers pieces by the likes of Dora P, Florence Price, Louise Farrenc, regularly appeared on Breakfast and EC.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thank you to Dave for bringing Ms Pejacevik to our attention. I had seen her name somewhere but for some reason had not followed up. One of those might-have-beens, were it not for her early death. The following link provides some information, helpfully presenting youtube of three works, including that symphony. At the moment I am listening to the Piano Concerto, which, in style, is not far removed from Glazunov or early Rachmaninov, with Brahmsian touches.

https://unknowncomposers.org/2019/05/18/dora-pejacevic-the-matriarch-of-croatian-composers/

The former Yugoslavia seems to have produced a good many quality composers who never get or got mention in books - they tend to get featured from time to time on TTN.

[HighlandDougie]

Sarah Connolly included some of her songs in the Prom on 9 August 2023 (along with some by Alma Mahler). I thought that they were rather fine.

[kernelbogey]

Excerpts from Blumenleben – acht Klavierstücke nach der Blütenzeit im Jahresablauf komponiert, Op. 19 (1904–1905) have been played on TTN over the years: charming piano studies.

[Serial_Apologist]

Having this evening listened to her 1922 string quartet, a large-scale work and one of her last, I am convinced Dora Pejacevic would have been destined for greatness. This is bolder than the symphony, more harmonically and contrapuntally involved, moving in the direction of someone such as Zemlinsky at the time, maybe even of how Berg might have progressed had not Schoenberg amounted to such a huge intervention, making established "progressive" composers who outlived Mahler (eg Strauss, Reger, Schmidt) have to re-think their own directions in his light. Pejacevic was clearly one of the few one is aware of who knew exactly the direction on which she was embarked by the time she tragically passed on, and would have set a huge example. Gone is the overwrought rhetoric of the symphony (pace Dave!) - the flow is now more complex, more information brim, but at the same time confidently more relaxed.

Here is the Sebastian Quartet's wonderfully sensitive performance in order of the four movements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWqxWC8u_T4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXJVj1ooSq0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA-emupE6BE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWcT-B5NrJ0

[smittims]

I enjoyed the symphony yesterday, not knowing till the end who had written it. It's a big strong work, which suggest that had she lived a full life she'd have become celebrated.

[oliver sudden]

The piano quartet is also worth a listen although I can’t say how it compares to the symphony since I haven’t heard that!

https://youtu.be/512afmGkTaQ?feature=shared

[Serial_Apologist]

The piano quartet is also worth a listen although I can’t say how it compares to the symphony since I haven’t heard that!

https://youtu.be/512afmGkTaQ?feature=shared

Thanks Oliver - I'll have a listen to that this (rainy) afternoon. There are quite a number of Pejacevic Youtube links worth investigating.

[Serial_Apologist]

I enjoyed the symphony yesterday, not knowing till the end who had written it. It's a big strong work, which suggest that had she lived a full life she'd have become celebrated.

Then I really would urge you to have a listen to the late string quartet to which I linked above. I happen to think it is in every way superior to the symphony (and the PC too, by the way). I think there were parallels in Ms Pejacevik's case with Zemlinsky, much of whose early music was well composed but soft core in relation to the more radical developments surrounding him of which he was strongly aware, knowing the protagonists, and the music he composed from the time of his own second string quartet onwards.

[smittims]

Thanks, S-A.I'm familiar with Zemlinsky's quartets and will listen as you recommend.

[Serial_Apologist]