Dora Pejačević - Symphony; Phantasie Concertante (Ari Rasilainen; Volker Banfield)

Information

Composer: Dora Pejačević

• Symphony in F sharp minor, Op. 41
• Phantasie Concertante for Piano & Orchestra in D minor, Op. 48

Volker Banfield, piano

Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz

Ari Rasilainen, conductor

Date: 2011

Label: CPO

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Review

This is the first of a new series from CPO. It will present the works of Croatian composer Dora Pejačevic. We are told that these two pieces are her principal symphonic works.

From a noble family she was born in Budapest and began writing music as a child. She continued her studies in Zagreb, Dresden and Munich. She was a composition pupil of the obscure English composer Percy Sherwood. She died in Munich in 1923. There are 58 compositions: songs, piano solos and chamber music including: piano quartet, piano quintet, violin sonata, cello sonata and two piano sonatas.

The craggy Symphony in F sharp minor is in a noble and tragic key. It’s in four big sprawlingly imaginative movements of which the second, the Andante sostenuto is quite magical. The performance feels good though I suspect that Pejačevic’s mind’s ear heard a string tone yet more voluptuous than that delivered here. Rasilainen invests the work with the total dedication he brought to his CPO Atterburg and Sallinen cycles if not quite attaining the flaming conviction of his Hausegger Natursymphonie. The symphony has been published by the Croatian Music Information Centre.

The Phantasie Concertante is a stormy concert movement for piano and orchestra. It’s debt to Rachmaninov is clear enough; Mind you Pejačevic was not alone in this as the concertos by Bowen (review review), Stanford (No. 2 – review review), Dobrowen (review) and – by repute – R.S. Coke will attest. It’s a big bow-wow of a work mixing in the emotional cauldron of the first two Rachmaninov concertos with the stony impact and wicked glint of Liszt’s Totentanz. There is also a full-blown Piano Concerto in G minor (1913) awaiting attention from CPO. Banfield breasts the tempests and whirlpools with total panache – never submerged by the orchestral upheavals and always gloriously assertive. It’s that sort of work; no shadow of turning.

The Symphony is in an idiom veering around Delius in animated mood and Rachmaninov and Bowen (try the recent Chandos disc of the first two symphonies or the Second from ClassicO). It is a pleasing discovery if not totally compelling. The Phantasie Concertante is not particularly original but it will satisfy the ears of Rachmaninov piano concerto enthusiasts looking to see how far he influenced his contemporaries. It is good fun.

Look out for later Pejačevic volumes. And while we are in this vein when will CPO pick up on the three symphonies and six piano concertos of R.S. Coke?

— Rob Barnett

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Dora Pejačević (10 September 1885 – 5 March 1923) was a Croatian composer, pianist and violinist recognized as a pioneer in modern Croatian music. She introduced the orchestral song to the national repertoire, and her Symphony in F-sharp minor is regarded as the first modern Croatian symphony. Her works, particularly vocal compositions, piano miniatures, and string quartets, reflect expressionist and modernist influences. Initially rooted in Romanticism, her style evolved after serving as a paramedic during World War I, incorporating themes of nihilism, death and war's futility. She died in 1923 from childbirth complications.

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Ari Rasilainen (born 18 February 1959 in Helsinki) is a Finnish conductor. He studied conducting with Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy and with Arvid Jansons in Berlin. He also studied violin in Berlin with Aleksander Labko, then played as a violinist in the Finnish Radio Symphony and the Helsinki Philharmonic. As a conductor, Rasilainen was Generalmusikdirektor of the Deutschen Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz from 2002 to 2009. He has also worked as a guest conductor with several German radio symphony orchestras. Rasilainen has been teaching at the University of Music in Würzburg since 2011.

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Volker Banfield (born 9 May 1944 in Oberaudorf, Bavaria) is a German classical pianist recognized for his focus on late Romantic and 20th-century repertoire. He studied at the Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie and later in the United States at the Juilliard School and the University of Texas. Returning to Germany, he built an international career, performing works by composers such as Béla Bartók, Claude Debussy and Robert Schumann. A professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg until 2009, he has recorded extensively, earning a Diapason d'Or for his interpretation of Ferruccio Busoni's Piano Concerto.

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