NOSPR / Chadouli / Sternath / Heroines of Music - NOSPR

In recent years, the world of classical music has been increasingly engaged in rediscovering the hitherto forgotten works of women composers. In doing so, it has brought to light works of considerable quality, and occasionally of genuine distinction. Dora Pejačević belongs firmly among the latter, although her exceptional talent was never given the chance to develop fully as she died at the age of only 38. She is regarded as the first Croatian woman composer to devote herself to orchestral music. Born into an aristocratic family, she found it necessary to break with the conventions expected of her social position. An erudite with wide-ranging interests, she wrote music characteristic of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, enriching the language of late Romanticism with impressionistic harmonies and lush orchestration. Before the childbirth that would tragically claim her life, she wrote a touching letter to her husband, reflecting on her own journey towards creative independence and urging him to foster their child’s talents without regard to gender.

A woman who resorts to murder in order to escape an unwanted marriage stands at the centre of Antonín Dvořák’s symphonic poem The Wild Dove. A month later, she takes a new husband, yet the cooing of a dove that returns to the grave of her first spouse serves as a persistent reminder of her crime. The result is a tragic tale of guilt and remorse, recounted through the rich and vividly coloured symphonic language of the Czech master.

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 2 belongs unequivocally to the aesthetic universe of Classicism in music. Set within a late-Romantic frame in our programme, the concerto reveals the extent to which the music of the early 20th century remained connected to earlier tradition. At the same time, it tempers the heightened emotional climate of the musical fin de siècle with a dose of rationalism.

Adam Suprynowicz (Polskie Radio)

Concert duration: approximately 70 minutes

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