Andante con moto
Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival
Recorded in concert / live on August 10, 2024
Chandler Center for the Arts. Randolph, VT.
Violin: Arturo Delmoni
Viola: Michael Roth
Cello: Peter Sanders
Piano: Mika Sasaki
cvcmf.org
Audio/Video engineer: Peter Weitzner
Program notes are copyright © Susan Halpern, 2024.
Piano Quartet in d minor, Op. 25. . . Dora Pejačevič (until recently spelled Pejacsevich)
(Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1885; died March 5, 1923 in Munich, Germany)
Dora Pejačevič was the daughter of an important Croatian-Hungarian count and a pianist mother, a Hungarian baroness. Pejačevič studied piano and violin and attended various conservatories in Zagreb, Dresden, and Munich, although it has also been reported that she was mostly self-taught. Today, she is considered one of Croatia's most important 20th century composers. Many of her compositions, including chamber music and a piano concerto, were performed throughout the Hapsburg Empire: Germany, Austria, and Hungary, and were very successful during her lifetime. Her Symphony in F sharp minor was championed by the conductor Arthur Nikisch, who performed it regularly in Leipzig.
Pejačevič’s aristocratic birth and family wealth allowed her to travel to Europe’s liveliest belle époque cultural centers, including Budapest, Vienna, Prague, and Munich, but during World War 1, she volunteered as a nurse in her ancestral home of Nasice in eastern Croatia. She married the Bavarian military officer Ottomar von Lumbe in 1921, and made her home in Munich until her untimely death from complications of childbirth.
Before composing the Piano Quartet for piano, violin, viola, and cello, Pejačevič had composed mostly songs and piano miniatures. The Piano Quartet was her most ambitious work to date and displayed her growing confidence with larger forms. She completed her Piano Quartet in d minor in 1908, and although she had just entered her twenties, she had succeeded in writing a mature composition with accomplished technique in late Romantic style. It was not published until 1921. After her death, the work was long out of print, and her more than 50 compositions, mostly songs and piano music, were largely forgotten as Pejačević faded from the classical canon. Her music has only recently made a resurgence.
In the Quartet, the strings deliver most of the melodies, while dense piano writing contributes to the texture. The work, a mixture of passion and delicacy, begins with an appealing Allegro ma non tanto, in sonata form, which is, at times, chromatic. After a bold initial chord from the full ensemble and a declamatory piano gesture, the violin introduces the warmly tender, lyrical cascading first theme. Energetic passage work follows; the second theme feels quite sentimental. The development is adventurous harmonically. In the reprise, the initial music is restated. The movement ends affirmatively.
The lyrical second movement, a gentle, tender, and nostalgic Andante con moto, has a lovely main theme which, though simple, is quite warm and winning. At the beginning, the piano introduction features qualities of a chorale that return at the close of the movement. Again, in this movement, the strings carry most of the melodic material. The movement ends with a bit of melancholy.
The third movement, Menuetto, Allegretto grazioso, blends the Romantic and the Classical, with a Romantic melodic intermezzo joined with a playful, updated minuet with humor and with Pejačević’s very light touch. The piano part features subtle syncopations. The movement’s positive character prevails despite the muscular final D minor chords.
The finale, an exuberant Rondo, Allegro comodo, a spirited, carefree dance in D minor, displays strong elements of folk music. The sounds of peasant stomping and pizzicato give energy to the music, creating strong connections to folk music. The recurring initial section is dance-like and is only slightly varied when it recurs. Throughout, rhythmic variety in the piano is complemented with string pizzicati.