Dora Pejacevic

A major composer from the Balkans, Dora Pejačević introduced the symphony, concerto, and orchestral song to Croatian music. Forgotten after her early death, her music has been revived as interest in music by women has grown, and Croatian scholarship has shed more light on her career. Dora Pejačević, in full the Countess Maria Theodora Paulina Pejačević, was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, on September 10, 1885, and was of noble birth on both sides. She grew up in Našice in what is now Croatia. Her father was a Hungarian count of noble Croatian descent. Pejačević's mother, Josepha Vay de Vaya, also of mixed Croatian and Hungarian background, was a competent pianist who gave Dora her first music lessons. By the time she was 12, Pejačević was composing music. Sometimes she clashed with her parents, who expected her to follow a lifestyle consistent with that of a young noblewoman, but the parents finally recognized their daughter's talent and sent her away for musical studies. She had lessons in Zagreb, Dresden, and Munich from Dragutin Kaiser, Walter Courvoisier, and composer Percy Sherwood, among others, but she was mostly self-taught. The biggest impact from her travels came from the contacts she made among the German and Austrian intelligentsia, meeting poet Rainer Maria Rilke, journalist Karl Krause (who would compose the text for one of her orchestral songs), and other prominent figures, including the Czech arts patroness Countess Sidonie von Thun und Hohenstein. Compositions by Pejačević in a late Romantic idiom began to appear before 1900; one of the earliest was the Berceuse for piano, Op. 2. Her earlier compositions were often in small genres such as the piano miniature and the art song; her Sieben Lieder, Op. 23, was an all-female affair with texts by Wilhelmine Wickenburg-Almásy and dedicated to Eva van Osten, Melanie Páiffy-Almásy, and Julia Culp. Gradually, Pejačević began to attempt larger forms, and unlike with many women composers, her works in these were at least as significant as her smaller pieces. Her Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33, of 1913 was the first Croatian concerto of any kind, and her Symphony in F sharp minor for large orchestra of 1916-1917 (dedicated to her mother and revised in 1920), is thought to be the first Croatian symphony. She wrote several orchestral songs between 1915 and 1920, and these too were pioneering works in Croatia. Pejačević married Ottomar, Ritter von Lumbe, in 1921. She died in Munich, Germany, on March 5, 1923, from an infection that may have been a complication from childbirth. She was largely forgotten after her death. One step toward her rediscovery came from a fictional biopic, Countess Dora, released in Croatia in 1993, and interest in her work developed along with growing efforts to perform music by women and with the efforts of the Croatian Music Information Center. Pejačević published more than 100 works, and as of the early 2020s, more than 50 of them had been recorded. The Symphony in F sharp minor was not heard on a recording until 2011, when it appeared in a reading by the Rheinland-Pfalz Staatsphilharmonie. It was recorded again in 2022, along with the Piano Concerto, by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under conductor Sakari Oramo.
© James Manheim /TiVo