Symphony for Large Orchestra in F Sharp Minor, Op. 41

Dora Pejačević (1885 – 1923) is one of the most talentet female composers at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. She studied at the Croatian Music Institute in Zagreb then briefly in Dresden with Sherwood and in Munich with Courvoisier. For the most part, however, she was self-taught and developed her musical talents through contact with other artists and intellectuals, such as Karl Kraus. Her ancestral home was at Našice (near Osijek), but she also travelled extensively to Budapest, Munich, Prague and Vienna. After 1921 she lived mainly in Munich. Her works were performed most frequently outside Croatia; part of her Symphony, for example, was first given in Vienna (25 January 1918) and the complete work was performed later in Dresden. Her late Romantic idiom, enriched with Impressionist harmonies and lush orchestral colours, evolved as she strove to break free from drawing-room mannerisms and conventions... The central place in Dora Pejačević's orchestral oeuvre is taken by her Symphony. Work on this composition occupied her time from the beginning of 1916 until August 25, 1917, when the first version was finished. In the second version, which was completed in 1920, Dora Pejačević compressed some of the original sections and widened the orchestra ensemble in the final movement, which was largely composed anew. Along with Franjo Lučić's Symphony, this work is the first modern symphony by a Croatian composer. The work is of considerable size - it is some fifty minutes long - and has luxuriant late-Romantic orchestration. The traditional classic-Romantic four-movement disposition shows the usual order and character of the movements: First Movement - fast, dramatic; Second Movement - slow, lyrical; Third Movement - scherzo; Fourth Movement - fast, passionate. Symphony is the work of a mature and well-defined artist. The composer’s high degree of technical craftsmanship and imaginativeness are confirmed at each new listening to the work, revealing new and lovely nuances. This deepening of experience is one of the most reliable tests of the artistic level of a piece of music. (Koraljka Kos)