PEJA?EVI? Symphony in f?. Phantasie Concertante for Piano and Orchestra • Ari Rasilainen, cond; Volker Banfield (pn); Rheinland-Pfalz St PO • CPO 777418 (62:42)


Cpo, a label noted for ferreting out obscure repertoire, has outdone itself this time by digging up not just another female composer—that alone wouldn’t be so rare—but a Croatian one to boot. Heretofore, I don’t think I could have named a single Croatian composer of any gender, but now I can. Short-lived Dora Peja?evi? (1885–1923) was actually born in Budapest, the daughter of a Croatian father and a Hungarian mother, the Countess Lilla Vay de Vaya, an accomplished pianist and Dora’s first teacher. On her father’s side, Dora was descended from a distinguished noble family in Slavonia, the eastern region of Croatia. In composition, she was largely self-taught, but she did receive some private instruction in Zagreb, Dresden, and Munich. She died at 38 following complications of childbirth.


During her short life, she produced 58 documented works. That number isn’t particularly noteworthy compared to other composers who died even younger and wrote much more, but what is worth mentioning is that like another female composer, the French Louise Farrenc (1804–75), Peja?evi? competed with the boys in the arena of large symphonic, concerted orchestral, and chamber works. In addition to the symphony and concert fantasy on this disc, known and/or published works include a piano concerto, sonatas for piano, violin, and cello, and a piano quintet. During her life, her music was not entirely unknown in the music capitals of Europe; it was heard in Vienna, Munich, Budapest, and Prague.


The works Peja?evi? left behind, to the extent they were acknowledged at all, must have seemed hopelessly outdated by a musical intelligentsia preoccupied with the latest compositional novelties. It’s not just that she embraced a musical vocabulary practically indistinguishable from any number of late 19th-century Romantic composers, but by the time she came to begin her F?-Minor Symphony in 1916, completing it a year later, the era of the big Romantic symphony was on life support, or at least on recuperative leave. Mahler had pretty much seen to that a decade earlier. Last-stand efforts by Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, Franz Schmidt, and a number of others didn’t change the fact that the symphony, as inherited from the 19th century, was about to take on new forms and modes of expression in the 20th.


Peja?evi?’s symphony, like Rachmaninoff’s Second, may have been written in the 20th century, but it belongs to the 19th. It’s your standard-issue four-movement effusively romantic affair—a rich tapestry spun from strands of long-breathed chromatically enhanced melody, luxuriant harmony, and opulent orchestration. It doesn’t seem to be much influenced by the Mahler-Zemlinsky-Schoenberg axis, though perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise considering the very complex cultural cross-pollination of Croatia’s history by Hungarian, Italian, and even Russian influences. In fact, isolated passages throughout Peja?evi?’s symphony remind me a bit of Glazunov. But there are so many other crosscurrents going on in the score, not least of which is a passage at 7:54 in the first movement that sounds like it escaped from Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice . But it quickly morphs into something that sounds like it was lifted from Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony.


If there’s any surprise at all in Peja?evi?’s piece it’s how upbeat and optimistic it sounds for a work ostensibly in a minor key. Her melodies have an almost Italianate character to them in their lithe and graceful manner, and if the title and notes didn’t identify the piece as being in minor, I’d bet the farm it was in major.


The piano Phantasie Concertante came two years after completion of the symphony. In a single movement lasting almost 15 minutes, the piece is a virtuoso vehicle that alternates between Gershwin-like bluesy harmonies and jazzy rhythms on the one hand and keyboard figuration right out of Rachmaninoff on the other. Just listen to the broad, lush melody beginning in the cellos at 6:12 and the florid passagework in the piano weaving around and entwining with it. It could have come from the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. I hope someone from Hyperion is reading this, because Peja?evi?’s Phantasie and probably her piano concerto as well are ideal candidates for the next volume of the Romantic Piano Concerto series.


When you hear this piece you will wonder how Peja?evi? could have been forgotten. If the climax to the lengthy aforementioned passage doesn’t sweep you away, I can’t think of much else that will. The fact that Peja?evi? could develop, build, and sustain a musical paragraph of such length is evidence in itself that the woman could write circles around many of her peers, male or female.


Pianist Volker Banfield is stunning, as are conductor Ari Rasilainen and his Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic forces. Cpo has done it again. I thought I’d already settled on my annual Want List selections, but this dark horse entry is just going to have to push another pick aside. Urgently recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

These two piano concertos date from an earlier period than the two violin concertos already released in this series. Piano Concerto No. 2 was composed in 1879 and shows the composer very close to his Leipzig school roots, while No. 4 dates from 1906. Like the later of the two violin concertos, it's more concisely structured than its predecessor, but otherwise is written in much the same style. What distinguishes Röntgen's music here, as elsewhere, is its strong melodic personality, and the sense that, even though the idiom is conservative, the composer has no damaging inhibitions. This is simply who he is.

The performances in this series have been very distinguished, by and large, and this disc is no exception. David Porcelijn is always a fine conductor of unusual repertoire; he makes the music sound easy, natural, and familiar. Pianist Matthias Kirschnereit plays with a very attractive sensitivity to Röntgen's colorful keyboard palette. There's a lot of figuration in the treble register in both of these works, but particularly in Concerto No. 2, and it never sounds pointlessly "tinkly" here. As with other volumes in this project, the engineering is very good. Röntgen wrote a lot of music, and he hasn't let us down yet.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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CPO take a diversion from the symphonies into these two three-movement piano concertos of Germanophile Dutch composer Julius Röntgen.

The concertos owe their glossary to Brahms but this does not mean that they are to the same Olympian scale as the two Brahms concertos. In fact each runs to a couple of minutes either side of half an hour. The style of the Second Piano Concerto of owes a deep fealty to Brahms. One has the sense that Röntgen in 1879 had found the musical apple of his eye and would be feasting his creativity on that object. There is no doubting this. In fact the very oxygen and topography of the ideas derive from the Hamburg-born master. The first movement has that chiming pastoral high-mindedness you hear in the Grieg concerto - Grieg was a friend of Röntgen. The movement traverses stirring Olympian landscapes to attain idyllic introspection. Röntgen’s introspection looks upon internal realms and it is clear that what he finds is good and contents his mind. There is no anxiety here - only a tender absorption in beauty. The second movement is pervaded by centred calm. The finale breaks the spell with a dignified and grand Polish dance - delicious delicacy from 4:55 onwards. For all of my comments about Grieg and Brahms it should be borne in mind that in 1879 the Brahms Second Piano Concerto lay two years in the future though the Grieg had been written a decade earlier.

The shadow of Brahmsian confidence is still there in the wings for the Fourth Concerto. It’s strongly present in the unhurried romanticism of the Larghetto but moderated by a elysian romance - something between Beethoven and Chopin. The finale has a vigorously dancing exuberance. The Allegro is a faithful reflection of the mood of the two outer movements. The First movement lends an ear to the mysterious rumbling of Beethoven’s Ninth but this is a transitory presence. Soon the centripetal pull of Röntgen’s exalted Brahmsian calling asserts itself.

The performances and recording are mete companions to the overarching air of surging confidence and affectionate introspection. The capable and generously proportioned notes are by Röntgen biographer Dr Jurjen Vis. Another strongly perfumed entry in the Röntgen revivals.

For all of my usual comparisons these works are very satisfying and have some extremely beautiful, noble and fresh things to say. Just don’t look for high tragedy.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Recording information: Großer Sendesaal des Landesfunkhausen Niedersachsen.

Emilie Mayer was one of the very few female composers of her time to succeed in full view of the public. The Mecklenburg-born composer was also referred to as the 'female Beethoven'. On our second symphony album, Mayer opens up a new facet of her compositional spectrum by exhibiting classicistic tendencies: clear and transparent outlines, regular periods in the formation of themes, no formal experiments. The additional name "Militaire" refers to the use of piccolo, triangle, cymbals and bass drum in the final movement.

All we know about her seventh symphony is that it was probably composed by 1856. It is fair to say that Emilie Mayer draws in this symphony the sum of her previous experience with the composition of symphonies: large-scale tension-building, such as she practiced in the opening movement of her second symphony, with the classicistically clear formal language that her third symphony exhibits. At the same time, the motivic integration is so dense that the boundaries between thematic and non-thematic formal sections become blurred. More masterpieces by one of the most important female representatives of 19th century Central European music.

Includes work(s) by Johann David Heinichen. Ensemble: Epoca Barocca.

This is fantastically beautiful music: luscious, tuneful, evocative, but never decadent or devoid of energy and purpose. The Sinfonia for strings began life as a quintet, but it sounds splendid for large ensemble. Its four relatively compact movements last about half an hour and are suffused with that "Nordic melancholy" that makes so much of Atterberg's music appealing. There's plenty of vigor too, particularly in the second-movement scherzo and finale. Adagio amoroso was Atterberg's last orchestral work, completed when he was 80, and it also is primarily wistful in character. Both the Intermezzo and Prelude & Fugue are occasional pieces, the former big-boned and hymn-like, the latter slight and generically nice.


Most delightful of all is the Suite No. 7, a string arrangement of incidental music to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. This is marvelous stuff, worthy of Grieg at his best, with a third-movement waltz that easily could become a pops concert favorite. The performances are uniformly excellent: well-played, passionate, and intense, doing the music full justice. Sonically the microphones are just a bit too close to the strings; the result can be overwhelming in fortissimos, but given Atterberg's romantic style it's a slip in the right direction. This is a disc not to be missed, and a treat for all fans of good, warm, tuneful, big-hearted music.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Includes work(s) by Johann Friedrich Fasch. Ensemble: Epoca Barocca.

Classical Music

And shortly after Vol. 1, Vol. 2 is already released with further melody-saturated overtures by Paul Lincke, which are thus as good as complete on cpo. "What Strauss once was for Vienna - Lincke is for Berlin!". These verses by comedian Franz Heigl on Paul Lincke's 75th birthday celebrate the composer not only as the epitome of Berlin light music, but also as the founder of the associated operetta. Just as Strauss's Die Fledermaus was to Viennese operetta, his Frau Luna (soon to be released on cpo) is still considered a prime example of the Berlin variety of this genre, even though it did not take its present form until 30 years after its premiere.

In addition to the overture to Frau Luna, there are other entertaining pieces worth hearing - also from one-act operas - such as the overture to the operetta Das blaue Bild from his successful series at the Apollo Theater in 1906, a "Fantasy in One Act." Its very Parisian overture is characterized by a furious presto beginning, striking cornet and clarinet solos, and its sometimes lyrically rapturous, sometimes exuberantly lively dance-like gesture. True authentic Paul Lincke discoveries!

This set is offered at a special price: 6 discs for the price of 5.

“Compositions that already on a first hearing leave behind a uniquely original impression.” This is what klassik-heute.com wrote after the release of our first album with piano trios by Emilie Mayer. Her extensive chamber oeuvre for piano also contains two piano quartets. She composed these two works, one in E flat major and the other in G major, at the end of the 1850s. At the time Emilie Mayer was an esteemed composer residing in Berlin: most of her works were performed with success, and she enjoyed broad recognition in music circles. Each of her quartets consists of four movements. Here her model in formal matters was not so much Mozart or Beethoven but Schumann, whose sole Piano Quartet op. 47 had been published a good fifteen years before. Considering her music as a whole, we may say that in her piano quartets, just as in her chamber oeuvre in general, Emilie Mayer was a compellingly independent composer with firm rooting in classical models who succeeded in developing a romantic musical language all of her own.

Classical Music

No woman composer of the time compiled an oeuvre as extensive as that of Emilie Mayer, who was born in Friedland, Mecklenburg, in 1812 and made contributions to a wide range of musical genres. She succeeded in doing what remained a mere wish dream for most women composers of her generation: she reaped great praise from the critics and pursued a successful career as a composer – and our three previously released albums featuring her piano and chamber music have confirmed her mastery. Emilie Mayer wrote her eight symphonies between 1845/46 and (at the latest) 1857. Her first two symphonies date from her Stettin study years with Carl Loewe. This period lasted from 1842 to the beginning of 1847, but she hardly would have ventured to write such works at the beginning of these study years with Loewe. The Symphony No. 1 very much leads one to believe that it may have been something like a final examination piece with which she concluded her instruction from him. She quite ostentatiously constructs classical models, displays her modulatory talent, demonstrates her rich formal imagination, exhibits her command of double counterpoint, and works through tonal intricacies with sovereign control (last movement) – and does it all with unrivaled mastery. In the Symphony No. 2 Emilie Mayer emancipates herself from models and pursues completely new paths, above all in dramaturgical development within the compass of the large form. This is immediately shown in the slow introduction of the first movement. With its forty measures it is unusually long, and in some respects it previews the structural idea of the first movement: the building and dismantling of long lines of suspense that are linked together by contrasting and intermittent passages.

Michael Haydn did not achieve the same exorbitant quantity of instrumental music as his older brother, since he had to compose a large amount of sacred music because of his position; but the surviving symphonies and chamber music in particular are not lacking in novel and "original" character traits. This becomes clear, for example, in the six string quartets recorded here, which he wrote sometime in the 1770s or 1780s. Here, personable elegance and subtle humour are combined with a quiet touch of tragic drama to create a very unique candour that reveals a world view that is as moving as it is entertaining, somewhere between the masterpieces of his brother Joseph and Amadeus, who was around twenty years younger.