Dora Pejačević: Piano Quintet in B Minor / Equinox Festival

From Equinox Festival 2024
8 August 2024
Musikhuset København, Copenhagen, Denmark

Emily Davis, violin
Kumi Shimizu, violin
Kei Tojo, viola
Dorothea Wolff, cello
Yannick Rafalimanana, piano

Maria Theodora Paulina Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) was a pianist, violinist, and composer, and the first Croatian to write a modern symphony. Raised in an aristocratic family in Hungary, she travelled Europe’s capitals to receive the best musical education available to women at the time, though as a composer she was largely self-taught. Her interest in contemporary social issues made her acutely aware of her noble privilege, which she addressed in one of her letters: “I don't understand how one can live without work... in everything, I seek substance and value, and neither norms nor traditions nor lineage can blind me with sand in my eyes…”

Pejačević’s early works were strongly rooted in the Romantic tradition, but this changed dramatically after World War I, when she defied aristocratic convention by volunteering as a paramedic, aiding wounding soldiers on the battlefield. Her subsequent compositions shifted profoundly to address themes of death, isolation, and the futility of war. Her Piano Quintet in B Minor was one of her last works, completed before her untimely death in 1923 following childbirth.

In one of her final letters to her husband, she wrote: “May God grant that our child (if I were to leave it to you) brings you joy - that they become a truly open, great human being; pave their paths, but never prevent them from experiencing the suffering that enriches the soul, for only then will they become a person…and therefore treat them equally, whether it be a girl or a boy.”

Equinox is a classical music and dance festival in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Find out more at equinoxfestival.dk