FAMOUS CROATS 2014 - D. PEJACEVIC

DORA PEJAČEVIĆ (1885 – 1923)

Croatian woman composer Dora Pejačević, daughter of the Croatian viceroy and count Teodor Pejačević, belongs to the generation of Croatian composers who shaped the modern period in Croatian music. Born in Budapest, she grew up in the family castle in Našice where she received quality private education. She studied music in Dresden and Munich.
She travelled often, meeting and communicating with great artists of her time, like the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, writer Karl Kraus and painter Maksimilijan Vanka. These acquaintances influenced her creativity by the richness of spirit which she acquired through the years of these encounters and which she included in her work, further deepening by the expression and complexity of her notation traditionally inherited codes of musical reflection.
The most important part of the work by the woman-composer Dora Pejačević was created during the First World War. These are compositions that undoubtedly belong to Croatian music anthology of the 20^th century. We are talking here about Concerto for piano and orchestra in g-minor, op. 33, first of the kind in Croatian music, then Piano quintet in u h-minor, op. 40, followed by sonatas for violin and piano, first modern symphony in the history of Croatian music and many excellent composed songs that by the choice of verses as well as by composer's handwriting express the features of the world of her reflections.
In autumn 1921 Dora Pejačević married Austrian officer Ottamar von Lumbe. From that time she lived in Dresden and Munich where she died after giving birth in the age of 38.
During last decades her opus has attracted numerous experts and found its way to audience. More and more of her works have been published both - as written notes and as sound recordings which opened possibilities of greater interest also outside Croatian border in the work of one of rare woman composers of the last century.


Erika Krpan