0:00

I'm John Banther, and this is Classical

0:02

Breakdown. From

0:05

WETA Classical in Washington, we are your guide

0:08

to classical music. This week,

0:10

I'm joined by WETA Classical's

0:12

Evan Keely, and we are talking about the

0:14

first symphony by a Croatian composer,

0:16

Dora Pejačević. Her Symphony

0:18

in F- sharp Minor is quite a first too.

0:21

It is a large work, and we explore

0:23

the specific sounds that she creates

0:25

in part because of how and where she grew

0:27

up. We also look at how her experience

0:30

serving in World War I affected the symphony.

0:32

We show you what to listen for and we point

0:34

out moments that look to the past and to the

0:36

future. Okay,

0:41

Evan, we have here the first

0:43

symphony, or sometimes as it's described,

0:45

the first modern symphony by a Croatian

0:48

composer, Dora Pejačević.

0:50

She completed this in 1917 during

0:52

World War I, and it's quite

0:54

a first symphony from

0:56

a country. It's not something we see all

0:59

too often here when we're talking about countries

1:01

like France or Germany or England and so

1:03

on. While I've had some Croatian

1:06

friends and I've played with some Croatian

1:08

people, our assistant program director, Zena,

1:10

she performed in Zagreb as a soloist with

1:12

their own military band, but we never thought

1:14

about early Croatian orchestral

1:16

music who wrote their first symphony.

1:19

I mean Evan, I would not have guessed that would've been in

1:21

1917.

1:23

There's so much that there is to learn. I'm

1:25

at the beginnings of learning about Dora

1:27

Pejačević and about Croatian

1:29

music in general. So, yeah,

1:31

there's a whole world to discover here,

1:33

and this symphony is a great place to

1:35

start.

1:37

It certainly is, and we can look

1:39

real quick at her life for a moment.

1:41

Born Maria Theodora Paulina

1:43

Pejačević, and we remember her now by the

1:45

name she preferred Dora. She was born

1:48

in Budapest in 1885

1:50

to a, seems to be, well- to-

1:52

do aristocratic family.

1:54

Evan, tell us about this.

1:56

So her father was of the

1:58

House of Pejačević, which is a Croatian

2:01

aristocratic family. They trace their

2:03

roots back to at least I

2:06

think the 14th century. Her

2:08

mother was Hungarian and she also

2:10

came from an aristocratic family on

2:13

that side. So, we often remember

2:15

Dora Pejačević as a Croatian- Hungarian

2:18

composer. That is in fact an accurate

2:20

way to describe her. They

2:22

lived in various places. They were

2:24

a wealthy family. They had an estate in

2:27

the Croatian town of Nasice,

2:29

so they spent a lot of time there in

2:31

Croatia. But frankly, Dora is someone

2:34

who seems to have really traveled around

2:36

quite a lot throughout Europe, and

2:38

she and her family and her friends frequented

2:42

European capitals. They spent

2:44

a lot of time in Germany and Austria

2:46

and Hungary and Croatia, and

2:49

in what's now we think of as

2:51

the Czech part

2:54

of Europe. So, this is

2:56

a multilingual, multicultural

2:58

family, and a group of people

3:00

that she's a part of. She was very sophisticated.

3:03

She was really a very dynamic

3:06

person intellectually and I think spiritually

3:08

even. You really see that

3:10

reflected in her music and in

3:12

the way she lived her life, which sadly

3:14

was not very long. She

3:16

died at the age of 37. So,

3:19

we can think of her like we think

3:21

of composers like Mendelssohn or Mozart

3:23

or Schubert who didn't live to see

3:25

40 years of age. She was 37 when she

3:27

died in 1923. She

3:30

actually died of a postpartum infection after

3:32

giving birth to her only child. Even

3:36

though she moved in very sophisticated circles,

3:39

not only in the musical world, but in

3:41

the literary world, in the artistic world, she's

3:43

not associated with a particular

3:46

composer. She studied music

3:48

formally in Zagreb and in

3:50

Munich, but she never took a degree. There's

3:52

not this one or two composers

3:55

we can think of. We don't think of Pejačević

3:57

as, " Oh, she studied with so- and-

3:59

so." She had a lot of influences,

4:02

and as we get into this symphony that she wrote,

4:04

John, we'll be discovering

4:07

by listening as well as

4:09

thinking about and talking about her life, what

4:11

some of those influences were. But she was

4:13

also a very original composer.

4:17

She sounds very cosmopolitan

4:19

and I think you're right. You hear a lot of these

4:21

different things come together

4:23

in her music. Also,

4:26

during World War I, she served as

4:28

a paramedic, and we're going to get into that

4:30

a little bit more later on and how it actually

4:32

relates to this symphony.

4:39

But jumping into the first

4:41

movement from the start, there is

4:43

a very big serious

4:45

sound from this. It sounds very, very imposing.

4:48

It sounds big in the sounds

4:51

of, if we think of other composers who came before,

4:53

like Tchaikovsky and Dvorak of the

4:55

late 20th century, you hear those

4:57

sounds here, but also, it sounds very

4:59

early 20th century too.

5:01

Yeah. One of the things that's fascinating about

5:03

this is she's one of these composers

5:06

for whom the intersection of

5:08

romanticism and modernity is

5:10

this real tension. You hear

5:13

the influence of romantic, the

5:15

romantic style certainly in this

5:17

symphony and in other works that she composed,

5:20

but there's also this reaching

5:22

for something new and you

5:24

really hear that tension in this music. You hear

5:26

that exploring some new

5:29

musical language here. She's really

5:31

thinking deeply about how to make a serious

5:33

musical statement. I think just

5:35

as an individual, but also as a woman

5:37

composer at a time where even

5:40

in 1917, a lot of people

5:42

still think women should just be writing parlor

5:45

music if they should be writing at all.

5:47

She's also making an assertion, I think, as a Croatian

5:50

composer doing something. As we're

5:52

saying, it's regarded

5:54

as the first modern Croatian symphony.

5:56

I get a sense that she's very conscious

5:58

of that, and this is the statement

6:01

she wants to make within that

6:03

realm, this Andante Maestoso that

6:06

opens up this symphony.

6:08

The way she creates tension and then

6:10

how she releases that tension is really

6:12

something to look out for in

6:14

this symphony. I think whenever you find a new

6:17

composer or a composer from a different

6:19

country, for example, then you're used

6:21

to listening how they do transitions

6:24

or how they build tension and release is something

6:26

to look out for. I like how she

6:28

does it here with horns, sighing

6:31

in the background, that sigh, of course,

6:33

a musical device that came around 170

6:36

years earlier used here to its

6:38

full effect and it really feels like

6:41

a release. We

6:43

have a line that feels like it's

6:45

very twisting, almost like it's just a fragment

6:47

of a line that's being passed around

6:50

in this opening andante. Then

6:52

it comes into full view when we go into

6:54

the faster tempo, Allegro Con

6:56

Moto. But

7:05

the contrast here from the slower

7:07

to a faster tempo, it's not as strong

7:09

as you might assume with

7:12

all the other symphonies that you hear from 100 years

7:14

before. Strong contrast from the slow to

7:16

the fast. Here's the intro. Now let's get

7:18

going. Here it just happens.

7:22

When I'm listening to this moment

7:24

and further, Evan, it feels like when you

7:26

visit a new city for the first time and

7:28

you're taking that taxi ride downtown

7:31

or whatever, you've been in a city before,

7:33

but these are different surroundings. It feels different.

7:35

It feels the same. You catch a glimpses of

7:38

things you recognize like, oh, that's their

7:40

drug store or this restaurant.

7:43

You don't pass into the downtown

7:45

in this symphony through a palatial

7:47

looking gate. You gradually

7:50

come from the airport and there's more and more

7:52

interesting buildings over the minutes

7:54

that you're traveling and you realize

7:56

finally like, " Oh, here we are. We're downtown. Look

7:58

at this amazing architecture and

8:00

look at these interesting people walking on the

8:02

streets and so forth." We slip

8:05

into the Allegro. It's almost unnoticeable.

8:08

I had to listen a couple of times before I realized, "

8:10

Oh, that's where the tempo change is. Okay, now

8:12

we're in the Allegro. Now the movement is really strong."

8:14

Okay, wow. She just almost

8:17

deceived me and lulled

8:19

me into this sense of not really knowing

8:22

where I am, but really wanting to be where I

8:24

am and to explore this

8:26

new city, as you were saying.

8:28

It builds off of this idea,

8:31

and I think we can look at some of the instruments

8:33

being featured here. She really

8:36

treats the winds in a way that

8:38

I love. We have English horn, bassoon,

8:40

oboe, and flute. It

8:43

feels like she's treating them specifically

8:45

here like another string

8:47

section that are passing lines to each

8:49

other constantly on top of each other,

8:51

almost running into each other, and

8:54

it feels like she's treating almost like another

8:56

string section as opposed to a decorative

8:59

wind section. Maybe I'm reading into things

9:01

there, but I get that feeling as I'm listening

9:04

to her music.

9:04

She clearly knows how to write with

9:07

the different colors of the different instrumental

9:09

groups.

9:12

She does it beautifully with some sequences

9:14

in the brass that lead us to a

9:17

lush moment with the horns

9:27

and then very lush strings

9:29

that take that over again. The

9:31

tension that she creates, the

9:34

releases she creates from that, and then

9:36

the lush sounds that she has

9:38

here, it is actually

9:41

what you were saying in terms of you are lulled

9:43

into things before you really recognize you

9:45

are there.

9:46

You get swept away in this emotional...

9:50

There's this emotional sweep to this section

9:53

here, and I'm mindful of 1917

9:55

is an era in which a composer like Puccini

9:57

is really at the height of his

9:59

fame and powers. There's

10:02

an operatic quality to this moment.

10:05

There's this lushness that reminds me a little bit

10:07

of Puccini.

10:09

Something else that she does that I think we find

10:12

other composers doing later is

10:14

maybe what we can describe as a loosely

10:17

early Hollywood sound. You hear

10:19

things, especially when she's having a

10:21

lush thing happening,

10:24

you hear, " Oh, this sounds like what Eric

10:26

Korngold was doing later or even

10:28

John Williams today." You hear stuff and it's

10:30

like, " Oh, he really was digging

10:33

into these transitionary times in the 1910s,

10:36

like Eric Korngold and other composers too."

10:39

There's a theatricality to this

10:41

music as well. I don't mean

10:43

that disparagingly. On the contrary, there's a sense

10:45

of drama. There's an almost cinematic

10:47

quality to this symphony. Mentioning

10:50

Eric Korngold, of course, a great film

10:52

composer who two

10:54

decades after this is really going to be active

10:57

in that scene literally in Hollywood. There's

10:59

a stylistic similarity that

11:02

we hear in this symphony.

11:04

I guess Eric Korngold coming from Austria,

11:06

right? I mean, that's not 2, 000

11:09

miles away from Croatia.

11:10

Yeah. Yeah.

11:11

We get to the

11:14

biggest moment in the movement so

11:16

far halfway through, and

11:18

it feels like it's overflowing. This

11:21

is what I love also about her music and

11:23

these big moments where it feels like just this big

11:26

body of water, a huge cup just overflowing.

11:30

I love how the cello takes it afterwards,

11:33

and this is a moment, especially how she

11:35

lets the music relax, how she gets out of these

11:37

moments. It feels quite

11:39

French to me.

11:46

Yeah, there's definitely a French sound to that. There's

11:48

a Beethovenian quality

11:50

to this too. There's an economy.

11:52

She takes these little thematic fragments

11:54

and there's a lot of sequences. You

11:57

and I talked about Bruckner not too long ago, John,

12:00

and how he was able to use repetition

12:03

and small bits of thematic material

12:05

in this repetitive way that rather

12:07

than being monotonous, really builds this

12:09

sense of drama and a

12:12

sense of direction. Pejačević, I think,

12:14

is also really skilled in that same aspect.

12:17

Another thing to listen for in a composer

12:19

you either are new to or they're from a place

12:22

that you aren't familiar with is to listen to how

12:24

they build up the sound in

12:27

the background, how they take you from a small place to

12:29

a really, really big place. We

12:31

see things in her music like a big

12:33

timpani roll that creates that big rumbling

12:36

foundation, a theme

12:38

in the brass that is very striking. What

12:40

I love specifically with her is how she uses

12:42

the strings and winds like

12:44

a storm blustering up and down.

12:47

We hear that of course in the century before

12:49

in big ways from composers like Wagner

12:52

and Liszt, but maybe more so

12:54

in a suggestive

12:57

or theatrical way.

12:59

This feels more realistic. It's

13:01

like the difference between if you think about

13:03

a film that uses a lot of matte painting

13:05

versus filming exactly on

13:07

the location. Hopefully, some people

13:10

understand where I'm going there with that, but she's

13:12

doing so much more descriptively

13:15

in the music and how she uses the winds and

13:17

strings to bluster up and down. Then

13:20

Evan, we get to another

13:22

moment to talk about a woodwind instrument.

13:32

It's one that I think sets up some

13:34

other things in the symphony, and that is

13:37

she uses the bass clarinet and

13:40

she uses interesting choices at times

13:43

in using winds to create

13:45

a very intimate moment. Here

13:48

it's interesting because it almost sounds like it was actually

13:50

written for B- flat clarinet,

13:52

like the normal clarinet you would hear, and maybe higher

13:55

up like an octave with this nice background

13:57

from the bassoons, but putting it in bass

13:59

clarinet, it adds a new dimension, a new

14:02

sadness before other winds

14:04

take over. Something

14:11

else she does with the

14:14

winds, Evan, is something you see other composers

14:16

do at times, and that is create something like

14:19

harmonium or a street

14:21

organ sound. It makes you think, what

14:23

was she also hearing in her day-

14:25

to- day life? Because even when I was living in the Netherlands,

14:28

you'd hear these street organs semi-

14:30

frequently in the 2000s, 2010s.

14:33

Well, again, given her very cosmopolitan

14:36

background and the circles

14:38

in which she moved, I can't imagine

14:40

she wasn't exposed to a great

14:42

many different varieties of sounds,

14:45

both from the most complex

14:48

compositions of the day to, like you say,

14:50

somebody on street or whatever or

14:53

things in a salon or

14:55

at a music hall. I

14:59

really get the sense of her as an astute

15:01

listener, and she's able

15:03

to integrate what she's been hearing

15:06

in these different places where

15:08

she's finds herself, where she

15:10

inserts herself very, very assertively.

15:14

She takes that imagination and

15:16

is able to feed it back to us in this really

15:18

original and striking way in the symphony.

15:20

I like that. It sounds like it's the idea

15:23

of well, she's

15:25

taking in everything as she's going to all of

15:27

these different places and experiences, not

15:29

just like Bach holed up in a room

15:32

riding cantata after cantata

15:34

after cantata, maybe with screaming kids

15:36

in the background.

15:37

Yeah. Well, screaming makes me think of

15:39

her experience as a paramedic in World War I, and

15:42

she's writing the symphony in

15:44

some ways perhaps is a response to that experience.

15:47

She's clearly a very sensitive person.

15:49

Of course, anyone is going to

15:52

have a very difficult time integrating

15:54

those kinds of horrors into

15:56

their life. The war comes to an end.

15:58

The war ends and she starts writing the symphony.

16:01

She finishes it in 1917. She

16:03

makes some revisions for a

16:05

1920 performance,

16:08

and she's trying to make sense

16:10

of this experience that the world

16:13

has been through this unbelievable trauma.

16:15

I can't even imagine what she's experienced

16:17

as a paramedic. I mean, you think of

16:19

the horrors, the sounds that she

16:21

heard and the sights that she had

16:24

to see and the smells. So,

16:27

she's really trying to, I

16:30

think, make sense of her experience.

16:32

This symphony, I think, is a very personal statement.

16:35

So, when we have these very, really interesting

16:38

instrumental choices, for instance, she's trying

16:40

to find a way to articulate

16:43

with this many layers of her experience.

16:47

One of the things that's so compelling to me about the

16:49

symphony is how she's able to do that,

16:51

again with her use of thematic material,

16:54

her use of really interesting

16:56

and in some cases unusual

16:58

instrumentation, the formal

17:01

structure of the piece. You

17:03

feel like there's a lot going on.

17:06

There is a lot going on, and as

17:08

people might guess, this is a big long

17:10

first movement. We are still in

17:13

it and there is so much more even

17:15

to get into it. I think with a lot of the

17:17

things that we've said with a couple

17:19

of listens, you really start picking up on

17:22

some of these things like how she uses instruments.

17:24

Also, contrabassoon on some of the entrances

17:27

are really beautiful. How

17:33

she sets up low instruments, playing

17:36

like a nice stretching line

17:38

in a way that lets the higher sounding instruments

17:41

just rest on top and not have to push through

17:44

anything as well. Another

17:46

moment that calls back to what I was saying before

17:48

in terms how they build up a section,

17:51

listen out for that, we get to a point that

17:53

is really one of my favorite points

17:55

in the entire symphony, especially the first time

17:57

I heard it. Lines are crossing

17:59

this way and that way, and

18:02

you feel you are getting

18:04

pushed to this huge moment and

18:16

you are deceived. It's not what you thought it was going

18:18

to be.

18:20

Yeah, it feels deceptive in

18:22

a way that doesn't leave you feeling cheated.

18:24

It's building up to this moment

18:27

and then you feel like there's going to be this big resolution

18:29

and then something else happens. Rather

18:32

than feeling like, " Oh, I'm disappointed

18:34

that it didn't go where I thought it

18:36

was," I just find myself even more

18:38

interested in what she's trying to say.

18:41

It brings to mind for me something

18:43

you mentioned, and that is her being

18:45

in World War I, this

18:49

massive change and massive shift

18:51

in a moment. I mean, it feels quite

18:53

existential and terrifying.

18:55

There's an off- balance

18:57

feeling in this symphony in

19:00

her music. There's a sense of something isn't

19:02

quite right. Rather

19:04

than it being something that makes me want

19:06

to look away, it makes me want

19:08

to lean in and understand what it

19:11

is that she's trying to say about her own

19:13

confusion, her own uncertainty.

19:16

Yet there's also this sense of this is someone

19:18

with a very decisive personality,

19:21

someone who believes in herself. How does

19:24

someone like that make sense of the senseless?

19:27

I love what you're saying. They're making sense of the senseless.

19:30

Just to recap this movement here and some things that we've

19:32

heard, she creates this massive

19:35

sound within the orchestra that's

19:37

balanced when it needs to be, maybe unbalanced

19:39

when it needs to be, and how she uses

19:41

those lower instruments to let the higher instruments

19:45

sit on the sound. Also, lots

19:47

of repetition, almost

19:49

more than I would even like, but it just works,

19:52

especially how she uses the fragments.

19:54

Also, I love, Evan, the lush

19:57

sound that she's bringing at

19:59

different moments throughout the first movement.

20:02

Yeah, lush

20:04

is a great word. This, of course, as you were

20:06

saying, John, is characteristic

20:08

of the music of this era. In

20:11

her music and in this symphony in particular,

20:13

it never feels excessive.

20:15

It never feels self- indulgent. It's

20:18

just right.

20:20

We can stop for a moment and think about her time

20:23

in World War I. As you mentioned, Evan,

20:25

she was a paramedic and that sounds

20:27

like the worst position

20:29

you can be in besides the person in front

20:32

of you actually dying in the conflict.

20:35

This had a profound effect

20:37

on her and her music. After

20:40

this experience,

20:43

she wrote this. In fact, I

20:45

am only physically present. Everything

20:48

I feel as living and experiencing floats

20:50

above the present and the visible and

20:52

in a deep and beautiful infinity. I see

20:54

in the mirror of my feelings, the driving

20:57

force in the form of beloved beings.

20:59

Thousands of memories emerge like water

21:02

lilies on the smooth surface of a lake.

21:04

In this infinity, feelings are followed by

21:06

thoughts. There I contemplate my

21:09

best for all that is good and great

21:11

grows from love. Soaring

21:13

into that most invisible world of innermost

21:15

being, I become completely my

21:17

own self. That self, which

21:20

then feels too filled with itself and

21:22

that distant, heavenly seclusion, seeks

21:24

expression, seeks relief

21:26

from that high mental pressure, which

21:29

is in itself a kind of enthusiasm

21:31

and that liberation is achieved when

21:34

a composition is born. That

21:36

is quite a statement, Evan, and

21:39

some very sad aspects to it. Of

21:41

course, you read about this from World War I and afterwards

21:43

when she says, " I'm only physically present.

21:46

What I experience and feel, that floats

21:49

above somewhere."

21:50

Yet she is asserting in this statement,

21:53

a refusal to be defeated

21:56

by the horrors of what she had

21:58

to go through and what everyone in the world had to go

22:00

through in the course of this

22:02

cataclysm that is World War I, which is

22:05

I think difficult for us a little

22:07

over a hundred years later to contemplate just what

22:09

a shock it was globally.

22:12

People had lived through this unbelievable

22:15

devastation, just the ridiculous,

22:18

absurd, horrifying

22:20

loss of life. She

22:22

was literally there, like you

22:24

said. A

22:27

soldier in the foxhole is

22:29

maybe the worst place to be, but the paramedic

22:31

who has to tend to the wounded right

22:34

after the poison gas has floated through

22:36

or the shell has gone off. That was

22:39

Dora Pejačević, and she's really trying

22:41

to make sense of this experience. One

22:44

of the things I think she's saying in this statement

22:46

you just read, John, and in this symphony and

22:48

in all of her music, is that she

22:50

won't be bowed down by

22:52

those horrors that she is integrating

22:55

them into her experience. She's not

22:57

pretending it didn't happen. She's not just

23:00

trying to forget it, but she's also

23:02

aware of how it has shaped

23:04

her. She feels

23:06

that if anything,

23:09

I think she's reaffirming what

23:11

is of greatest value, and she says this thing about

23:13

all that is good and great flows from love.

23:17

How do you make sense of that as a listener?

23:20

As you're listening to a symphony and you think

23:22

to yourself, " Okay, this is a composer who believes

23:24

that all that is good at great flows from love,"

23:27

and yet somehow I hear that

23:29

in this symphony. I can hear that

23:31

in a way that's not articulable, that

23:35

this is the statement she's making in this symphony.

23:38

I like what you're saying there, Evan, and I think I

23:41

am in agreement with that. There is something in

23:43

here that is intrinsically

23:46

different. Looking

23:56

at the second movement, it opens with this English

23:59

horn solo that goes

24:01

on and on, and it's

24:04

the basis of the movement. Actually,

24:06

from a recording of this symphony

24:08

in the CD liner notes, Pamela Blevins

24:10

wrote, " The plaintive call of a solo

24:13

cor anglais, English horn, invites

24:15

one to enter a labyrinth of emotion,

24:17

filled with nostalgia and sadness,

24:20

reflections of the composer's yearning for

24:22

comfort and peace in a world

24:24

torn apart by war." I

24:27

think a labyrinth of emotion is a

24:29

good description, I think, because

24:31

you hear these long lines. They take you down

24:33

different twists and turns. It feels

24:35

dark, it feels foggy, and

24:37

you're finding or you're seeing just maybe lost

24:40

people at the ends of these paths.

24:42

It feels quite existential.

24:45

John, you and I were talking about this before

24:47

recording this episode, and you were saying there's

24:49

a Prokofiev- esque quality

24:51

to this melody and to this movement,

24:54

and I think that's true. He's also a composer.

24:56

Sergei Prokofiev is one

24:59

of many composers of this era who are really

25:01

trying through their music to make

25:03

sense of the horror and confusion

25:06

of the era. There's this

25:08

honesty of emotion that's being

25:10

expressed here in this slow movement

25:13

of Pejačević's Symphony that I

25:15

find so irresistible.

25:20

Just as we have some of these beautiful

25:22

lines close by, there's always

25:25

darker ones. There's always this contrast

25:29

or this juxtaposition of something light

25:31

towards something dark. Not

25:34

too long after this, we get to

25:37

a desolate unique landscape,

25:40

not too out of, I think, the

25:42

context of what we've heard

25:44

from her in terms of her experience in World War I,

25:46

very desolate sounding. She

25:48

built from this. We get

25:50

to something

25:52

almost like

25:55

a respite, something very pastoral in the

25:57

music, Evan.

26:03

It seems to be there's a change of time signature

26:05

here. It sounds like we were in 3/

26:08

4, one, two, three, and

26:10

then there's this 12/ 8 or 6/

26:12

8, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup,

26:14

bup rhythm that comes in.

26:16

Again, when we were talking about the first movement

26:19

and the shift from the slow introduction

26:21

to the allegro, you don't really notice

26:23

it. You have, " Oh, look, we're at a different

26:25

tempo now." This is a similar

26:28

a thing where we're just suddenly find ourselves

26:30

in new territory and maybe don't realize it

26:32

right away. Again, there's

26:34

this use of repetition, but

26:36

now she's using harmony, this new dimension

26:39

to repeating passages

26:42

with different harmonic inflections

26:45

to generate a continued feeling of

26:47

interest and movement. After

26:49

that, we're building up to something. We're only

26:52

halfway through the movement at this point,

26:54

and she

26:57

uses the timpani to help us to build

26:59

to this massive...

27:01

It feels like a climactic point about

27:04

halfway through.

27:20

Sometimes in the repetition, the

27:23

change of instrument is what's being

27:25

changed or brought

27:27

out. We get back to a solo line

27:29

from the beginning of the movement, but now in bass

27:32

clarinet again, that not so

27:34

cheerful sounding instrument sounds

27:36

stoic.

27:51

She keeps bringing that bass clarinet

27:53

out. Again, as you said, John, it's an

27:55

unusual instrument to be highlighted

27:57

in this way, but when she does it, it

28:00

just punctuates things with such...

28:02

It's so compelling. You sit

28:05

up in your seat like what's happening now.

28:09

And then another solo instrument to bring back

28:11

that returns, the English

28:13

horn returns with a very

28:15

interesting chord

28:17

towards the end. It

28:19

feels almost exactly out of Strauss's

28:22

Also sprach Zarathustra. This F-

28:24

sharp minor diminished in the trombones

28:26

that resolves to be

28:29

minor. I love how she does that ending. Evan,

28:54

as we look back on this movement,

28:56

what really grabs me, what really informs

28:59

my whole maybe idea of it is the labyrinth

29:02

of emotions. We're going through different emotions

29:05

and we're going through a labyrinth, sometimes backtracking

29:08

maybe where we were in the music. I love how she does

29:10

that.

29:11

I love too this structure of this movement.

29:13

There's a kind of ABA,

29:15

like we have one section and there's a contrasting

29:18

section, but the contrasting,

29:20

the middle section doesn't quite

29:23

evolve. It starts and then

29:25

we're left with this sense of

29:27

what might've been. Then

29:29

we go back to earlier, the

29:31

A section from the earlier in the movement,

29:34

and there's again, this strange, this

29:36

time signature shift that we don't quite

29:38

notice. Again, everything feels

29:40

like it's off- balance, and

29:42

yet rather than feeling confused or lost

29:44

ourselves as a listener, we want to go with

29:47

her on the journey.

29:49

We'll get into the next two

29:51

movements and a little bit about the premiere right

29:53

after this. So,

29:55

she was writing this during World

29:57

War I. Two movements were premiered

29:59

in Vienna in 1918.

30:02

Then she did some later reworking and revising

30:05

on the Symphony and premiered it in full

30:08

in 1920. Also, not too

30:10

unusual, I think, at the time having plenty of composers

30:13

during this time premiered parts of works or

30:15

little bits of things, and then the whole thing

30:17

came later after the war.

30:18

Absolutely.

30:23

So let's just jump into the third movement.

30:25

It feels very characteristic,

30:27

feels like you're being whisked away,

30:30

and it's also the shortest movement

30:32

of a symphony. We didn't mention that second movement,

30:35

that's also the slow one we heard. That's also

30:37

a very long movement.

30:38

Yeah. This is a typical

30:41

in terms of the structure, you have a

30:44

fast first movement, a slow second movement,

30:46

and then have a scherzo third movement,

30:48

a fast three. This goes

30:51

all the way back to Beethoven. So,

30:54

she's taking that very traditional form

30:57

and yet saying something very original with it.

30:59

One of the things I find really interesting in this theme

31:01

that we hear over and over again in this scherzo

31:03

is this harmonic language

31:06

of I'm not sure what's happening.

31:08

It sounds a little bit like planing to me,

31:10

which is a phenomenon in music,

31:12

especially in this era. Debussy used

31:15

it a lot where you have these parallel

31:17

harmonies moving in ways that are

31:19

very untraditional for European music.

31:22

Debussy was particularly revolutionary

31:25

in his use of these parallel movements

31:27

that sound " wrong"

31:30

to an ear that's used to hearing music like

31:32

Mozart for example. You

31:37

have this almost this wrong note,

31:40

this sense

31:42

of a wrong note that sounds right

31:46

in this movement that really is prominently

31:48

displayed in a way that I find really

31:50

exciting.

31:52

That's building

31:54

off of what you just said, Evan. She's going this

31:57

traditional idea of this opening symphonic

31:59

movement, a slow second, a scherzo third,

32:02

and she's still bringing some

32:04

of the ideas from that past. Yeah,

32:06

there's a bit of humor in this scherzo in this joke, but she's doing in this new

32:10

modern way.

32:11

Yeah, it's edgy. There

32:14

is some humor. There's even some levity,

32:17

and yet there's also a...

32:20

I don't know if sinister is the right word, but

32:23

there's definitely-

32:25

Like a trickster.

32:26

Yeah, there's

32:28

a darkness behind the smile of

32:31

the joke. The joke is

32:33

we're not sure if it's at our own expense or

32:36

we should be laughing with. There's

32:39

an edginess to this, an unsettled quality

32:41

as we were saying earlier.

32:54

This movement is unusual in

32:56

my opinion, in that the biggest point

32:58

in the movement happens towards

33:01

the beginning. A minute and a half in, we

33:03

get to the biggest build- up of this,

33:05

and then it feels like she's using the rest

33:07

of the movement to explain

33:09

what just happened. Usually,

33:12

you think, " Oh, this scherzo builds up, builds

33:14

up, builds up into this big moment, and

33:16

then we bring it down and then go to the next." But

33:18

that's right towards the beginning. Then

33:22

later on just a few minutes later,

33:24

it comes down to a point that actually

33:26

feels like the end of this scherzo. So,

33:28

it could almost be just like three minutes long,

33:31

but that's just all in the first a little bit

33:33

and a lot more happens after.

33:39

Another thing haven't talked about much, we've

33:41

talked about her use of wind writing

33:43

and how she writes for the strings. There's a lot

33:45

of very interesting percussion writing in

33:48

this symphony. There's a lot of percussion instruments,

33:51

including a xylophone, which

33:53

we hear really prominently in this scherzo.

33:56

There's a really, I think, a

33:59

20th century sound to

34:01

the sound world she creates with the percussion

34:04

section in particular.

34:06

You're right. It is so 20th

34:08

century and so modern of that

34:10

time, and it's in the percussion and it's so

34:13

small. It's just the xylophone

34:15

at certain parts that just change

34:17

the whole color of it or even the glockenspiel at

34:19

one point too. There

34:22

is a very, very lush

34:24

moment here still after that big open,

34:26

and we still get a very lush sound

34:29

and a lush texture and

34:33

maybe more towards a delirious

34:36

dance in a ball.

34:37

Yeah, delirium is a good word to describe a lot of

34:39

the feeling I have in this movement.

34:42

Something you mentioned earlier, Evan, and that

34:44

I think also applies here and other places

34:46

is how she maybe

34:49

more towards Beethoven in terms of being

34:52

a rhythmic composer, all

34:54

the rhythmic elements she has in her music

34:56

as opposed to maybe a long melodic line

34:59

you find in a Mozart symphony.

35:01

Yeah, the rhythmic writing is certainly very

35:03

dynamic, and she

35:05

has a sense of how to create,

35:08

as we were saying earlier about tempo changes

35:10

and so forth, time signature changes that you

35:12

don't notice right away, and

35:15

also, in this scherzo in particular,

35:17

we're going all the way back

35:19

to, as you said, all the way back to Beethoven.

35:21

This has always been usually

35:23

a fast three, which is what she chooses

35:26

to do. It's very traditional in that sense,

35:28

and yet there's this sense of vitality

35:31

that she infuses into it.

35:37

So now we get into the finale

35:39

of her symphony, which is a nice transition

35:42

I think from the scherzo. It also

35:45

sounds big and

35:48

serious like the opening

35:50

of her first movement. But this one,

35:53

it's still going to be a mixed

35:55

bag of emotions and one instrument

35:57

to think about before

35:59

I forget, listen for the horns throughout this movement.

36:02

At times, it sounds like they're fighting for their lives

36:04

in the background.

36:05

Yeah. She really knows how to create tension

36:08

and drama, especially with the horn

36:10

section. This movement too

36:12

really strikes me as Pejačević

36:15

dies in 1923. As

36:18

we were saying, John, she's

36:20

at the cusp of that movement from

36:22

romanticism to 20th century

36:25

modernism. You hear that

36:27

tension in this symphony. It really strikes

36:29

me, especially the opening of this finale,

36:32

we're still very much in the romantic vein.

36:34

It really feels like a romantic symphony at

36:37

this part, I think more so than some

36:39

other places in the symphony. Yet

36:41

it doesn't feel out of place. It doesn't feel

36:43

inconsistent. It's just she's

36:45

still authentically expressing herself

36:48

in that milieu, in that vein, in

36:51

a way that, like you said, the mixed bag of emotions

36:53

I think is part of what makes it continues

36:57

to engage our interest.

36:59

There is another moment here that is just,

37:02

to me, it feels like all the film composers

37:05

were looking over her shoulder for a

37:07

moment in time. We hear something that sounds very

37:10

John Williams to me, especially

37:12

how she harmonically goes

37:14

from one thing to the next, but

37:16

it has this sound that feels familiar today.

37:19

Yeah. To me, this feels like

37:21

romanticism at its height. Even

37:25

the harmonic language here to me

37:27

seems a little bit more restrained. There's a clarity

37:30

to the harmonic language here that's

37:32

maybe deliberately muddled

37:34

in some other places in the symphony. There's

37:37

maybe less fragmentation and more thematic

37:40

clarity. There's a

37:42

decisive quality. This

37:44

is the final movement. We're going to just tell

37:46

it like it is. That

37:49

edginess is still present, but there's somehow

37:52

for me, less ambiguity as we get to

37:54

the finale.

37:56

Another moment I want to talk about

37:58

in terms of how she transitions

38:01

in or out of something, that's something to hear for in

38:04

a composer. How do we get from this idea or this

38:06

atmosphere into the next

38:08

thing? She does this moment here

38:12

in an anxiety- inducing way, or it sounds

38:14

very anxious because she gets back

38:16

into the music with busy lines

38:18

that overlap each other. It almost

38:20

sounds like it's unnecessarily so. This

38:23

is too much happening here. Instead

38:25

of letting the cello and bass sections

38:28

speak on the moment they have, and

38:30

then the trumpet and then horn, and then

38:32

glockenspiel with maybe some winds for decoration,

38:35

instead of those moments happening one

38:37

after another to then slowly build, they're

38:39

stepping on each other's toes. They're all over

38:41

each other, and it adds a sense

38:43

of urgency to it.

38:56

Yeah, it doesn't sound chaotic

38:58

or she doesn't know what she's doing, but

39:00

yeah, there's definitely a confusion

39:03

that happens here. As I was saying earlier,

39:05

there's a clarity that we have

39:07

at the beginning of the movement and then

39:09

as we're getting into the developing the

39:11

themes that she's presenting at the beginning

39:13

of the finale, there's a sense of stepping

39:15

on each other and crowding each other's space.

39:18

Yet it creates a sense of

39:20

excitement and urgency rather

39:22

than just being chaotic.

39:25

Not to keep mentioning like Hollywood or

39:27

film music today, but there's

39:30

another moment here that sounds like... I mean,

39:32

I think I played a Star Wars game on Nintendo

39:34

64 that had this exact

39:37

sound in the background

39:39

because I thought of it immediately when

39:42

I heard this. So, I really

39:44

love the interesting and forward-

39:46

looking timbre she's bringing into the

39:49

music. Then

39:52

Evan, we get to a point where we

39:55

find ourselves in so many symphonies.

39:57

It feels like, okay, we're here in

39:59

the final minute or minute and a half of the

40:01

symphony. It feels like you're on rails. We are headed

40:03

straight to the scene of the crash

40:06

or the scene of the ending really,

40:08

so to speak, of final ascent or

40:10

descent. I just

40:13

love how she brings that out here.

40:33

And then the final minutes, we have this

40:35

headfirst sprint into this big F- sharp

40:38

minor conclusion. We end

40:40

where we started this,

40:42

and also in the sense of we started

40:44

with this sense of seriousness. The

40:47

music has a serious tone, but there's also

40:49

this sense of artistic seriousness as

40:51

a personal integrity. Dora

40:54

Pejačević as a composer is letting

40:56

us know that she has something worthwhile to say.

40:59

It ends on that serious note. That's

41:01

that note of commitment,

41:03

that note of self-

41:05

awareness, that moment of insight.

41:10

You come to the end of the symphony and you really feel

41:12

like it was time well spent. I

41:25

didn't know this piece until fairly recently,

41:28

and I've been listening to it many

41:30

times. I really want to get my hands on a score

41:32

and study it more. There's just a lot

41:34

happening here. It's an exciting

41:37

piece. It's a beautiful piece.

41:40

It's a sophisticated piece, but it doesn't

41:42

leave you feeling browbeaten or confused.

41:45

But there's this fascinating

41:47

forest of different things to explore.

41:50

I want to just keep listening to this symphony

41:53

and learning more about the music

41:55

of Dora Pejačević, really fine composer.

41:58

A forest of things to explore is

42:00

a great point I think to make on this, Evan, because

42:03

each time you listen, you're going to hear new

42:05

and different things. Part of that is because

42:07

there is so much going on in

42:10

the music, almost the opposite of

42:12

what we talked about in Beethoven's violin

42:14

concerto, where it felt like there's no music here.

42:16

Here, there's so much happening

42:18

at once. It's going to take

42:20

repeated listens. That's in contrast

42:22

to, I think, a moment we had earlier where

42:24

it was like there was less music going

42:27

on, but it's very rewarding

42:29

to hear it again and again and

42:31

then maybe put it aside. I always tell people this whenever

42:33

I do a talk or something, listen

42:36

to whatever we're talking about here. Enjoy the concert,

42:38

and then set an alarm on

42:41

your phone or whatever your calendar

42:43

for two, three weeks later, listen

42:45

to that symphony again and then listen to

42:47

it again. You'll hear it differently. So,

42:51

if you liked this symphony and you want to hear

42:53

another work of Dora Pejačević, you

42:55

can check out one I think that's really brilliant,

42:58

her Phantasie Concertante for Piano

43:00

and Orchestra, and I'll put a link

43:02

on the show notes page to that. Okay,

43:05

Evan. So, now it's time to get to our

43:08

reviews from Apple Podcasts. What do we have?

43:10

We've got a five- star review here

43:12

from Finifinifini who

43:15

says, " Hello. I'm a professional

43:17

classical musician, and this is

43:19

my favorite podcast on the subject.

43:22

Keep up the great work. Your show

43:24

is both educational and entertaining

43:26

and very well- produced. Thank you." Well,

43:29

thank you, Finifinifini. Keep

43:31

listening and tell your friends. We'll

43:33

keep it coming.

43:35

Yes. Thank you so much for the five stars.

43:37

Tell your friends, tell your non-

43:39

musician friends too. If you want to write back

43:41

and tell us what instrument you play, because

43:43

I don't think I saw that, definitely let us

43:45

know. Okay, well, thank you

43:47

so much, Evan, for joining me, for all

43:50

things on this great symphony by

43:52

Dora Pejačević.

43:53

Dora Pejačević, a wonderful

43:55

composer who is worth knowing,

43:57

exploring, and appreciating.

44:02

Thanks for listening to Classical Breakdown,

44:04

your guide to classical music. For

44:06

more information on this episode, visit the

44:08

show notes page at classicalbreakdown. org.

44:11

You can send me comments and episode ideas

44:13

to classicalbreakdown@

44:15

weta. org. If you enjoy this episode,

44:18

leave a review in your podcast app. I'm

44:20

John Banther. Thanks for listening to Classical

44:22

Breakdown from WETA Classical.