Aurora: Puusaari-Rysä-Fräki Trio

Mel Bonis: Soir – Matin opus 76 (1907)

“I thought she was a man, I didn’t know a woman could compose like that!” said the composer Camille Saint-Saëns on hearing the piano quartet by Mélanie Bonis (1858-1937). Bonis’ career as a composer faced the difficulties typical of women composers of the time. Bonis received support and encouragement from many influential people in the musical world – without it, her parents would not have allowed their daughter to attend piano lessons. Bonis was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire, but after hearing of her love affair with singer, poet and journalist Amédée Hettich, Bonis’ parents demanded that she leave the Conservatoire. Instead, her status as the wife of a wealthy, elderly industrialist was accepted.

However, the relationship with her childhood sweetheart Hettich strengthened after many years and Bonis returned to composing. What followed was not only an inspired collaboration in music and poetry, but also a family tragedy: a shared secret daughter, with whom Bonis’ son later fell deeply in love. At this point, secrets had to be revealed and, of course, this pair of siblings could never have each other.

Bonis, who disguised her gender under the pseudonym Mel Bonis, has a catalogue of over 300 compositions, mostly songs and chamber music, but also orchestral works and a mass. The piano trio Soir – Matin (Evening – Morning) op. 76 from 1907 represents Bonis’ French Romanticism and Impressionist leaning musical language in the Sunday moods of a soberly romantic Evening and a gently swaying Morning.

Maria Puusaari

Osmo Tapio Räihälä: Temptations (2017)

I wrote the piano trio Temptations for the concert series with which the trio Fräki-Puusaari-Rysä celebrated Finland’s 100 years of independence. The programme consisted of piano trios composed in Finland over a hundred years, and since it included an early piano trio by Joonas Kokkonen (1921-96), the composer of the opera The Last Temptations, the title of the concert series was First Temptations. The concerts in the series were performed throughout Finland during the centenary year. The title of the concert series gave me the idea for a work that would deal with temptations in three folds. The first work of the trio, completed in spring-winter 2017, is called Honey Trap, and its performance direction is molto insettuoso – insect-like. The “honey trap” can, of course, be a carnivorous plant that attracts insects, but also an erotic lure used to seduce politicians, businessmen and other influencers into blackmail. Another art is the restless Corryvreckan. Its name comes from the whirlpools of the Inner Hebrides, which for centuries have challenged numerous sailors to sail right through them. The number of wrecks found beneath Corryvreckan has probably never been counted… The last of the folds is called Birds of Paradise, and its key is molto uccelloso, or very birdlike. It has seemingly no purpose or form, just chirping and rustling in the branches and tops of trees. But what is the aim of the birds of paradise show, if not to invite a companion, to build decoys…?

Osmo Tapio Räihälä

Dora Pejačević: Trio (1910)

Maria Theodora Paulina (Dora) Pejačević (10 September 1885 Budapest, Austria-Hungary – 5 March 1923 Munich, Germany) was born into a Croatian noble family with a castle in Našice. She studied music in Zagreb, Dresden and Munich, but was largely self-taught. She lived in various parts of Europe, and during the First World War she was involved in the treatment of the wounded in Našice.

Pejačević published only a few of her works, but they were performed both at home and abroad. Her large-scale orchestral works include the Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33 and the Symphony, Op. 41. When the symphony was premiered in its entirety in Dresden in 1920, the audience was surprised to discover that the composer was a woman; the symphony was compared to the music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Pejačević also composed vocal music as well as piano and chamber music.

Pejačević married Ottomar von Lumbe in 1921. She died in childbirth after the birth of her eldest son Theo.

In the 1930s, Pejačević’s music began to fade into obscurity, and it was not until Koraljka Kos’s biography, originally published in 1982, that she attracted interest and research. In the 2000s, her works have begun to be published and recorded.

The Second Trio in C major for violin, cello and piano op. 29 (1910) is a mature composition with a well-formed chamber music structure and style. The power of thematic and motivic compression is impressive, especially in the first and last movements. The short emphatic motive is particularly pronounced, and, like an obsessive motive, is repeated several times. In the developmental sections, the polyphonic texture and density of sound are combined with sharp harmonies and ‘unexpected’ intervals: the expression transcends the external attractiveness of the musical idiom. The piano is often used as the central instrument and starting point of events; its saturated tone and colourful chromaticism describe its texture, which is also permeated by virtuosic elements.

Koraljka Kos & Eeva Rysä