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Biting wit and a conscious trivialization characterize the Irrelohe-Foxtrott, composed on January 16, 1922, in Berlin-Schöneberg. In this piece, composer Felix Petyrek satirized motifs from the opera Irrelohe by his former composition teacher Franz Schreker, which had not had its first performance at that time.
The undated Mazurka makes up a contrast to this grotesque: It is a graceful study of style following the footsteps of Frédéric Chopin’s early Mazurkas. The relatively simple structure indicates that it could be a piece especially written for a student. As to the date of composition, Lisa Mahn, Petyrek’s student in Leipzig and his later biographer, suggests the beginning of the 1930s, when Petyrek was in Stuttgart.
Petyrek’s life-long admiration for Max Reger is reflected in the Fuge (Fugue). According to Lisa Mahn, it was composed in the Musikhochschule Leipzig while Petyrek was on duty in an air-raid shelter at the beginning of the 1940s. Both, the theme with its short parts reminding of baroque music and the contrapuntally dense piano part full of modulations, characterize the Fuge (Fugue) as a Capriccio of Max Reger’s style.
The three compositions published for the first time in this edition prove Petyrek’s stylistic complexity. His whole work for piano has been representatively documented on CD in the meantime (EDA 017-2).
Also available through the “agentur neue musik“ is Felix Petyrek’s 3. Sonate für Klavier (Third sonata for piano), inspired by folklore, which he composed in Athens in 1928 (anm 0003, manuskript).
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