Repertoire de Stijl: Dada

LTM are pleased to present an overview of the avant-garde piano repertoire of Pétro van Doesburg, performed at various de Stijl, Dada and Bauhaus soirees in Europe between 1920 and 1925. Born in Holland in 1899, Pétro met de Stijl movement founder and propagandist Theo van Doesburg in 1920. Over the next decade the couple lived in Wiemar (where Theo was associated with the influential Bauhaus art and architecture school) and then Paris. A Conservatory-trained pianist, Pétro accompanied her husband's lectures with selected modernist piano pieces, and also performed at Salon Dada soirees organised by Theo with Kurt Schwitters in Holland and Germany in 1922/23. Following Theo's death in 1931, Pétro established the de Stijl archive and was a buyer for Peggy Guggenheim. She died in 1975. The material on this 76 minute CD includes pieces by Erik Satie, Josef Matthias Hauer, Arnold Schoenberg, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger and Jacob van Domselaer, whose austere Proeven van Stijlkunst (1913-17) offers an application of Piet Mondrian's neo-plastic principles to musical composition. The music is performed by noted Dutch pianist Peter Beijersbergen van Henegouwen. The CD also features a deluxe booklet featuring archive images and detailed historical notes by James Hayward.

Repertoire de Stijl: Dada