Vilém Kurz (pianist)

Vilém in short

Vilém Kurz (born December 23, 1872 in Německý Brod , † May 25, 1945 in Prague ) was a Czech pianist and music teacher .

Life

Vilém Kurz received piano lessons from Julius Höger from 1884 to 1886 and from Jakub Virgil Holfeld from 1886 to 1898 . He also studied theory and organ at the Prague Organ School from 1887 to 1888, and in 1892 passed his music exam at the Prague Conservatory . In the following years concert tours took him as a soloist and chamber music partner to Vienna and Berlin. From 1898 to 1919 he held a piano professorship in Lemberg , from 1919 to 1920 in Brno . From 1920, Kurz was professor of piano at the Prague Conservatory (until 1928 at the branch in Brno, then until 1940 in Prague). In 1936/37 and 1938/39 he was also rector of the Prague Conservatory.

Kurz had a lasting impact on piano education in his home country through his piano pedagogical work. His pupils included next to his daughter Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová whose husband Václav Štěpán and his grandson Pavel Štěpán among others Rudolf Firkušný , Drahomir Toman , Ilja Hurník , Eduard Steuermann , Břetislav Bakala , Stanislav Heller , Frantisek Maxián , Gideon Klein , Matusja Blum , Rafael Schächter and Miloslav Kabeláč .

Vilém Kurz was also the editor of piano works; Among other things, he created a revision of the piano part of Antonín Dvořák's Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33 , which is often used in concert, but is not undisputed .

His cousin Louis Lejeune was a German painter.

literature

• Tarantová:  Vilém for short. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 4, Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1969, p. 367 f. (Direct links on p. 367 , p. 368 ).
• Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , 1980, Vol. 10, p. 323

Web links

• Dvorak Piano Concerto G minor and the revision by Vilém short (Engl.)