Wenzel Johann Tomaschek

Wenzel Johann Tomaschek, painting by Antonín Machek (after 1816), National Gallery, Prague

Wenzel Johann Baptist Tomaschek , Czech Václav Jan Křtitel Tomášek (born April 17, 1774 in Skutsch / Bohemia , † April 3, 1850 in Prague ) was an Austrian-Bohemian music teacher and composer .

Life

The youngest son of a family of eight cloth dealers received his first violin and singing lessons in Chrudim and then attended the school of the Minorite Monastery in Iglau . From 1790 he studied law, philosophy and medicine in Prague. As a pianist Tomaschek was self-taught , but it is likely that he also took piano lessons from František Xaver Dušek during this time .

In 1798 he heard Ludwig van Beethoven during his stay in Prague and visited the composer in Vienna in autumn 1814 . He has left extensive memories about it.

His music school, founded in 1820, became the musical center of Prague in the first half of the 19th century, and Tomášek was considered one of the most important piano teachers of his time. Jan Václav Voříšek and Alexander Dreyschock were among his students . He was valued by Beethoven as well as by the music critic Eduard Hanslick . He met Joseph Haydn and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his circle of friends included the Czech patriots Václav Hanka , František Palacký and Josef Krasoslav Chmelenský . Through his successful compositions he found support from several noble families.

Works

Tomaschek composed operas and drama music, symphonies , piano concertos and piano sonatas , chamber music in various scoring, early romantic piano pieces ( eclogues , rhapsodies and dithyrambs ) and virtuoso pieces that refer to the works of Chopin . He also wrote three masses , two requies , cantatas , choirs and songs based on texts by Goethe and Schiller, among others .

Fonts

Autobiography. In: Libussa , ed. by Paul Aloys Klar , Prague, vol. 4 (1845), pp. 349-389; Vol. 5 (1846), p. 321; Vol. 6 (1847), pp. 411-441; Vol. 7 (1848), pp. 487-494; Vol. 8 (1849), pp. 485-503 ( digitized version ) and Vol. 9 (1850), pp. 323-350

Student (selection)

Alexander Dreyschock (1818–1869)
Johann Friedrich Kittl (1806–1868)
Constanze Geiger (1835–1890)
Jan Václav Voříšek (1791–1825)
Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904)

literature

Constantin von Wurzbach : Tomaschek, Wenzel Johann . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 46th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1882, pp. 57–65 ( digitized version ).
Rudolf Müller: Tomaschek, Wenzel Johann . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 38, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, pp. 431-433.
Marie Tarantová: Václav Jan Tomášek . Prague 1946
Harald Strebel : "... when you demonstrated the composer of the music world in me". An unknown autograph letter from Wenzel Johann Tomaschek to Hans Georg Nägeli in Zurich. In: Hudebni vĕda (Musicology, Prague) Issue 1–2, 2009, pp. 65–90.

Documents

Letters from Wenzel Johann Tomaschek are in the holdings of the Leipzig music publisher CF Peters in the Leipzig State Archives .

Recordings (selection)

22 Goethe songs . Ildikó Raimondi , soprano, Leopold Hager , piano.

Web links

Literature and other media by and about Wenzel Johann Tomaschek in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
Works by and about Wenzel Johann Tomaschek in the catalog of the German National Library
Sheet music and audio files by Wenzel Johann Tomaschek in the International Music Score Library Project

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Clive Unger-Hamilton, Neil Fairbairn, Derek Walters; German arrangement: Christian Barth, Holger Fliessbach, Horst Leuchtmann, et al .: The music - 1000 years of illustrated music history . Unipart-Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-8122-0132-1 , p. 104 .
↑ Klaus Martin Kopitz , Rainer Cadenbach (Ed.) U. a .: Beethoven from the point of view of his contemporaries in diaries, letters, poems and memories. Volume 2: Lachner - Zmeskall. Edited by the Beethoven Research Center at the Berlin University of the Arts. Henle, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-87328-120-2 , pp. 987-997.

personal data
SURNAME	Tomaschek, Wenzel Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Tomášek, Václav Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Czech music teacher and composer
DATE OF BIRTH	April 17, 1774
PLACE OF BIRTH	Skuteč
DATE OF DEATH	April 3, 1850
Place of death	Prague

[:0-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Clive Unger-Hamilton, Neil Fairbairn, Derek Walters; German arrangement: Christian Barth, Holger Fliessbach, Horst Leuchtmann, et al .: The music - 1000 years of illustrated music history . Unipart-Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-8122-0132-1 , p. 104 .

[2] Klaus Martin Kopitz , Rainer Cadenbach (Ed.) U. a .: Beethoven from the point of view of his contemporaries in diaries, letters, poems and memories. Volume 2: Lachner - Zmeskall. Edited by the Beethoven Research Center at the Berlin University of the Arts. Henle, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-87328-120-2 , pp. 987-997.