Václav Tomášek

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

Life

The youngest son of an eight-piece cloth merchant family received his first violin and singing lessons in Chrudim and then attended the School of minority monastery in Jihlava. From 1790, he studied in Prague law, philosophy and medicine. Presumably he took during this time also Frantisek Xaver Dusek piano lessons with.

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

His music school founded in 1824 and was the musical center of Prague in the first half of the 19th century, and Tomasek was considered one of the most important piano teachers of his time. He was by Beethoven as well as estimated by the music critic Eduard Hanslick. He was met with Joseph Haydn and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his circle of acquaintances included the Czech patriots Václav Hanka, Josef František Palacký and Krasoslav Chmelensky. Among his pupils were virtuosos such as Alexander Dreyschock, Johann Friedrich Kittl and Jan Václav Voříšek. Through his successful compositions, he found support from several noble families.

Works

Tomaschek composed operas and theater music, symphonies, piano concertos and piano sonatas, chamber music in a different occupation, early romantic piano pieces ( eclogues, rhapsodies and Dithyramben ) and virtuoso pieces that refer to the works by Chopin. He also wrote three masses, two requiems, cantatas, choruses and songs, among others, to texts by Goethe and Schiller.