“My fatherland means more to me than anything else” Bedřich Smetana (1824-84) is widely considered the father of Czech music, and his music posthumously became synonymous with a Czech national musical style. Establishing a Czech classical music canon, Smetana became

Mozart: “Benda was always my favorite” Jiří Antonín Benda (1722-1795), later known as Georg Anton Benda, was born 300 years ago on 30 June 1722 in the Bohemian town of Benátky nad Jizerou, twenty-two miles north-east of Prague. He was

“Ideas came to me with such rapidity” You most likely have come across the composer Anton (Antoine) Reicha (1770-1836) in a footnote in a book on Beethoven. They were teenage buddies in Bonn, and even played in the same orchestra.

“The Pianistic God of Thunder” Countless highly talented individuals populate the musical universe, but very few get immortalized in poetry. But that’s exactly what happened to the Czech pianist and composer Alexander Dreyschock (1818-1869). The prolific Danish author Hans Christian

‘A Perfect Balance’ The Czech ensemble Collegium 1704 is one of the most renowned baroque ensembles around today. Along with its choral partner, Collegium Vocale 1704, the ensemble sprang up in 2005 in a quest to revive the music of

Vying with Mozart for the Viennese connoisseurs Working as a contemporary musician and composer alongside Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven must have been a rather daunting task. Yet, a good number of critics and scholars considered Leopold Koželuch (1747-1818) the finer

300th Birthday In June 1717, the Bohemian settlement of Německý Brod recorded the birth of Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz (1717-57). Son of the town organist, Johann received his early education at a Jesuit grammar school—known for its excellence in music

Compulsion to Compose Early twentieth-century modernists in music eagerly explored various ways of breaking with the Romantic tradition. For Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959), born in a church tower above the Czech-Moravian Highlands, the initial point of departure was grounded in the