Franz Xaver Neruda

Franz Xaver Neruda

Genres: composer, Classical, danish

Similar artists via Last.fm

Mette Nielsen Lars Aksel Bisgaard Ole Schmidt Peter Arnold Heise Christian Frederik Emil Horneman

About Franz Xaver Neruda

(b Brno, 3 Dec 1843; d Copenhagen, 20 March 1915). Cellist and composer, son of Josef Neruda. Like his brother and sisters, he first learnt music from his father, beginning with the violin, and taught himself the cello in 1852 after his brother Viktor’s death. He studied the cello with Březina in Brno, and for six months with the Belgian cellist Servais in Warsaw in 1859. In 1860 he played (with his sisters Amálie and Wilma) at the first Czech Beseda concert in Brno. In 1861 he went on a long Scandinavian tour with his sisters Wilma and Marie which met with particular success at Copenhagen in 1862–3. He settled in the Danish capital in 1864 and became a member of the royal orchestra. Four years later he was one of the founders of the Chamber Music Society and its string quartet, whose other members were Tofte, Schiørring and Holm. In 1874 he visited London, Manchester and Liverpool, and he lived in England periodically from 1876 to 1879. Returning to Copenhagen, he founded the Neruda Quartet, which also included Anton Svendsen, Nicolai Hansen (later Holger Møller) and Christian Pedersen; for a decade it was Denmark’s leading ensemble. In 1889 Anton Rubinstein chose him to succeed Davïdov as professor at the St Petersburg Conservatory. In Copenhagen again from 1891, he became conductor of the Music Society, a post he held until his death; during these years he also conducted the Music Society in Stockholm and was highly esteemed as a piano teacher. His compositions, a number of them published in Copenhagen and other cities, show Czech folk influence and include five cello concertos, a set of orchestral pieces entitled Fra Bøhmerwald, chamber music for strings, works for cello and piano and many piano pieces. His manuscripts and letters are now in the Royal Library and Musikhistorisk Museum in Copenhagen.

Taken from Last.fm

23 listeners  ·  90 plays via Last.fm