Musicatlas
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Music
He published 110 compositions with opus numbers. His Church music included a Missa Solemnis and several requiems. He wrote 3 operas: Seraphina, Alvara and Sakuntala. As well as setting complete scenes from the plays of Goethe and Schiller, he also wrote songs to poems by Goethe, Schiller and Czech verse including folk poetry. For the piano he wrote a large amount of music including 42 Eclogues in 7 sets, Op. 35, 39, 47, 51, 63, 66, 83 (which were published in 2 volumes by Supraphon of Prague in 1970), 15 rhapsodies, 3 dithyrambs and 6 studies (which he called Allegri). It has been suggested that the eclogues can be considered as the forerunners of Field’s nocturnes, thence influencing the smaller works of Chopin, Schumann and Mendelssohn among others. Although he wrote 5 piano sonatas between 1805 and 1814, these were less original in style, and he is best remembered for his smaller, pastoral works.
Life
He was the 13th child of a linen weaver. As a child, he was taught singing and the violin by P.J. Wolf. He was also taught organ. He seems to have been largely self-taught, both as pianist and composer. In 1790 he moved to Prague where he studied Law, Mathematics, History and Aesthetics, supporting himself as a music tutor and composer. He was well known as a pianist and esteemed as a composer in his native Bohemia, and was made financially secure when he was employed as composer in the household of Count Bucquoi von Langueval, who provided him with his own house, which became an important centre for music during has lifetime. He married Wilhelmina Ebert in 1823. He continued to live in Prague with occasional visits to Vienna, where he met Beethoven several times. His pupils included Dreyschock, Schulhoff and Vorisek. He died in Prague at the age of 76 and was buried in the churchyard of Koschir near Prague. Tomášek deserves to be remembered for his importance in the early XIX Century development of Czech music, particularly piano music.