Zdenek Fibich - Prague, Czech Republic
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Zdenek Fibich ( 21 December 1850 – 15 October 1900) was a Czech composer of classical music.
Waymark Code: WMTNR8
Location: Hlavní město Praha, Czechia
Date Posted: 12/19/2016
Views: 31
Among his compositions are chamber works (including two string quartets, a piano trio, piano quartet and a quintet for piano, strings and winds), symphonic poems, three symphonies, at least seven operas (the most famous probably Šárka and The Bride of Messina), melodramas including the substantial trilogy Hippodamia, liturgical music including a mass – a missa brevis; and a large cycle (almost 400 pieces, from the 1890s) of piano works called Moods, Impressions, and Reminiscences. The piano cycle served as a diary of sorts of his love for a piano pupil. He was born in Všeborice (Šeborice) near Cáslav.
Fibich was given a bi-cultural education, living, during his formative early years, in Germany, France and Austria in addition to his native Bohemia. He was fluent in German as well as Czech. In his instrumental works, Fibich generally wrote in the vein of the German romantics, first falling under the influence of Weber, Mendelssohn and Schumann and later Wagner. His early operas and close to 200 of his early songs are in German. These works along with his symphonies and chamber music won considerable praise from German critics, though not from Czechs. The bulk of Fibich’s operas are in Czech, although many are based on non-Czech sources such as Shakespeare, Schiller and Byron. In his chamber music, more than anywhere else, Fibich makes use of Bohemian folk melodies and dance rhythms such as the dumka. Fibich was the first to write a Czech nationalist tone poem (Záboj, Slavoj a Ludek) which served as the inspiration for Smetana’s Má vlast. He was also the first to use the polka in a chamber work, his quartet in A.
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Memorial plaque is located on Zofin Island (officially called Slovansky ostrov) nearby the National Theatre.
Plaque Inscription
Zdenek Fibich 21.12.1850-15.10.1900. Nejmladší klasik ceské hudby 19.století proslul jako mistr lyrické miniatury a melodramatu. Jeho melodramatická scénická trilogie Hippodamie je unikátní dílo svetové hudby. Na Žofíne dirigoval Bedrich Smetana premiéru jeho symfonické básne Othello. Dojmy ze štastných chvil na Žofíne Fibich zhudebnil v selance V podvecer, její známou melodii proslavil Jan Kubelík ve svete pod názvem Poem