Fran Lhotka

Fran Lhotka (25 December 1883 – 26 January 1962) was a Czech-born Croatian composer of classical music.

Lhotka was born in Mladá Vožice near Prague. He was a student of Antonín Dvořák. In 1909, he moved to Zagreb in what is now Croatia. As a professor of the harmony he taught almost every Croatian contemporary composer. He composed orchestral music, music for the stage, chamber music, piano music, film music etc.

Fran Lhotka was born on December 25, 1883, in the town of Mladá Vožice in Bohemia. In 1899 he became a student of the Prague Conservatory, studying horn and composition; he was taught composition by Karel Stecker, Josef Klička and Antonín Dvořák. Six years later he graduated in both courses; the graduation piece in composition was the “Rej” Scherzo in F Major, performed for the first time in the Musikverein Hall in Vienna. After he had done his military service, and worked for a short time as a teacher in a branch of the Moscow conservatory in Yekaterinoslav (today Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, once part of the Russian Empire), he arrived in Zagreb, in 1909, and accepted the job of first hornist and rehearsal pianist in the Opera. The increasingly better organisation of the concert scene and the reform of musical education made Zagreb an apt place for young composers to make a name for themselves. They arrived (mostly returning) from their training in Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin and Paris, and in 1910 Lhotka was a teacher in the Music School of the Croatian Land Music Institute, later to be the Music Academy.

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