Jan Dismas Zelenka

Jan Dismas Zelenka (baptised Jan Lukáš Zelenka; 16 October 1679 – 23 December 1745), also known as Johann Dismas Zelenka, was a Czech composer and musician of the Baroque period. His music is admired for its harmonic inventiveness and counterpoint.

Zelenka was born in Louňovice pod Blaníkem (German: Launiowitz), a small market town southeast of Prague, in Bohemia. He was the eldest of the eight children born to Marie Magdalena (née Hájek) and Jiří Zelenka. The middle name Dismas is probably his confirmation name. Zelenka's father Jiří was a schoolmaster and organist in Launiowitz, and it is likely that Zelenka received his musical lessons with him. However, nothing more is known with certainty about Zelenka's early years. He received his musical training at the Jesuit college Clementinum in Prague. His instrument was the violone (or bass viol). His first works were probably written in Prague, and his earliest known work Via laureta (ZWV 245) was composed in 1704. The music is lost, but a libretto still exists.

Zelenka served Baron von Johann Hubert von Hartig in Prague, before his appointment as violone player in Dresden's royal orchestra. This Baron von Hartig was a well known connoisseur of music and a virtuoso musician. He corresponded with many important Italian composers and amassed a great musical library in his life, which Zelenka would later have access to, as in the example of Antonio Lotti's Missa Sapientiae. In ca. 1729 Zelenka copied this work from Hartig's collection, and later in the 1730s, Johann Sebastian Bach acquired a copy of Lotti's mass from Zelenka's library. Georg Friedrich Handel's copy of Lotti's mass might also have been acquired through Zelenka. When Johann Hubert died in Prague in 1741, Zelenka dedicated his Litaniae Lauretanae 'Salus infirmorum' (ZWV 152) to his old patron.

It is possible that Count Johann Hubert von Hartig recommended Zelenka for the Dresden Hofkapelle (court orchestra) as a double bass player. Zelenka entered the service of the Dresden court with a salary of 300 thalers in 1710/1711. The favourable conditions for music making at Dresden gave added impetus to his creativity, particularly with respect to the composition of sacred music for the Catholic court church. His first opus in Dresden was a Mass, the "Missa Sanctae Caeciliae" (c. 1711). Zelenka must have made an impression with his music, for only few months after his arrival in Dresden his salary was increased by 16,6 %, to 350 thalers, which placed him amongst the better paid musicians in the Hofkapelle. Three years later, Zelenka's salary was increased once again, this time by 14,3 %, which raised his wages to 400 thalers.

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