Jaromír Weinberger

Jaromír Weinberger (January 8, 1896 – August 8, 1967) was a Czech American composer.

Weinberger was born in Prague, Austria-Hungary, from a family of Jewish origin. He heard Czech folksongs from time spent at his grandparents' farm as a youth. He started playing the piano aged 5, and composing and conducting aged 10. He began musical studies with Jaroslav Křička, and later teachers included Václav Talich and Rudolf Karel. He became a student at the Prague Conservatory at age 14, as a second-year student, where he studied composition with Vítězslav Novák and Karel Hoffmeister. Later, at Leipzig, he studied with Max Reger, who influenced Weinberger on the use of counterpoint. In September 1922, Weinberger moved to the United States where he took up a position as an instructor at Cornell University. Between 1922 and 1926 he was professor of composition at the Ithaca Conservatory (now the music school of Ithaca College), New York.

When he returned to Czechoslovakia he was appointed director of the National Theater in Bratislava, and later received appointments in Eger, Hungary, and Prague. In 1926 Weinberger completed Schwanda the Bagpiper (Švanda Dudák), which became highly successful, with thousands of performances in hundreds of theatres including the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. His operetta Frühlingsstürme was first performed at the Theatre in Admiralspalast in Berlin on January 19, 1933 with Jarmila Novotná and Richard Tauber in the leading roles. Mary Losseff took over from Novotná in February, but the show was closed down by the Nazi government in March. His subsequent European works include the Passacaglia for orchestra and organ, Six Bohemian Dances for violin and piano, the opera The Outcasts of Poker Flat and a grand oratorio Christmas, though none of them matched the success of Schwanda the Bagpiper.

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