Personendetails

František Zdeněk Skuherský

Skuherský, František Zdeněk (1830-1892). Czech composer, pedagogue and theoretician. Studied philosophy and medicine before devoting himself to music. Pupil of the Prague Organ School (1846-1847), and later became its director in 1866, until its merger with the Prague Conservatory. He worked as music director in the principal theatre in Innsbruck (1854-1866), and was also active in the city as a pedagogue and as an active and radical church music director. On returning to Prague in 1866 he was a leading personality in the Cecilian reform movement in church music. His contribution to Czech music was substantial and varied. He was one of the pioneers of Czech opera, an important composer of vernacular Czech songs and choruses, and produced a large body of church music that was cultivated in a number of Prague churches from the middle 1860s onwards. Also wrote various  theoretical works which remained influential into the twentieth century. News of Skuherský’s appointment as Kapellmeister at the theatre in Innsbruck was published by Mercy’s Anzeiger 29/12/1854.