Life
Nedbal was born in Tábor, in southern Bohemia. He studied the violin at the Prague Conservatory under Antonín Bennewitz. He was principal conductor with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra from 1896 to 1906 and was a founder member of the Bohemian String Quartet.
Although a great admirer of his teacher Antonín Dvořák, Nedbal paid homage to other composers. For example in his 1910 composition, Romantic Piece, Op. 18 for cello and piano, Nedbal cleverly inserts a theme usually associated with Mozart, Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman. The waltz from his ballet Lazy Hans (Der faule Hans) is played on the piano at a key moment by one of the characters in Heimito von Doderer's great novel of the inter-war years in Vienna, The Demons (Die Dämonen) (1956).
His works include one (unsuccessful) opera, Jakob the Peasant (1919–1920), and the operettas Chaste Barbara (1910), Polish Blood (1913), The Vineyard Bride (1916), and Beautiful Saskia (1917).
Because of mounting personal debts, Nedbal committed suicide by jumping out of a window of the Zagreb Opera House on 24 December 1930.
Read more about this topic: Oskar Nedbal
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Above the forest of the parakeets,
A parakeet of parakeets prevails,
A pip of life amid a mort of tails.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Don’t tell me that you have exhausted Life. When a man says that, one knows that life has exhausted him.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“If Mr. Vincent Price were to be co-starred with Miss Bette Davis in a story by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe directed by Mr. Roger Corman, it could not fully express the pent-up violence and depravity of a single day in the life of the average family.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)