František Tuma
Encyclopedia
Kostelec nad Orlicí
Kostelec nad Orlicí is a town in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic located about 7 km southwest of Rychnov nad Kněžnou and 29 km east-southeast of Hradec Králové. It has 6,220 inhabitants .-External links:*...
, Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, October 2, 1704 – Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, January 30, 1774) was an important Czech
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
composer of the Baroque era
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
. Born in Kostelec nad Orlici, Bohemia, he lived the greater part of his life in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, first as director of music for Count Franz Ferdinand Kinsky, later filling a similar office for the widow of Emperor Karl VI
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VI was the penultimate Habsburg sovereign of the Habsburg Empire. He succeeded his elder brother, Joseph I, as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia , Hungary and Croatia , Archduke of Austria, etc., in 1711...
.
He was an important late-baroque composer, organist, gambist and theorbist.
Life
Tůma received his early musical training from his father, parish organist at Kostelec, and probably studied at the ClementinumClementinum
The Clementinum is a historic complex of buildings in Prague. Until recently the complex hosted the National, University and Technical libraries, the City Library also being located nearby on Mariánské Náměstí. The Technical library and the Municipal library have moved to the Prague National...
, an important Jesuit seminary in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. He likely sang as a tenor chorister under B.M. Černohorský
Bohuslav Matej Cernohorský
Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský was a Czech composer, organist and teacher of the baroque era...
(an important composer and organist) at the Minorite church of St James, and he is believed to have received musical instruction from him. Tůma then went to Vienna, where he was active as a church musician; according to Marpurg
Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg
Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg was a German music critic, music-theorist and composer. He was friendly and active with many figures of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.-Life:...
he became a vice-Kapellmeister at Vienna in 1722. Tůma's name first appears in Viennese records in April 1729, when the birth of a son was recorded.
In 1731 he became ‘Compositor und Capellen-Meister’ to Count Franz Ferdinand Kinsky, who was the High Chancellor of Bohemia. Kinsky's patronage made it possible for him to study counterpoint with J.J. Fux
Johann Fux
Johann Joseph Fux was an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era. He is most famous as the author of Gradus ad Parnassum, a treatise on counterpoint, which has become the single most influential book on the Palestrina style of Renaissance polyphony...
in Vienna. He participated in the premiere of Fux's opera "Constanza e Fortezza" along with Jiri Antonin Benda
Georg Benda
Jiří Antonín Benda, also Georg Anton Benda or J.A. Benda was a Czech kapellmeister, violinist and composer of the classical period.-Biography:...
and Sylvius Leopold Weiss
Sylvius Leopold Weiss
Silvius Leopold Weiss was a German composer and lutenist.Born in Grottkau near Breslau, the son of Johann Jacob Weiss, also a lutenist, he served at courts in Breslau, Rome, and Dresden, where he died...
. In 1734, Kinsky recommended Tůma for the post of the Kapellmeister to Prague Cathedral, but his recommendation arrived too late and Tůma may have remained in Kinsky's service until the latter's death in 1741. In that year he was appointed Kapellmeister to the dowager empress, widow of Emperor Karl VI. On her death in 1750 Tůma received a pension.
For the next 18 years he remained in Vienna and was active as a composer and as a player on the bass viol and the theorbo; he was esteemed by the court and the nobility, and at least one work may have been commissioned from him by the Empress Maria Theresa. After the death of his wife in about 1768 Tůma lived at the Premonstratensian monastery of Geras (Lower Austria), but in his last illness he returned to Vienna and died in the convent of the Merciful Brethren at Leopoldstadt.
Style
Tůma's music belongs stylistically to the late Baroque. His sacred works, which were known to Haydn and Mozart, were noted by his contemporaries for their solidity of texture and their sensitive treatment of the text as well as for their chromaticism. His instrumental music includes trio and quartet sonatas, sinfonias and partitas, mostly for strings and continuoFigured bass
Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...
; some of them were clearly intended for orchestral use.
Among his sacred works we find some 65 mass
Mass (music)
The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music...
es, 29 psalms and 5 settings of the Stabat Mater
Stabat Mater
Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Roman Catholic hymn to Mary. It has been variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III...
.