Page 109 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2024. Glasbena kritika – nekoč in danes ▪︎ Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 7
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e. b. lvovský or who was the harshest viennese cr itic of antonín dvoř ák’s music

Rie (1862–1932), a well-known Jewish court and trial attorney-at-law.
She studied theatre, dance and languages at the Austrian Royal Acade-
my of Arts and Music (school years 1913/1914–1915/1916). She later moved
to Berlin (acting in the Dream Theatre and Dream Play by Karl Kraus),
contacts with the actor Peter Lorre (1904–1964, Jew, originally Lász-
ló Löwenstein, from 1913 in Vienna) – Lorre later became her husband
(1934–1945). They travelled to Paris, London and the United States.

Significance: Discoverer of the Czech violin virtuosos František Drd-
la (Lvovský was probably the author of the first biography, 1897)29 and Jan
Kubelík – According to Jan Řežábek, it was Lvovský who drew Vienna’s at-
tention to the talent of the future violin virtuoso Jan Kubelík. At the end of
November 1898, he performed in Vienna at the Academy (a cyclists’ meet-
ing): “He [Lvovský] listened to an unknown violinist and was absolutely
amazed. [...] Lvovský was not silent, and Vienna learned about the violin
phenomenon.”30 Kubelík accepted an invitation to a number of other con-
certs in Vienna, including a concert organised by the editors of Lvovský’s
journal Österreichische Musik- und Theaterzeitung and held on 26 Janu-
ary 1899.31

Significance: Promoter of Zdeněk Fibich’s compositions – “In his edi-
torial field, Břetislav Lvovský ensured that Fibich’s work had proper position
in the French-language history of Czech music [...].”32

Significance: Promoter of Czech music – “[Lvovský] was in very in-
tensive contact with the Czech music world, rendering significant service to
Czech music through his journalistic activities.”33 The second quotation men-
tions Lviv, but the content can also be applied to his activities in Vienna:

29 B. Lvovský, “Franz Drdla,” ÖMTZ 9, no. 21 (1 July 1897): 1.
30 Jan Řežábek, “Jan Kubelík,” Přemožitelé času 2, no. 6 (1988): 106. For the same in-

formation see: Stanislav Jandík, Čaroděj houslí. Vyprávění o Janu Kubelíkovi, který
proslavil české jméno po celém světě (Praha: Za svobodu, 1949), 104.
31 Florestan, “Das erste Concert,” ÖMTZ 9, no. 11 (1 February 1899): 5; B. Lvovský, “Jo-
hann Kubelik, Violin-Virtuose,” ÖMTZ 11, no. 7 (1 December 1898): 1, 2; B. Lvovský,
“Paganini-Abend Jan Kubelík,” ÖMTZ 15, no. 12 (end of March 1904): 5.
32 Artuš Rektorys, ed., Zdeněk Fibich. Sborník dokumentů a studií o jeho životě a díle.
2. díl (Praha: Orbis 1951–1952), 477.
33 Ibid., 530. Czech translation of a German letter from 27 July 1896 in which the ÖMTZ
editor Arthur Barde informs Z. Fibich of the tasks assigned by his boss, Lvovský,
i. e. that Fibich should send his compositions to Albert Soubies in Paris (he was pre-
paring a book on the history of Czech music) and that he should send his orches-
tral voices to the Vienna Philharmonic, which already had the score of the F major
symphony. J. [Josef] Boleška, “Feuilleton. Francouz o české hudbě,” Národní listy 38,

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