Josef Bohuslav Foerster

About the composer

Foerster was a Czech composer, born in Prague in 1859, in a musical family. His father, a composer also named Josef Foerster, taught at the Conservatory. Josef was educated accordingly, and studied there. He also showed an early interest in the theatre, and thought of becoming an actor. From 1884 he worked as a critic, and he would prove to be a writer of distinction. In 1893 he married the leading Czech soprano Berta Lautererová (Bertha Lauterer) in Hamburg. For ten years he made his living there as a critic, while she was engaged at the Hamburg Staatsoper. In 1901 he became a teacher at the Hamburg Conservatory. In 1903 Berta went to sing at the Vienna Hofoper, so Josef moved there with her, continuing to make a living as a music critic. He returned to Prague on the foundation of the Czechoslovakian Republic in 1918, where he taught at the conservatory and the university. In 1946 he was declared a National Composer. He died in Nový Vestec in 1951.