František Tůma

František Ignác Antonín Tůma (2 October 1704 – 3 February 1774) was a Czech composer of the Baroque era. He lived the greater part of his life in Vienna, first as director of music for Franz Joseph, Count Kinsky, later filling a similar office for the widow of Emperor Charles VI. He was an important late-baroque composer, organist, gambist and theorbist. Life Tůma was born on 2 October 1704 in Kostelec nad Orlicí, Kingdom of Bohemia. received his early musical training from his father, parish organist at Kostelec, and probably studied at the Clementinum, an important Jesuit seminary in Prague. He likely sang as a tenor chorister under Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský (an important composer and organist) at the Minorite Church of St. James the Great, 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 he became a vice-Kapellmeister at Vienna in 1722. Tůma’s name first appears in Viennese records in April 1727, when he got married. 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