Franz Benda

Franz Benda (; c. 22 November 1709 – 7 March 1786) was a Czech violinist and composer. He was active in the Kingdom of Prussia and worked for much of his life at the court of Frederick the Great. Life Benda was baptised on 22 November 1709. He was born in Benátky nad Jizerou in Bohemia, the son of Jan Jiří Benda. His brother was the composer Georg Benda. Many of Benda’s offspring (Maria Carolina Wolf (1742–1820), Friedrich Benda (1745–1814), Karl Hermann Heinrich Benda (1748–1836), Juliane Reichardt (1752–1783)) and his granddaughter (Louise Reichardt (1779–1826)) were also composers. Benda wrote his autobiography in 1763: it not only gives a detailed account of his own life, but also a valuable record of the lives of other musicians whom he encountered during his career. In his youth Benda was a chorister in Prague and afterward in the Chapel Royal at Dresden. At the same time he began to study the violin, and soon joined a company of strolling musicians who attended fetes, fairs, etc. At eighteen years of age Benda abandoned this wandering life and returned to Prague, going to Vienna, where he pursued his study of the violin under Johann Gottlieb Graun, a pupil of Tartini. After