Johann Kaspar Mertz

Joseph Kaspar Mertz (17 August 1806 – 14 October 1856) was an Austrian guitarist and composer. Biography Caspar Joseph Mertz (baptised Casparus Josephus Mertz) was born in Pressburg (now Bratislava, Slovakia), then the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and part of the Austrian Empire. He never used his full name when performing or on his publications, preferring only the initials “J. K.”. The name “Johann Kaspar” first appeared in the German guitar journal “Der Guitarrefreund” in 1901 and since that time has been incorrectly repeated. In 1900 J. M. Miller used the name “Joseph K. Mertz” for his publication of three previously unpublished manuscripts of Mertz in Three Compositions For Guitar. He was active in Vienna (c. 1840 – 1856), which had been home to various prominent figures of the guitar, including Anton Diabelli, Mauro Giuliani, Wenceslaus Matiegka and Simon Molitor. As virtuoso, he established a solid reputation as a performer. He toured Moravia, Poland, and Russia, and gave performances in Berlin and Dresden. In 1846 Mertz nearly died of an overdose of strychnine that had been prescribed to him as a treatment for neuralgia. Over the following year he was nursed back to he