Oskar Nedbal

Oskar Nedbal (26 March 1874 – 24 December 1930) was a Czech violist, composer and conductor of classical music. Early life Nedbal was born in Tábor in Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. He studied the violin at the Prague Conservatory under Antonín Bennewitz, theory under and , and composition with Antonín Dvořák. Career In 1891 he founded the Bohemian String Quartet, later known as the Czech Quartet, which disbanded in 1933. The original members, alongside Nedbal on viola, were Karel Hoffmann, Josef Suk and . He was principal conductor with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra from 1896 to 1906. From 1907 until 1917 he lived in Vienna and conducted the Wiener Tonkünstler-Orchester. In recent years, Nedbal’s haunting Valse Triste featured in his ballet Der Faule Hans (The Tale of Simple Johnny) has been a favorite stand-alone encore piece of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. The waltz is also played on the piano at a key moment by one of the characters in Heimito von Doderer’s novel of the inter-war years in Vienna, The Demons (Die Dämonen) (1956). Since 2019, the Oskar Nedbal International Viola Competition has commemorated Nedbal’s name. Selected works ;Opera * Sedlák Jakub (Jakub the Peasant