Otakar Zich

Otakar Zich (25 March 1879 – 9 July 1934) was a Czech composer and aesthetician. Biography Zich was born on 25 March 1879 in Městec Králové. In his music education he studied as a self-taught man. Years later, he became a pupil of the prominent nineteenth-century Czech aesthetician Otakar Hostinský, and a protégé of the iconoclastic musicologist and critic Zdeněk Nejedlý. In the years 1903–1906 he taught physics and mathematics at the High School in Domažlice. In the years leading up to the First World War Zich lived in Prague, actively participating in musical life as a critic. In this capacity he supported the efforts of Nejedlý’s pro-Smetana faction against the intellectual descendants of Antonín Dvořák, especially during the so-called Dvořák Affair of 1911–1914, when he called into question the artistic integrity of Dvořák’s compositional language. These activities firmly allied Zich with Nejedlý’s academic circle at Charles University, where, in 1924, he was appointed professor of Aesthetics. He held this position until his death. He died on 9 July 1934 in Ouběnice (today part of Bystřice). Style As a composer, Zich was largely self-taught, although he can be said to belong to