Frantisek Drdla

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František Alois Drdla (Franz Drdla) (28 November 1868 - 3 September 1944) was a prominent Czech concert violinist and composer of light music.

Drdla was born in 1868 in Žďár nad Sázavou, Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic. He studied violin and composition first at the Prague Conservatory and later at the Vienna Conservatory where his teachers were Josef Hellmesberger, Jr. for violin, Anton Bruckner for music theory and Franz Krenn for composition. However, Drdla's music shows none of his teacher's influence. A well-known concert violinist, Drdla toured throughout Europe and the United States. In 1944, he died in Bad Gastein, Austria.

Although he composed three operettas, a violin concerto, several orchestral works and two piano trios, international fame came to Drdla as a result of composing lighter music in the late romantic style. These works generally mixed popular Bohemian (Czech) or Hungarian melodies and presented them a la Viennoise. Among the best known of such works are Souvenir (1904) and Vision, both for violin with piano and Hey, Hay, Op.30 No.4, which became popular in more than a dozen different versions including those for orchestra, piano quintet, and string quartet.

[edit] Selected Works

Operettas

• The Golden Net (1916)
• The Shop Countess (1917)
• The Goddess of Love (1940)

Instrumental Works

• Violin Concerto in d minor, Op.241 (1931)
• Piano Trio No.1 WoO (1924)
• Piano Trio in g minor, Op.240 (1930)
• Serenade No.1 for Violin & Piano (1901)
• Serenade No.2 for Violin & Piano (1903)
• Souvenir for Violin & Piano(ja:思い出 (ドルドラ)) (1904)
• Polonaise for Violin & Piano, Op.19 (1904)
• Hey Hay! Op.30 No.4 composed in several versions (1909)
• Rózsabokor (Rosebush) csárdás, Op. 30 No. 7
• Meditation, Ballade, Au soir & Lenorka for Violin & Piano, Op.34 (1909)
• Legende for Violin & Piano, Op.48 (1911)
• Zweigespräche for Violin & Piano, Op.98 (1913)
• Four Short Concert Pieces for Violin & Piano, Op.127 (1915)
• Pagoda for Violin & Piano, Op.196 No.1 (1927)
• Concertino for Violin & Piano, Op.225 (1929)

[edit] References

Oldřich Pukl, article in The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, Ed. S. Sadie, Vol.V, p.611, London, Macmillan 1980

[edit] External links

• Frantisek Drdla at Allmusic
• Franz Drdla Hey, Hay! for Piano Quintet sound-bite