Jan Václav Hugo Voříšek (Czech pronunciation: [jan ˈvaːt͡slaf ˈɦugo ˈvor̝iːʃɛk]) (Johann Hugo Worzischek, 11 May 1791, Wamberg, Bohemia - 19 November 1825, Vienna, Austria), was a Czech composer of classical music, pianist, and organist.
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Voříšek was born in the town of Vamberk where his father was the schoolmaster, choirmaster and organist. A child prodigy, he started to perform publicly in Bohemian towns at the age of nine.[1] His father taught him music, encouraged his playing the piano, helped him get a scholarship to attend the University of Prague where he studied philosophy. He also had lessons in piano and composition from Tomášek. He found it impossible to obtain sufficient work as a musician in Prague, so in 1813 at the age of 22 Voříšek moved to Vienna to study law and, he hoped, to meet Beethoven. In Vienna he was able to greatly improve his piano technique under the guidance of Hummel, but once more failed to gain full time employment as a musician.
Although Voříšek was enthralled by the classical music of Mozart, he was more intrigued by the romanticism of Ludwig van Beethoven.
In 1814, as Voříšek was beginning to compose music, he did indeed meet Beethoven in Vienna. He also met other leading musicians there, including the composers Louis Spohr, Ignaz Moscheles, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and especially Franz Schubert with whom he fast became friends.
Voříšek completed his study of the law in 1821 and was appointed barrister with the Court Military Privy Councillor mainly in work drafting legal documents. However, in 1822 he at last gained a post as second court organist and ended his legal career. In 1824 he was appointed first organist
Voříšek became an esteemed composer of music for orchestra, voice and piano. In 1818 he had become the conductor of the Friends of Music Society (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde).
Voříšek died of tuberculosis in 1825 at the age of 34. He was buried at Währing Cemetery, where within three years his friend Schubert and idol Beethoven were also to be buried. The cemetery is now a park named after Franz Schubert, though the remains of both Schubert and Beethoven were later moved to the Zentralfriedhof.
Voříšek wrote only one symphony. Set in D major and written in 1821, it has been likened to Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 2. A representative of early Romantic music, its melodic invention foreshadowed that of Schubert.
As the Imperial Court Organist, Voříšek composed a Mass in B-flat major. Together with his single symphony and his Violin Sonata in G major, Op. 5, the Mass is among the few recorded works of Voříšek .
The first recorded use of the term Impromptu in the musical sense occurred in 1817, in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, an idea of the publisher to describe a piano piece by Voříšek . Voříšek's Impromptus Op.7 were published in 1822, pieces known to his friend Franz Schubert who subsequently used the description for several sets of music for piano, as did, later Frédéric Chopin and numerous other composers.
In 1823-24, he was one of the 50 composers who composed a variation on a waltz by Anton Diabelli for Vaterländischer Künstlerverein.