Jean-Baptiste Krumpholz

Jean-Baptiste Krumpholz ( [Czech language| _cz. title=Biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte der böhmischen Länder. Band II, I-M|last=Sturm|first=Heribert|isbn=3-486-52551-4|date=1984|location=Munich|publisher=R. Oldenburg|pages=322|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=lPMHclSvkuQC&pg=PA322&lpg=PA322&dq=(krumpholz%7Ckrumpholtz)+johann+zlonice&source=web&ots=Anr2EGvHjy&sig=7_5LugnVFWZu4mb0Nznie3JJQk8|accessdate=2007-12-18] was a Czech composer and harpist. He learned music from his father while growing up in Paris; in 1773 he played a successful harp concerto in the Burgtheater in Vienna. After serving three years in Count Esterrházy's court orchestra (1773 – 1776) during which he is said to have taken counterpoint lessons with Joseph Haydn, he embarked on a successful concert tour of Europe. In Paris and Metz he worked with manufacturers towards improving the construction of the harp. He composed concertos and sonatas for harp and chamber music. He drowned himself in the Seine after his wife, Anne-Marie Krumpholtz (1755 – 1824), also a virtuoso harpist, eloped to London, although the story that this was with pianist Jan Ladislav Dussek is apocryphal.

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