- Jan August Vitásek
Jan Matyáš Neopmuk August Vitásek (or Johann Matthias Wittasek/Wittaschek) (born
Hořín ,March 23 ,1770 -Prague ,December 7 ,1839 ) was aBohemia n composer.Vitásek studied under his father and then under
František Xaver Dušek andLeopold Kozeluch , the latter of whom he would succeed in the position of music director in 1814 at theCathedral of St. Vitus in Prague. Vitásek remained in Prague for the rest of his life and became one of the city's leading musical figures, even refusing an offer of a directorship atSt. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna . He became the director of the organ school for a Bohemian organization called the Society for the Promotion of Church Music in 1830.Vitásek's compositional output includes one
opera ("David", 1810), twelve masses, sevenrequiem s, many other choral works bothsacred andsecular , some symphonies,concerto s,chamber music , and preludes and fugues for organ.ource
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Don Randel , "The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music", Harvard, 1996, p. 952.
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