Leopold Koželuch – Parthia in F for 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets, 2 Horns, 2 Bassoons and Contrabassoon
First Edition
Leopold Koželuch was born on 26 June 1747 in Welwarn, near Prague, the son of the shoemaker and tradesman Antonín Bartholomäus Koželuch; at his baptism he was given the name Ioannes Antonius. His cousin was the composer Jan Antonín Koželuch, and his daughter was the pianist Katharina Cibbini (1785–1858). To avoid confusion with his cousin, he likely changed his name before 1774. At his marriage on 14 November 1782 to Maria Allmayr von Allstern, a niece of Ignaz von Born, he was recorded in the register as “Johann Leopold Koscheluck.”
Koželuch received his first musical training in Welwarn from Anton Kubík, and later from his cousin and from Franz Xaver Dussek. After grammar school in Prague, he began studying law, but abandoned it after a few semesters to devote himself entirely to music.
In 1771 he made his debut with a ballet at the Prague National Theatre, composing around 25 works for the house over the following seven years. In 1778 he moved to Vienna, where he was likely briefly a pupil of Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and quickly rose to fame as a pianist. The imperial court appointed him successor to Georg Christoph Wagenseil as music teacher to Archduchess Elisabeth, daughter of Empress Maria Theresa. In 1781 Koželuch declined the post of court organist in Salzburg as Mozart’s successor; instead, in 1792, following Mozart’s death, he became Chamber Kapellmeister and Court Composer for life. His private pupils included the blind pianist Maria Theresia Paradis.
An enthusiastic adherent of Masonic ideas, Koželuch joined the Vienna lodges “Zum Palmbaum” and “Zu den drei Adlern.” Widely admired across Europe during his lifetime, he was increasingly criticized in his later years as overly prolific – the disparaging judgments of Mozart and Beethoven remain well known to this day. Nevertheless, his finest works already show traits of the musical language of Beethoven and Schubert, and some were for a long time even attributed to Beethoven.
Leopold Koželuch died of gout in Vienna on 7 May 1818, at the age of 70.