Jaromír Weinberger (1896–1967)

Jaromír Weinberger was born with his twin sister Božena to a Jewish family in Prague, Czechoslovakia (then part of Austria-Hungary). He was a child prodigy who started playing the piano at age five, and was composing and conducting at age 10. He entered the Prague Conservatory at age 14, and studied composition with Vitezslav Novák. After graduation, he studied with Max Reger in Leipzig. In 1922, Weinberger visited the USA, and taught composition at the Ithaca Conservatory in New York for a year. When he returned to Czechoslovakia, he was appointed director of the National Theater in Bratislava, and later received appointments in Eger, Hungary, and Prague. Weinberger's musical style was deeply rooted in the Czech folk traditions of Smetana and Dvořák. In 1926, he completed his opera Švanda Dudák (Schwanda the Bagpiper), which was highly successful and made him internationally famous. The work was performed at hundreds of theaters, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. It was translated into German by writer Max Brod. Weinberger's operetta Frühlingsstürme (Spring Storms) was first performed in Berlin in January 1933, but was shut down by the new Nazi government in March. His other European works included orchestral and chamber music, and another opera, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, based on the Bret Harte story. In 1938, he and his wife Jane (Hansi) fled the Nazis first to France and then to the USA, after receiving visas so that they could attend a performance of music from Švanda Dudák at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. They settled in New York State, and later in Florida.