Vilém Kurz the Younger

Significance

Vilém Kurz the Younger (1872–1945) was a Czech pianist and teacher. According to the Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine (ESU) he moved to Lviv in 1898 at the invitation of the Galician Music Society and was a professor at its conservatory until 1919. Among his Lviv students ESU names V. Barvinsky; in the Prague period (after 1928) his pupils included R. Simovych, D. Herasymovych and D. Zador, among others. [KRZ01]

Life

Kurz was born on 23 December 1872 in Německý Brod (now Havlíčkův Brod) and died on 25 May 1945 in Prague. [KRZ01; KRZ02] According to ESU he studied music in Prague, where he graduated from the conservatory in 1892. [KRZ01] Czech Wikipedia adds details of his early training and concert work and mentions his role in the Czech Trio, but does not give a year for his conservatory graduation. [KRZ02]

In Lviv, according to ESU, he appeared as a soloist and accompanist, developed his own methodological and pedagogical system, opened a higher performance course in 1911 together with M. Zadora, and organised courses in piano pedagogy and ensemble playing. [KRZ01] Czech Wikipedia adds that during the war the conservatory moved to Vienna in 1914, where Kurz also taught, and that he returned to Lviv in 1916; the family left Lviv in August 1919, first for Vienna. [KRZ02]

After Lviv Kurz worked in Brno, where, according to ESU, he built a centre of piano culture, and in 1928 he moved to Prague as a conservatory professor. He taught there until 1940 and privately afterwards. [KRZ01; KRZ02] His daughter Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová (born 19.11.1899) became a noted pianist according to both sources; ESU calls her the main representative of his school. [KRZ01; KRZ02]

Czech-Ukrainian connection

The Lviv conservatory of the Galician Music Society was the place where Kurz taught pianists, among them, according to ESU, Polish and Ukrainian musicians; the article names V. Barvinsky. [KRZ01] Czech Wikipedia lists among his pupils many foreign pianists, including Polish, Ukrainian and Italian ones, without naming the Ukrainian ones. [KRZ02] In Prague Kurz again worked with Ukrainian pianists: ESU names R. Simovych, D. Herasymovych and D. Zador among the students of the Prague period. [KRZ01]

Disagreements in the sources

Leading post in Prague: ESU calls Kurz rector of the conservatory in 1936–1939, while Czech Wikipedia (in its infobox) calls him director of the master school in 1930–1939, noting his second term after Josef Bohuslav Foerster. [KRZ01; KRZ02]

Brno and Prague: according to ESU Kurz moved to Brno in 1919 as a conservatory professor; Czech Wikipedia says he became professor of advanced piano playing at the Prague master school with an assignment in Brno. [KRZ01; KRZ02]

The name of his wife differs within Czech Wikipedia between the text (Rosálie Höhmová) and the infobox (Růžena Kurzová); this does not affect the Czech-Ukrainian story but shows the need for checking against parish records. The years of his Prague work also differ slightly: the Czech Wikipedia infobox gives 1928–1945, ESU teaching until 1940 and private lessons afterwards. [KRZ01; KRZ02]