Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Neruda.

Moravian family of musicians.

(1) Josef Neruda

(2) Amálie Nerudová [Wickenhauserová]

(3) Wilma Neruda [Vilemína (Maria Franziška) Nerudová; Wilhelmina Neruda; Wilma Norman-Néruda; Lady Hallé]

(4) Franz [František] (Xaver Viktor) Neruda

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ČSHS

DBL (R. Hove)

MGG1 (J. Bužga, M. Tegen and N. Schiørring) [incl. fuller bibliography and list of Franz Neruda's works]

‘Die Geigenfae’, Signale für die musikalische Welt, xxxviii (1880), 241–3

‘Wilma Neruda-Norman’, Nordisk musik-tidende, vii/3 (1886), 33

H. Heller: Mährens Männer der Gegenwart, v (Brno, 1892), 74

J. Srb-Debrnov: Slovník hudebních umělců slovanských [Dictionary of Slavonic composers] (MS, CZ-Pnm)

Obituary for Wilma Neruda, Dalibor, xxxiii (1911), 251

‘Neruda, Franz’, Dansk biografisk haandleksikon, ed. S. Dahl and P. Engelstoft (Copenhagen, 1923)

V. Kyas: ‘Janáček se neměl o koho opřít?’ [Janáček had no one to support him?], OM, xxv (1993), 33–42

V. Kyas: ‘Slavná hudební rodina Nerudo: k hudební historii Brna v 19. století’ [The famous Neruda musical family: part of the history of music in 19th-century Brno], OM, xxv (1993), 229–41

JOHN CLAPHAM

Neruda

(1) Josef Neruda

(b Mohelno, Moravia, 16 Jan 1807; d Brno, 18 Feb 1875). Organist. He is not to be confused with the teacher and composer Josef Neruda (1804–76). He received his musical education at the Benedictine monastery of Rajhrad. While an assistant teacher at Náměšt’ nad Oslavou, he also played in Count Haugwitz’s military band (1825). He taught the piano at Olomouc (1825–32), and was choirmaster (1832) and then organist (1836–45) of Brno Cathedral; there is no evidence to support the frequent assertion that he later returned to the cathedral post. He moved to Vienna with his talented family, wishing them to have the advantages of the capital’s educational opportunities and general musical activity. His eldest daughter (2) Amálie Nerudová was a pianist, another daughter, (3) Wilma Neruda, became a celebrated violinist and his youngest daughter Marie (Arlbergová) (b Brno, 26 March 1840; d Stockholm, 1922) was also a violinist; his sons Viktor (b Brno, 1836; d St Petersburg, 1852) and (4) Franz Neruda were cellists. In 1848–9 he travelled with Amálie, Wilma, Marie and Viktor to various German cities, Belgium, the Netherlands, England, Poland and Russia (on another Russian tour, Viktor died at St Petersburg). He played in a string quartet with Wilma, Marie and Franz until Wilma’s marriage in 1864, and took his family again to Russia in 1860 and to Poland and Germany in 1861. During 1861 to 1863 they toured Scandinavia, giving 20 concerts in Stockholm and 39 in Copenhagen.

Neruda

(2) Amálie Nerudová [Wickenhauserová]

(b Brno, 31 March 1834; d Brno, 24 Feb 1890). Pianist and teacher, daughter of (1) Josef Neruda. She took part in the family’s European concert tours from 1848 and, with her sister Wilma and her brother Viktor, made frequent piano trio appearances until 1852 (the year of Viktor’s death). In her native town she became a leading musical personality, performing six times at the Czech Beseda concerts. Between 1877 and 1879 she held chamber concerts at which she played in the piano quintets of Schumann and Brahms, in a Dvořák trio and partnered the young Janáček in works for two pianos. She was also active as a teacher, and Janáček benefited from her advice, particularly after he became conductor of the Beseda concerts.

Neruda

(3) Wilma Neruda [Vilemína (Maria Franziška) Nerudová; Wilhelmina Neruda; Wilma Norman-Néruda; Lady Hallé]

(b Brno, 21 March ?1838; d Berlin, 15 April 1911). Violinist, daughter of (1) Josef Neruda. She was taught the violin by her father at a very early age and by Leopold Jansa in Vienna; Hanslick was impressed by her playing in 1846. She performed in Prague with her sister Amálie in December 1847, went with the family on her first important concert tour, visiting Leipzig, Berlin, Breslau and Hamburg in the following year, and in 1849, after numerous appearances in London, she played a De Bériot concerto at the Philharmonic concert on 11 June. In 1863, at the end of her family’s highly successful Scandinavian tour, the King of Sweden appointed her chamber virtuoso, and a year later she triumphed in Paris. She married the Swedish composer and conductor Ludvig Norman in 1864; they separated five years later. From 1867 to 1870 she was professor of violin at the Swedish Royal Academy of Music. Her annual visits to London for the winter and spring seasons began in 1869, and in 1876 she was given a magnificent Stradivari (1709) by the Duke of Edinburgh (later Duke of Saxe-Coburg) and the earls of Dudley and Hardwicke. As Mme Norman-Néruda she frequently deputized for Ludwig Straus as leader of his quartet (the other players were Ries, Zerbini and Piatti), and she appeared regularly in Charles Hallé’s recitals from 1877; she was also a popular soloist in all the principal musical centres of Europe. Three years after Norman’s death in 1885, she married Sir Charles Hallé. In 1896, a year after Hallé’s death, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), supported by the kings of Sweden and Denmark, inaugurated a public subscription in appreciation of Lady Hallé’s work. She left London in 1898 and two years later settled in Berlin, where she continued to teach (at the Stern Conservatory) and give concerts. The title of violinist to Queen Alexandra was conferred on her in 1901.

Neruda

(4) Franz [František] (Xaver Viktor) Neruda

(b Brno, 3 Dec 1843; d Copenhagen, 20 March 1915). Cellist and composer, son of (1) Josef Neruda. Like his brother and sisters, he first learnt music from his father, beginning with the violin, and taught himself the cello in 1852 after his brother Viktor’s death. He studied the cello with Březina in Brno, and for six months with the Belgian cellist Servais in Warsaw in 1859. In 1860 he played (with his sisters Amálie and Wilma) at the first Czech Beseda concert in Brno. In 1861 he went on a long Scandinavian tour with his sisters Wilma and Marie which met with particular success at Copenhagen in 1862–3. He settled in the Danish capital in 1864 and became a member of the royal orchestra. Four years later he was one of the founders of the Chamber Music Society and its string quartet, whose other members were Tofte, Schiørring and Holm. In 1874 he visited London, Manchester and Liverpool, and he lived in England periodically from 1876 to 1879. Returning to Copenhagen, he founded the Neruda Quartet, which also included Anton Svendsen, Nicolai Hansen (later Holger Møller) and Christian Pedersen; for a decade it was Denmark’s leading ensemble. In 1889 Anton Rubinstein chose him to succeed Davïdov as professor at the St Petersburg Conservatory. In Copenhagen again from 1891, he became conductor of the Music Society, a post he held until his death; during these years he also conducted the Music Society in Stockholm and was highly esteemed as a piano teacher. His compositions, a number of them published in Copenhagen and other cities, show Czech folk influence and include five cello concertos, a set of orchestral pieces entitled Fra Bøhmerwald, chamber music for strings, works for cello and piano and many piano pieces. His manuscripts and letters are now in the Royal Library and Musikhistorisk Museum in Copenhagen.