Bedřich Nikodém (also Friedrich Nikodem and Fritz Nikodem; 12 August 1909 – 19 July 1970) was a male
Czech international
table tennis player, later active as a composer, lyricist and musician. He appeared in the 1930s under the pseudonym Niki Němec.
Life
Nikodém was born in
Vienna the son of an engineer. In 1921, the family moved to
Brno
Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...
,
Czechoslovakia. According to his paternal wish, Friedrich Nikodem continued the family tradition and completed his engineering studies in
Prague. His main interest, however, was sports and music.
At the end of the 1920s, Fritz Nikodem was one of the best table tennis players in the country and from 1929 to 1933 belonged to the Czech national team. He won a
bronze medal
A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receive ...
at the
1930 World Table Tennis Championships
The 4th World Table Tennis Championships were held in Berlin from January 21 to 26, 1930.
Medalists Team
Individual
References
External linksITTF Museum
{{World Table Tennis Championships
World Table Tennis Championships
World Table Te ...
and a
silver medal
A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc ...
at the
1931 World Table Tennis Championships
The 5th World Table Tennis Championships were held in Budapest from February 10 to February 15, 1931.
Medalists Team
Individual
References
External linksITTF Museum
{{World Table Tennis Championships
World Table Tennis Championships
Wo ...
in the team event. The following year in 1932 he won a
gold medal
A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture.
Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...
in the team event at the
1932 World Table Tennis Championships
The 6th World Table Tennis Championships were held in Prague from 25 to 30 January 1932.
Medalists Team
Individual
References
External linksITTF Museum
{{World Table Tennis Championships
World Table Tennis Championships
World Table Ten ...
for Czechoslovakia.
Afterwards Nikodém devoted himself entirely to music. During the Great Depression, he earned a living as a bar pianist. Under the pseudonym Niki Němec, he participated in recordings with various Dixieland dance orchestras. During this time, the first songs of his own gained popularity. In 1935, he began collaborating with the music publisher Mojmír Urbánek, who continued under the successor companies Orbis, Státní hudební vydavatelství and Supraphon.
In the 1940s, Nikodém dedicated himself primarily to
swing music
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands ...
, and some of his songs from the 1950s became classics. In the 1960s, Nikodém's compositional work shifted to
rock and roll. During this time he also worked as a scribe and editor, and promoted
Karel Svoboda and the brothers and
Ladislav Štaidl. Nikodém succumbed to a heart attack in 1970.
The city of
Ostrava honored Bedřich Nikodém in 1983 with the designation of a 2.3-kilometer-long road in the district of
Poruba Poruba may refer to:
;Czech Republic
*Poruba (Orlová), a village, now administratively a part of the town of Orlová
*Poruba (Ostrava), a district of the city of Ostrava
;Slovakia
*Dolná Poruba, a village in Trenčín District
*Kamenná Poruba, ...
.
Compositions and songs (selection)
* as Niki Němec: Music for the film ''Sňatková kancelář'', 1932
* ''Mám malý stan''
* ''Jen kytara a já''
* ''Náš táborák''
* ''Houpy, hou''
* ''Dva modré balónky''
* ''Je po dešti''
* ''Nedělní vláček''
* ''Flašinetář''
* ''Znamínko na ramínku''
* ''Barborka''
* ''Start gemini''
* ''Sedmikráska''
* ''Poustevník''
See also
*
List of table tennis players
*
List of World Table Tennis Championships medalists
References
External links
Biography at fdb.cz
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nikodem, Bedrich
Czech male table tennis players
World Table Tennis Championships medalists
Czech film score composers
Male film score composers
Czech composers
Czech male composers
1909 births
1970 deaths
Sportspeople from Vienna
Musicians from Vienna
20th-century Czech male musicians