Emil Votoček (5 October 1872 – 11 October 1950) was a Czech chemist,

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and

music theorist Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

. He is noted for his chemistry textbooks and

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

dictionaries in both chemistry and music.

Chemistry career

Votoček studied at the Czech Institute of Technology later in

Mulhouse Mulhouse (; Alsatian language, Alsatian: or , ; ; meaning ''Mill (grinding), mill house'') is a city of the Haut-Rhin Departments of France, department, in the Grand Est Regions of France, region, eastern France, close to the France–Switzerl ...

and received his PhD with

Bernhard Tollens Bernhard Christian Gottfried Tollens (30 July 184131 January 1918) was a German chemist. Life and work Tollens attended school at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg where he was influenced by his science teacher, Karl Möbius. After gr ...

at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

for his chemistry of sugar. In 1895 he returned to the Czech Institute of Technology where he became lecturer and professor in 1907. His academic career ended with the closure of the institute by the Nazis in 1939. He held six honorary doctorates and was an honorary member of various corporations and societies.Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., 1954

Music career

His chemistry career kept him from doing anything about his interest in music until the age of thirty. Then he studied music with

František Špilka František () is a masculine given name of Czechs, Czech origin. It is a cognate of Francis (given name), Francis, Francisco, François, and Franz (given name), Franz. People with the name include: *Frank Daniel (František Daniel) (1926–1996), ...

for six years. But his other work again intervened, for a further 25 years. From his early 60s through to his mid 70s, he wrote about 60 works, including five orchestral works, much chamber music, piano sonatas and pieces, and songs. He also compiled a Czech dictionary of French and Italian musical terms.

Selected publications

* ''O derivatech karbazolu'' (1896) * ''Kondensace methylfurola s floroglucinem'' (1897) * ''O stanovení methylovaných pentos'' (1897) * ''Ueber das Verhalten der Hydrazine zu dem photographischen Lichtbilde'' (1899) * ''Cvičení v chemii organické'' (Exercises in Organic Chemistry) (1899–1901) * ''Chemie anorganická'' (Inorganic Chemistry) (1902) * ''O antipodii rhodeosy a fukosy'' (1904) * ''O konfiguraci rhodeosy'' (1907) * ''Chemie organická'' (Organic Chemistry) (1927) * ''Česko-francouzská konversace a fraseologie'' (1938) * ''Chemický slovník'' (Chemistry Dictionary), Czech-German-French-English-Italian-Latin (1941) * ''Hudební slovník cizích výrazů a rčení'' (Music Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases) (1946)

Selected compositions

Votoček wrote approximately 70 music compositions.Emil Votoček
/ref> * ''Fantasie'' for viola and piano (1943) * ''Od svítání do soumraku'' (From Dawn to Dusk) for orchestra * ''Suita'' for viola and piano * ''Téma s variacemi pro klavír a soprán'' (Theme and Variations) for piano and soprano (1934); final variation with soprano solo; words by

Jaroslav Vrchlický Jaroslav Vrchlický (; 17 February 1853 – 9 September 1912) was a Czech lyrical poet. He was nominated for the Nobel prize in literature eight times. Life He was born Emilius Jakob Frida in Louny. He lived ten years with his uncle, a p ...

* ''Tři ballatine'' (3 Ballatines) for viola and piano (published 1945)

References

1872 births 1950 deaths People from Hostinné People from the Kingdom of Bohemia Czech chemists Czech composers Czech male composers Czech Technical University in Prague faculty Czech Technical University in Prague alumni {{chemist-stub