Štepán, Václav

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Štěpán, Václav

Štěpán, Václav, Czech pianist, pedagogue, and writer on music; b. Pečky, near Kolin, Dec. 12, 1889; d. Prague, Nov. 24, 1944. He studied musicology with Nejedly at the Univ. of Prague (graudated, 1913), and then took courses at the German Univ. of Prague and in Berlin; also studied piano with Josef Cermâk in Prague (1895–1908), and later with James Kwast in Berlin and Blanche Selva in Paris. He was active as a pianist from 1908; also taught aesthetics (from 1919) and later piano at the Prague Cons. He was an authority on Suk and Novâk; a collection of his major articles on these composers appeared as Novak à Suk (Prague, 1945); also pubi. Symbolika z pfibuzné zjevy v programni hudbě (Symbolism and Related Phenomena in Program Music; Prague, 1915). He composed some vocal, chamber, and piano pieces but abandoned composition when he was 30.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire