Loading details…
Artist
Friedrich Franz Hurka
Czech18th century
about
Friedrich Franz Hurka, actually František Václav Hůrka (born 19. February 1762 in Merklin, Bohemia; died 10. December 1805 in Berlin) was a Bohemian opera singer (tenor), conductor and composer. He was considered one of the most important tenors of his time. He began his musical career as an altar at the Prague Kreuzherrenkirche, then moved to Leipzig. In 1788 he became chamber singer in the court chapel of Margrave Friedrich Heinrich of Brandenburg-Schwedt in Schwedt, then in Dresden and from 1789 for 1000 Thaler annual Salary Royal Singer at the Berlin Hofbühne. From 1791 to 1802, he also worked as a member of the Singakademie. In addition, he created a whole series of compositions already close to Romanticism, which are only partially preserved. The contemporary music critic Ernst Ludwig Gerber characterized him as the "biggest singer, in full meaning of this word" and emphasized in particular the "wide scope of his beautiful voice" and the "deedness to read everything from the sheet, and in general in the execution of the highest difficulties". Hurka was admitted to the Masonic Lodge Friedrich Wilhelm for Crowned Justice in Berlin in 1794. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.