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Zděnek Fibich (1850 - 1900) has been behind Smetana and Dvořák the third of the leading Czech composers in the last half of the 19th century. His music is strongly romantically and often very intimate. His late compositions have been less national pointed and are modern.
In 1865 he attended the conservatory at Leipzig together with Ignaz Moscheles and others. In 1870 he returned to Bohemia and lived with his parents until his 21st birthday when he moved to Prague. There he started to compose during all the day and to write the opera Bukovin. In 1873 he married Růžena Hanuš and became a choir director in Vilnius, Lithuania. In this year he set his poem Zaboj, Slavoj and Ludek to music, deeply influenced by Smetanas „My Country”.
He wrote the successful opera Blanik and got one of the most successful melodramatic composers. Fibich finished his church activities in 1881 and concentrated himself to composing and to give music lessons. Soon he fell in love with a pupil, the singer Anežka Schulz and left his wife and his son for her. Ms Schulz gave Fibich the idea of a better understanding of feminist texts. She also wrote the texts for three of his four last operas. Because of the patriotic topic the opera Sarka (1897) about a female Czech armed forces leader has been his most successful work.
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