Janowka (Janovka), Thomas Balthasar (Tomáš Baltazar)

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Janowka (Janovka), Thomas Balthasar (Tomáš Baltazar)

Janowka (Janovka), Thomas Balthasar (Tom´š Baltazar), Bohemian organist and musical lexicographer; b. Kuttenberg (baptized), Jan. 6, 1669; d. Prague (buried), June 13, 1741. He received a Jesuit education at the St. Wenceslas seminary in Prague, and continued his studies at the Charles Univ. there (M.Phil., 1689). He then was organist at Tyn Church there from 1691 until his death. He compiled the Clavis ad thesaurum magnae artis tnusicae (Prague, 1701; 2nd ed., 1715, as Clavis ad musicam), which was the 2nd (after Tinctoris) dictio1nary of music ever publ. Only a few copies of the original ed. are extant, but it was reprinted in 1973.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire