Kraft, Anton
Kraft, Anton
Kraft, Anton, Austrian cellist and composer, father of Nikolaus Kraft; b. Rokitzan, near Plzen, Dec. 30, 1749; d. Vienna, Aug. 28, 1820. He began to study at an early age with his father, an amateur cellist, and then went to Prague, where he studied with one Werner, cellist of the Kreuzherren Church; also studied law and philosophy at the Univ. of Prague. He then was a cellist in the chapel of Prince Esterhâzy (1778–90), and also studied composition with Haydn (c. 1780). He subsequently was a cellist in the orch. of Prince Grassalkowicz de Gyarak in Pressburg (1790–96), and then of Prince Joseph Lobkowitz in Vienna. He toured widely as a virtuoso with his son (from 1789); became a teacher of cello at the Cons, of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna (1820). Haydn wrote his Cello Concerto in D major, H Vllb: 2, for him, and Beethoven wrote his Triple Concerto with Kraft in mind. Kraft’s own works include a Cello Concerto (publ. in Leipzig, 1792?; ed. in Musica Viva Historica, II, 1961), 6 sonatas for Cello (3 as op.2, Amsterdam and Berlin, 1790; 3 as op.2, Offenbach, 1790?), and 3 grands duos concertantes for Violin and Cello, op.3 (Leipzig, 1792?).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire