Moor (real name, Mohr), Karel
Moor (real name, Mohr), Karel
Moor (real name, Mohr), Karel, Czech conductor, composer, and writer; b. Bëlohrad, Dec. 26, 1873; d. Prague, March 30, 1945. He studied at the Prague Cons, and in Vienna. From 1900 to 1923 he was active as a theatrical director and conductor in Bohemia and Serbia, and then he lived mainly in Prague. He achieved his first success as a composer with the operetta Pan profesor v pekle (Mr. Professor in Hell), produced in Brunn in 1908. His other operas, Hjördis (1899; rev. 1901; Prague, Oct. 22, 1905) and Viy, after Gogol’s fantastic tale (1901; Prague, July 14, 1903), were also successful. A facile writer, Moor publ, an autobiography in the form of a novel as Karl Martens (Prague, 1906), a vol. of reminiscences, Vzpominsky (Pilsen, 1917), and a semifictional book, V dlani osudu (In the Hands of Fate; Novy Bydzov, 1947).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis Mclntire