Olofsen, Arnoldus
(b Elburg, 1695/6; d Amsterdam, bur. 14 May 1768). Dutch music publisher and bookseller. On 8 May 1732 Olofsen gave notice of his intended marriage to Dirkje Jacobs in Amsterdam. He was received into the Amsterdam guild of booksellers on 9 August 1734, four days after he had settled up his burghership. In 1742 his annual income was fixed at 800 guilders, while he had his bookshop in Gravenstraat. In 1743 Olofsen was charged with the printing and selling of a ‘defamatory’ text. Later on he was imprisoned for the dissemination of libellous publications; he was released on 19 November 1749. In the late 1750s the imprint on Olofsen's editions changed to ‘Aan [At] de Nieuwe Kerk, over de Voorburgwal’. His widow was buried in Amsterdam on 28 January 1780.
A catalogue of 1755 contains about 80 titles; among them are Olofsen's own printings of chamber music, concertos and vocal pieces of Dutch composers such as J.P.A. Fischer, Leonard Frischmuth, Hurlebusch, Mahaut, F.G. Michelet and Radeker. Besides original Dutch treatises of Leonard Frischmuth, S.T. van Loonsma and Lustig, Olofsen published theoretical works, translated into Dutch by Lustig, of Quantz (1754), Werckmeister (Orgelproef, 1755) and the Bach pupil J.M. Schmidt (Musico-Theologia, 1756).
Olofsen sometimes used passe-partout title-pages (Scheurleer, 90). As a whole he produced a list of some importance, but owing to his vicious attacks on colleagues (among others the young J.J. Hummel, with whom he had collaborated in 1754–5), Olofsen was not a credit to the guild.
JohanssonH, i
J.W. Enschedé: ‘Arnoldus Olofsen, muziekuitgever te Amsterdam in 1755’, TVNM, viii (1905–8), 45–56; ix (1909–14), 75–6
D.F. Scheurleer: Het muziekleven in Nederland in de tweede helft der 18e eeuw in verband met Mozart's verblijf aldaar, i (The Hague, 1909), 88–92
PAUL VAN REIJEN
Olomouc
(Ger. Olmütz).
Town in Moravia, Czech Republic. It was the capital of Moravia from 1182 until 1642; from 1777 it was the residence of the archbishop. After the Thirty Years War the musical activities of the town centred on the cathedral of St Václav (founded 1109), which had an organ by 1258, the parish church of St Moritz (Mořic), 1257, the Jesuit college, and the Augustinian and Premonstratensian orders in nearby Hradisko. Valuable medieval choral manuscripts are preserved in the cathedral chapter archive. Many of the cathedral Kapellmeister were active as composers: P.J. Rittler (1678–90), T.A. Albertini (1691–1735), V.M. Gurecký (1736–43), J.A. Gurecký (1743–69), Anton Neumann (1769–76), Josef Puschmann (1778–94), Pavel Křížkovský (1872–83), who carried through Cecilian reforms, and Josef Nešvera (1884–1914). Beethoven's Missa solemnis was intended for the consecration of Archduke Rudolph as archbishop in 1820, though the work was not finished until 1823.
The violin makers Johann Strobl (1700–53) and Martin Brunner (1724–1801) were active in Olomouc. In 1745 the organ builder Michael Engler of Breslau completed his greatest instrument for St Moritz: a three-manual organ with 41 registers. It was rebuilt with five manuals and 94 registers in 1961, since when it has been used for an annual international organ festival. Other valuable instruments are that of Johann Gottfried Helwig (1730, rebuilt 1977) in the Maria Schneekirche (Panna Maria Sněžná), and the cathedral organ by the Rieger brothers (1886). Important hymnbooks published in Olomouc were the Kancionál český of Jan Kunvaldský (1576), the Kancionál of Jan Rozenplut (1601) and the Písně katolické of Jiří Hlohovský (1622).
From the mid-16th century the Jesuits staged rhetorical declamations and school plays in their university hall, with music before and after. In 1770 a Königliches Städtisches Nationaltheater was erected; in 1830 opera was first accommodated in a new theatre building. Early in 1883 Mahler conducted there for three months. In 1918 the Městské Divadlo (City Theatre) was established (renamed Divadlo Oldřicha Stibora in 1958). Karel Nedbal directed the opera there from 1921 to 1928; later conductors were Emanuel Bastl (1928–32), Adolf Heller (1932–40), Nedbal again (1940–45), Iša Krejčí (1945–58), under whose regime nearly 50 operas by Czech composers were produced, Zdeněk Košler (1958–62), Pavel Pokorný (1963–71), Miloš Konvalinka (1972–6) Reginald Kefer (1977–90) and Martin Dubovic (1991–).
There were town musicians (Kunstpfeifer) in Olomouc from 1557 on. Among the most distinguished were Georg Finger (probably related to Gottfried Finger) and Bernard Němec (1683–1751), who possessed as many as 90 different instruments. From 1770 a collegium musicum arranged weekly public concerts. German musical societies established in the 19th century promoted symphonic and choral concerts; these included the Dilettantenverein (1817), the Männergesangverein (1847), the Musikverein (1850), which also supported a public music school, and the Kirchenmusikverein (1869). A Czech musical society, the Žerotín (founded 1880), put on choral concerts, opened its own music school (1888) and staged operas from 1891. It was to the Žerotín that Dvořák dedicated his oratotio Svatá Ludmila (1886). In 1945 Czech orchestral players from the former German theatre formed a new orchestra, the Moravská Filharmonie (Moravian PO). The first conductor, Dalibor Doubek, was succeeded by František Stupka (1946–56), Milivoj Uzelac (1956–60), Jaromír Nohejl (1960–87), Stanislav Macura (1987–92) and Jiří Mikula (from 1992). A chair of musicology was established at Palacký University in 1945; professors have been Robert Smetana (to 1973), Vladimír Hudec (1972–80) and Jan Vičar (from 1980).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. d'Elvert: Geschichte der Musik in Mähren und Österreich-Schlesien (Brno, 1873)
V.H. Jarka and others: Padesát let olomouckého Žerotína 1880–1930 [Fifty years of the Olomouc Žerotín] (Olomouc, 1931)
V. Gregor: Památník pěvecko-hudebního spolku Žerotín v Olomouci 1880–1950 [Album of the Olomouc choral and musical society Žerotín] (Prague, 1952)
A. Schindler: Varhany Michaela Englera u sv. Mořice v Olomouci [The Michael Engler organ at the church of St Moritz in Olomouc] (Olomouc, 1966)
J. Sehnal: ‘Dějiny varhan v kostele P. Marie Sněžné v Olomouci’ [A history of the organ in the Maria Schneekirche in Olomouc], ČMm, li (1966), 269–90
V. Hudec: ‘Olomoucká operní dramaturgie Isa Krejčího’ [The dramaturgical activity of Isa Krejčí at the opera in Olomouc], O divadle na Moravě, ed. E. Petrů and J. Stýskal (Prague, 1974), 137–50
J. Sehnal: ‘Nové příspěvky k dějinám hudby na Morave v 17. a 18. století’ [New contributions to the history of music in Moravia], ČMm, lx (1975), 159–80, esp. 165–73 [with Ger. summary]
J. Sehnal: ‘Die Orgeln der Olmützer Kathedrale’, Acta organologica, xv (1981), 37–75
J. Stýskal, ed.: Přehledné dějiny české literatury a divadla v Olomouci od počátku do roku 1918 [A brief history of Czech literature and theatre in Olomouc from the beginning to 1918] (Prague, 1981)
J. Sehnal: Hudba v olomoucké katedrále v 17. a 18. století [Music in Olomouc cathedral in the 17th and 18th centuries] (Brno, 1988)
J. Balatková: ‘Zur Geschichte der deutschen Oper in Olmütz’, Aktuelle lexicographische Fragen: Regensburg 1991, 71–3
J. Sehnal: ‘Die Musik an der Jesuiten-Akademie in Olmütz (Mähren) im frühen 18. Jahrhundert’, Zelenka-Studien I: Marburg 1991, 65–84
J. Sehnal: ‘Musik in dem Prämonstratenserkloster Hradisko (Hradisch) bei Olmütz in den Jahren 1693–1793’, KJb, lxxvii (1993), 51–95
JIŘÍ SEHNAL
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