Franz Lauska


Franz Seraphin Lauska, baptised as Franciscus Ignatius Joannes Nepomucensis Carolus Boromaeus, was a Moravian pianist, composer, and teacher of Giacomo Meyerbeer. The name "Seraphin" was a later name affix, which Lauska never used. Lauska was considered "one of the most brilliant executants of his time."

Biography

Lauska was born in Brno, and may have been a student of Johann Georg Albrechtsberger while studying in Vienna in 1784. He also spent time in Italy, played chamber music while serving at the Bavarian court in Munich, taught in Copenhagen from 1794 to 1798, and then moved to Berlin. There he performed as a pianist, wrote music, and was a piano teacher of the Prussian royal family and the young Giacomo Meyerbeer. He conducted the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin in rehearsals while Carl Friedrich Zelter was away in 1802 and later became a member of Zelter's Liedertafel. Lauska probably knew Beethoven, for whom he read proofs, and was friends with Carl Maria von Weber, who dedicated his second sonata in A-flat major to Lauska. Around 1816 he gave piano lessons to Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. He died in Berlin, aged 61.

Works

Lauska wrote a great deal of piano music, much of it technically undemanding and intended for beginners, amateurs, and his pupils. His music is uncomplicated and typical of the musical style at the time. The following list of works is incomplete. A complete, dated catalogue of works has been published recently.