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==Further reading== |
==Further reading== |
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*{{cite book |last=Šourek|first=Otakar|title=Dvořákovy symfonie|publisher=Hudební matice Umělecké besedy|location=Prague|year=194|language=cs}} |
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*Šourek, Otakar: Antonín Dvořák (Prague 1943). |
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*Šourek, Otakar: Života a dílo Antonína Dvořáka. Část prvá. (”The Life and Work of Antonín Dvořák. Part One.”) 1841–1877 (Prague 1916). |
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*Šourek, Otakar: Života a dílo Antonína Dvořáka. Část druhá. (”The Life and Work of Antonín Dvořák. Part Two.”) 1878–1890 (Prague 1955). |
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*Šourek, Otakar: Života a dílo Antonína Dvořáka. Část třetí. (”The Life and Work of Antonín Dvořák. Part Three.”) 1891–1896 (Prague 1956). |
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*Československý hudební slovník osob a institucí. (”Czechoslovak Musical Dictionary of Persons and Institutions.”) 1st ed. Vol. 1. Prague: Státní hudební vydavatelství, (”State Music Publishing House”), 1963. |
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*Československý hudební slovník osob a institucí. (”Czechoslovak Musical Dictionary of Persons and Institutions.”) 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Prague: Státní hudební vydavatelství, (”State Music Publishing House”), 1965. |
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*{{cite book |
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*{{cite book |last1=Dvořák |first1=Otakar |last2=Polansky |first2=Paul |last3=Němec |first3=Miroslav |title=Antonín Dvořák, my father |date=1993 |publisher=Czech Historical Research Center |location=Spillville, Iowa |isbn=9780963673404}} |
*{{cite book |last1=Dvořák |first1=Otakar |last2=Polansky |first2=Paul |last3=Němec |first3=Miroslav |title=Antonín Dvořák, my father |date=1993 |publisher=Czech Historical Research Center |location=Spillville, Iowa |isbn=9780963673404}} |
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Latest revision as of 10:07, 25 October 2025
Czech stage actress
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Josefína Čermáková, married name Countess Kounicová (17 January 1849 – 27 May 1895) was a Czech stage actress. She was a sister of Anna Dvořáková and sister-in-law of the composer Antonín Dvořák.
Early life and education
[edit]
Josefina Čermáková was baptised as Josepha Čermák, having been born on 17 January 1849 in Prague[1] into the family of the Prague goldsmith Jan Jiří Čermák. She grew up with four other sisters and from early childhood was introduced, together with her sisters, to music, among other things cultural. Josepha and her younger sister Anna[2] were taught piano by the then unknown Antonín Dvořák. Later Josefína encountered Dvořák at performances at the Prague Provisional Theatre, where he played the viola in the orchestra. Dvořák secretly loved her, but his feelings were not reciprocated. At that time, she had higher goals and he (Dvořák) was just one of a long line of rejected admirers. However, her younger sister Anna was more receptive to Dvořák’s feelings, and so he married her in 1873.[3]
Josefína had been drawn to the theatre since her youth, she was a pupil of the theatre actress Eliška Pešková[4] and from 1862 she was a member of the Prague Provisional Theatre, where she exploited her talent and achieved considerable success. Alongside Otilie Sklenářová-Malá and Julie Šamberková, she was one of the best Czech actresses, playing the roles of naive and sentimental women and particularly excelling in the French repertoire, and for a while also in operetta roles. In 1872 she met Count Václav Robert of Kounice at a ball and in 1873 she accepted an engagement at the court theatre in Weimar, Germany.[5] Later she also performed as a guest and “on the boards” of Czech theatres.
At the end of 1877, after a five-year courtship, she married Count Kounic in a church in Třebsko[6] Antonín Dvořák was their best man. After the wedding, she left the theatre permanently, lived at the castle in Vysoká u Příbramě and also traveled frequently with her husband, most often to Vienna, after her husband became a member of the Reichsrat. Their marriage remained childless. At the age of thirty, she began to have heart problems, which persisted until the end of her life. She and Antonín Dvořák remained lifelong friends and she supervised the upbringing of some of their children while the Dvořáks were in America. Countess Josefina Kounicová died on 27 May 1895 in Smíchov,[7][8] shortly after Dvořák’s return from America.
The composition of one of Dvořák’s most famous works, the Cello Concerto in B minor, is also associated with the personality of Josefina Kounicová. While the composer was working on it, Josefina was dying, and Dvořák reverently included in the concerto a quotation from Josefina’s favorite song “Leave Me Alone”/ Lasst mich allein (Kéž duch můj sám)[9][10] from the cycle “Four Songs, Op. 82”.[11]
- ^ “JCH N23 • 1845-1850. Archives of the City of Prague”. p. 153. Retrieved 2021-09-27.
Registry record for the Church of St. Henry in the New Town of Prague – birth and baptism of Josepha Čermák (sic)
- ^ “JCH N24 • 1850-1857. Archives of the City of Prague”. p. 206. Retrieved 2021-09-27.
Birth and baptism record of Anna Čermáková Parish at the Church of St. Henry in the New Town of Prague.
- ^ “Archivní katalog”. katalog.ahmp.cz, pragapublica. p. 123. Retrieved 23 October 2025.
Registry entry for Marriage (top left)
- ^ GRÉGR, Julius. (1892-06-02). Eliška Pešková. National Lists. Moravian Provincial Library Brno. Feuilleton (Report). Vol. 32 no. 152 (afternoon ed.). p. 1. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
Josefína Čermáková mentioned as a student of Eliška Pešková
- ^ SKREJŠOVSKÝ, František (1873-09-05). Divadlo a umění [Theatre and Art] (Report). Vol. 6-7 no. 36. Brno: Světozor. Moravian Provincial Library. p. 427. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ “Třebsko 17. Státní oblastní archiv v Praze (State Regional Archives in Prague)”. Retrieved 2021-09-27.
Registry record of the marriage of Václav Robert Count of Kounice with Josefa Čermáková, parish of Třebsko.
- ^ “SM Z16 • 1892-1899. Archives of the City of Prague”. p. 132. Retrieved 2021-09-27.
Registry record of the death and burial of Josefina Countess of Kounice parish near the Church of St. Wenceslaus in Smíchov
- ^ URBÁNEK, Mojmír (1895-06-15). DEATHS. Dalibor. Prague (Report). Vol. 17 no. 28. p. 218. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
Report on the death of Countess Josefina of Kounice, née Čermáková.)
- ^ “Antonín Dvořák: Four Songs, Op. 82 “May My Spirit Be Alone” Eva Blahová”. YouTube, Eva Blahová’s channel. 2017-10-31. Retrieved 2021-09-27.
- ^ Smaczny, Jan (1999). Dvořák: Cello Concerto, Cambridge Music Handbooks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 79. ISBN 9780521669030.
- ^ “Four Songs. Antonín Dvořák”. antonin-dvorak.cz. Retrieved 2021-09-27.
- Šourek, Otakar (194). Dvořákovy symfonie (in Czech). Prague: Hudební matice Umělecké besedy.
- Beveridge, David R. (2012). Zdenka a Josef Hlávkovi – Anna a Antonín Dvořákovi: přátelství dvou manželských párů a jeho plody v českém a světovém umění (in Czech). Prague: Národohospodářský ústav Josefa Hlávky. ISBN 978-80-86729-82-4.
- Dvořák, Otakar; Polansky, Paul; Němec, Miroslav (1993). Antonín Dvořák, my father. Spillville, Iowa: Czech Historical Research Center. ISBN 9780963673404.
