Selections from Václav Tomášek’s Eclogues, Opus 47, 51, 66 and 83: Performance Suggestions and Recording Project

Czech composer, Václav Tomášek (1774-1850) belongs to a generation of late classical composers overshadowed by their contemporaries like Mozart and Beethoven. However, Tomášek’s work both as a composer and a pedagogue was influential to the subsequent generation of Romantic composers, and his pieces are an important bridge between the late Classical period and early Romantic. More substantial attention has been paid to Tomášek’s vocal compositions in the English language literature. Tomášek’s Eclogues for piano are excellent representative works of this transition between classical and romantic. They employ classical formal models which are meant to recall Greco-Roman poetic origins and do not contain complex harmonic language. These pieces are not strictly ‘classical’ works and should be considered early character pieces for the piano. Indeed, later Romantic composers, like Franz Liszt, also used the Eclogue as a form, evoking a bucolic pastoralism. Tomášek’s Eclogues are therefore important early templates of this form and should be considered by pianists for inclusion on concert programs. This project provides performance suggestions along with the recording which have not been recorded before, help performers program these overlooked pieces.