Hába, Karel (EN)

Hába Karel, *21 May 1898 Vizovice, †21 November 1972 Prague, Czech composer, teacher and violinist, brother of Alois. He worked as a teacher from 1917 onwards. He studied at the Prague Conservatoire in V. Novák’s masterclass in composition (1919–21) and in K. Hoffmann’s violin class (1926–28). He also completed a course in quarter-tone composition led by Alois. Between 1919 and 1950, he worked at Prague Radio. From 1951, he served as a lecturer in music education at the Vysoká Pedagogická Škola in Prague, as well as a music journalist; he wrote works on the methodology of music education. From 1940, he was a member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and Arts. In his work, Hába was influenced by the theoretical concepts of his brother Alois; he composed ‘athematic’, microtonal music, whilst incorporating elements of the folk melodies of southern Moravia.