A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Kotzwara, Franz

by George Grove

KOTZWARA, Franz, born at Prague, was in Ireland in 1790, when he was engaged as tenor player in Gallini's orchestra at the King's Theatre. On Sept. 2, 1791 he hanged himself, not in jest but in the greatest earnest, in a house of ill-fame in Vine Street, St. Martin's. He had been one of the band at the Handel Commemoration in the preceding May. Kotzwara was the author of the Battle of Prague, a piece for P.F. with violin and cello ad libitum, long a favourite in London. Also of sonatas, serenades, and other pieces, some of them bearing as high an opus number as 36, if Fétis may be believed. He was a clever, vagabond, dissipated creature.

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