Batka, Richard, 1868-1922

Richard Batka (14 December 1868 – 24 April 1922) was an Austrian musicologist, music critic and librettist. Educated at German Charles-Ferdinand University in his native city of Prague, he began his career as a lecturing academic at that institution in 1900; leaving that post in 1906 to teach on the faculty of the Prague Conservatory. In 1908 he moved to Vienna where he taught courses in the history of opera at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna from 1909 to 1914. Batka worked as an editor, music critic, and writer on music for several publications in Prague and Vienna during his lifetime. The author of numerous popular music-historical and aesthetic writings, he was one of the first German language writers to write on the Music of the Czech Republic. His Aus der Opernwelt: Prager Kritiken und Skizzen (1907, Munich) was the first book in the German language about Czech opera. He also penned his own opera libretti for composers like Eugen d’Albert, Leo Blech, and Richard Stöhr. Also notable among his writings was his three volume discourse on the history of music Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik which was published in Stuttgart between the years 1909 and 1915.