HMR Project: History of Music & Modern Recording

Josef Seger

Born on 21 March 1716 in Řepín, Bohemia, Josef Seger wrote both sacred and secular music. His catalogue includes works for violin and voice like Masses, though he largely composed for organ such as toccatas, preludes, fugues and exercises with figured bass. Albeit he authored several hundred works, none of them were published and he largely fell from relevance beyond his lifetime excepting contributions to Bohemian music as a teacher to numerous strong Czech composers including Karel Kopřiva, Jan Koželuh, Jan Křtitel Kuchař and Josef Mysliveček among others.

Seger's Bohemian region became fertile ground during the late Baroque period to Czech composers who then began to flood the field just in time for the Classical period with Mozart at its apex. Bohemia, which would become part of Czechoslovakia in 1918, was parcel to the Holy Roman Empire in which reign was determined by a college of electors in alliance with papal Rome. Napoleon would finally terminate the Empire in 1806 after a millennium of existence since Charlemagne in 800 AD. The region all about Bohemia had been slow to develop due to continual conflict between Catholic and Protestant forces, the most notable being the Thirty Years War (1618-48) which left the area devastated long before Seger's birth. Now, during Seger's lifetime Bohemia remained victim to conflict between Austria's Maria Theresa (Catholic) and Prussia's Frederick II (Protestant Frederick the Great) [Wikipedia].

Seger had been educated at a Jesuit gymnasium in Prague as a child. He took his degree in philosophy from Charles University [Wikipedia], meanwhile studying organ with Bohuslav Černohorský. In 1741 Seger became organist at the Church of Our Lady before Týn in Prague, adding a similar position to his tasks in 1745 at the St. Francis of Assisi Church associated with the Knights of the Cross [Wikipedia]. He strayed not therefrom for the entirety of his career. It isn't known when he composed the pieces for organ performed by Allan Dieball below. The first four are found in 'Acht Toccaten und Fugen fur die Orgel' published posthumously in 1793. The fifth and last toccata is thought to be from No.51 of the Musica Antiqua Bohemica series that is 'Composizioni per Organo' printed in 1961.