Josef Triebensee

Who was Josef Triebensee?

Josef Triebensee was a Bohemian composer and oboist.

He studied composition with Albrechtsberger and oboe with his father, Georg Triebensee. He served in the private orchestra of Prince Schwarzenberg, and from 1782-1806 as first oboist of the Austrian Emperor's Harmonie. Concurrently, he also served as principal oboist at the Nationaltheater of Vienna. Other associations included second oboist at the Kärntnertortheater, Kappellmeister to Prince Liechtenstein's Harmonie at Feldsberg, the private orchestra of Count Hunyady, a theater composer in Brno, and from 1816 to his retirement 1836, director of the Prague Opera where he succeeded composer Carl Maria von Weber. Unlike Weber, his operas found little success.

Triebensee was the second oboist at the Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna in 1791 when he played the premiere of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte—explaining the peculiar difficulty of the second oboe parts in that work.

Triebensee's most important compositions were two sets of Harmoniemusik, the second appearing in 32 installments of ten or more movements. He wrote 12 comic operas for Vienna and Prague as well as vocal, orchestral, and chamber works.