Antonín Bennewitz

Who was Antonín Bennewitz?

Antonín Bennewitz was a Czech violinist, conductor and teacher. He was in a line of violinists that extended back to Giovanni Battista Viotti, and forward to Jan Kubelík and Wolfgang Schneiderhan.

He was born in Přívrat, Bohemia as Antonín Benevic, but his name is most often seen in a German rendering, Bennewitz. He studied under Moritz Mildner at the Prague Conservatory from 1846 to 1852. He then worked in Prague, Salzburg and Stuttgart. In 1859 he also performed in Paris and Brussels. It was during this period that on 3 December 1855 he participated in the first performance of Bedřich Smetana’s Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15, in the Prague Konvict Hall, with Smetana himself as pianist and Julius Goltermann as cellist. In 1866 he became Professor of Violin in Prague. In 1876 he succeeded Mildner as leader of Friedrich Pixis ’s quartet, which became known as the Bennewitz Quartet. He became the Prague Conservatory’s Director in 1882, serving until 1901, when he was succeeded by Antonín Dvořák. He was among the founders of the Kammermusikverein, whose nationalist ideals stimulated Smetana to write his String Quartet in E minor From My Life.