Oskar Nedbal
Czech conductor, composer, and violist (1874–1940)

Oskar Nedbal (26 March 1874 – 24 December 1930) was a Czech violist, composer and conductor of classical music.
Early life
Nedbal was born in Tábor in Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. He studied the violin at the Prague Conservatory under Antonín Bennewitz, theory under Karel Knittl and Karel Stecker, and composition with Antonín Dvořák.
Career
In 1891 he founded the Bohemian String Quartet, later known as the Czech Quartet, which disbanded in 1933. The original members, alongside Nedbal on viola, were Karel Hoffmann, Josef Suk and Otto Berger.
He was principal conductor with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra from 1896 to 1906. From 1907 until 1917 he lived in Vienna and conducted the Wiener Tonkünstler-Orchester.
A great admirer of his teacher Antonín Dvořák, Nedbal also paid homage to other composers. For example, in his 1910 composition, Romantic Piece, Op. 18 for cello and piano, Nedbal cleverly inserts a theme usually associated with Mozart, Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Oskar Nedbal” as czech conductor, composer, and violist (1874–1940). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q920997. VIAF identifies the subject as 24788061. The Library of Congress control number is n88114682. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1874, 1930, 1891 and 1933.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oskar Nedbal” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.