Otakar Hostinský was a Czech

Czech people

Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...

 historian, musicologist, and professor of musical aesthetics. He is known primarily for his support of composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 Bedřich Smetana

Bedrich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...

 and his contributions to Czech aesthetic theory, which influenced many cultural figures in early twentieth-century Prague, including Zdeněk Nejedlý

Zdenek Nejedlý

Zdeněk Nejedlý was a Czech musicologist, music critic, author, and politician whose ideas dominated the cultural life of what is now the Czech Republic for most of the twentieth century...

, Otakar Zich

Otakar Zich

Otakar Zich was a distinguished Czech composer and aesthetician.- Biography :...

, and Vladimír Helfert

Vladimír Helfert

Vladimír Helfert was an important Czech musicologist in the interwar period. Although his early career as a music critic was clouded by the negative influence of his teacher, Zdeněk Nejedlý, with whom he studied at Charles University...

. He also the opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

s to Zdeněk Fibich

Zdenek Fibich

Zdeněk Fibich was a Czech composer of classical music. Among his compositions are chamber works , symphonic poems, three symphonies, at least seven operas , melodramas including the substantial trilogy Hippodamia,...

's masterpiece, The Bride of Messina

The Bride of Messina (opera)

The Bride of Messina is a tragic opera in three acts, op. 18, by composer Zdeněk Fibich. The Czech language libretto by Otakar Hostinský is based on Friedrich Schiller's play Die Braut von Messina...

, and Josef Rozkošný's Cinderella.

Selected writings

(German titles given in the original; Czech titles translated into English)

Art and Nationality, 1869

Wagnerianism and Czech National Identity, 1870

On "Program" Music, 1873

Das Musikalisch-Schöne und das Gesamtkunstwerk vom Standpunkte der formalen Aesthetik, 1877

On the Contemporary State and Direction of Czech Music, 1880

On Czech Musical Declamation, 1882

On Melodrama, 1885

A Brief Overview of the History of Music, 1885

On Artistic Realism, 1890

Herbarts Aesthetik, 1891

Volkslied und Tanz der Slaven, 1893

On Progress in Art, 1894

On Folksong, 1897

On Experimental Aesthetics, 1900

B. Smetana and his Struggle for Modern Czech Music, 1901

On the Socialization of Art, 1903

Art and Society, 1907

Czech Music, 1864-1904, 1909