A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Kalliwoda, Johann
KALLIWODA, Johann Wenzeslaus, a violin player and popular composer, was born at Prague March 21, 1800. From 1811 to 1817 he was a pupil of the Conservatorium, and from 1817 to 1823 a member of the orchestra of that town. During a visit to Munich he was introduced to Prince Fiirstenberg, who took a lively interest in his talent and appointed him conductor of his private band at Donaueschingen, which post Kalliwoda retained, in spite of various offers from more important places, for the rest of his professional life, till he retired on a pension in 1853. He died at Carlsruhe Dec. 3, 1866.
Kalliwoda, as a violinist, is regarded as one of the best representatives of the Prague school under F. W. Pixis. Without possessing very startling qualities of execution or style, his performances showed a well-finished technique, a sympathetic but not large tone, and were altogether more remarkable for elegance and a certain pleasantness than for vigour or depth of feeling.
As he travelled but little, his reputation mainly rests on his compositions. They consist of seven Symphonies—F minor (1826); E♭; D minor; C; B minor (op. 106); G minor; and F—Overtures, Concertinos and other Solo-pieces for the violin and other orchestral instruments, especially the Clarinet, Quartets for stringed instruments, Violin-Duets, Pianoforte-pieces, and a number of songs. Many of his works have enjoyed for some time, and chiefly in amateur-circles, a considerable popularity, and the Index of the Leipzig Allg. Mus. Zeitung shows a long list of performances. The works are certainly not of much importance in an artistic sense, and show little originality; but on the other hand, they are free from laboured efforts and ambitious striving after startling effects, are written in a thoroughly musicianly, unpretentious, and unaffected style, easy to understand, pleasing and effective. Their day is now over, but Schumann (in his 'Gesamm. Sehriften,' iii. 278) speaks of Kalliwoda' s 5th Symphony with enthusiasm, and mentions the interesting fact that only a few years previously Kalliwoda had put himself under Tomaschek of Prague for improvement in some branches of counterpoint in which he felt himself weak. Schumann further testified his esteem by dedicating his Intermezzi (op. 4) 'al Sign. Kalliwoda.' In the history of the music of the last 50 years, Kalliwoda occupies as an orchestral composer a position somewhat analogous to Onslow's as a composer of chamber-music.
His son Wilhelm, born at Donaueschingen July 19, 1827, was thoroughly well brought up by his father, and was for a short time a pupil of Mendelssohn's at Leipzig in 1847, and of Hauptmann's in 1848. He held various posts at Carlsruhe with credit to himself, but was compelled by ill health to forsake work.