Franz Hoffmann

Bohemian-born composer Franz Hoffmann was a native of Pilsen; he joined the 34th Hungarian Infantry Band as a drummer and ultimately worked himself up to the position of drum major. Entering the Vienna Conservatory in 1885, by 1901 Hoffmann was leading the Hungarian Fifth Infantry Band in Erlau, a position he held until the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Hoffmann surfaces once again around 1930, working in the Romanian section of Szathmár county as a teacher, and under contract as composer to publisher Johann Kliment in Vienna. Most of his known works appeared in 1930, most famously his Stets Munster Marsch (1930) and other works for military band, but also including his orchestral pieces Rumanischer Tanz and Ungarischer Tanz and the symphonic intermezzo Wild West. After Hoffmann's last music was published, he disappears from history; it is not known when or where he died.