Tomeš, Tomisch, Tomich: one person or two people? In Table 1 of her article ‘A Patron among Peers: Dedications to Haydn and the Economy of Celebrity’ (Eighteenth-Century Music 8/2 (2011), 215–237) Emily Green lists František Václav Tomeš's Three Sonatas Op. 1, dedicated to Joseph Haydn. These compositions appeared, under different titles, in Viennese publishers' catalogues of the time, and also subsequently. The name of their composer was never given as ‘Tomisch’, the spelling used by Gottfried Johann Dlabacž, as well as by Vincentius Kneer, who supplied Dlabacž with information on musically talented Brothers Hospitallers – Tomisch, or rather Tomesch, was a member of this religious order. Rather, the name was always given as ‘F. Tomich’, the spelling used by Haydn, Albert Christoph Dies, Johann Traeg, Alois Senefelder and Sigismund Anton Steiner, who printed these and other works by Tomich. However similar these two surnames might look, the composer of the Op. 1 sonatas was most probably not identical with František Václav Tomeš – who spent his whole life in the Bohemian lands – but with Haydn's Viennese pupil ‘Tomich’ (mentioned in Albert Christoph Dies's Biographische Nachrichten von Joseph Haydn) and with the composer of the same name listed in Joseph Haydn's 1792 London diaries, as well as in Georg August Griesinger's Biographische Notizen über Joseph Haydn. (In addition to Dies and Griesinger see Joseph Haydn: Gesammelte Briefe und Aufzeichnungen unter Benützung der Quellensammlung von H. C. Robbins Landon, herausgegeben und erläutert von Dénes Bartha (Basle: Bärenreiter, 1965), 497–499, and H. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: Chronicle and Works, 5 volumes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976–1980), volume 3, 182; volume 4, 631; volume 5, 307, 314–315 and 397.)

The Op. 1 sonatas were first registered as ‘97 – Tomich 3. Op. 1; [fl.] 2, 45’ and ‘Terzetti a Clavicembalo &c.’ among the ‘Clavier-Music’ and in the ‘Namens Register’ of the 1799 Verzeichniß alter und neuer sowohl geschriebenen als gestochenen Musikalien, welche in der Kunst=und Musikalienhandlung des Johann Traeg zu Wien I in der Singerstrasse Nr. 957 zu haben sind. (For a modern facsimile see Alexander Weinmann, Johann Traeg: Die Musikalienverzeichnisse von 1799 und 1804 (Handschriften und Sortiment), volume 1 (Vienna: Universal, 1973).) The sonatas also appeared in the Senefelder-Chemische Druckerey-Steiner catalogues, under Alois Senefelder, after 1805 (plate no. 414: ‘Fr. Tomich, Liv. I. Trois Sonates, dediés a Mr. Haydn (B, D), Pfte, Viol., Vc.’) and were followed by two other volumes, published by Sigismund Anton Steiner, in 1807 (plate no. 731: ‘Fr. Tomich, Liv. II, 3 Sonates [C] Pfte., Viol., Vc’) and 1808 (plate no. 904: ‘Fr. Tomich, Liv. III, 3 Sonaten, Pfte, Viol., Vc.’). (See Alexander Weinmann, Vollständiges Verlagsverzeichnis Senefelder Steiner Haslinger, volume 1: A. Senefelder, Chemische Druckerey, S. A. Steiner, S. A. Steiner & Comp. (Wien 1803–1826) (Munich: Katzbichler, 1979), 43, 57, 64). The name ‘Tomich’ also appeared in lists of subscribers to Haydn's works, such as the score of Die Schöpfung, published in Vienna in 1800 (Brno, Moravian Regional Museum, Department of Music History, Náměšť nad Oslavou collection, A 17. 025).

Earlier substantial research on Flosculus František Václav Tomeš (Tomisch, Thomisch, Thomish) was carried out by Milan Poštolka, who supplied information on Tomeš's birth and baptism: Úpice, east Bohemia, baptized František Václav on 12 December 1759. He adopted the idea that Tomeš was one and the same person as Tomich, first suggested by Gottfried Johann Dlabacž (who of course called him Tomisch). (See ‘Two Unknown Pupils of Haydn: Two Unknown Haydn Sources’, in Haydn Studies: Proceedings of the International Haydn Conference, Washington, D. C., 1975, ed. Jens Peter Larsen, Howard Serwer and James Webster (New York: Norton, 1975), 179–181.) In his Allgemeines historisches Kuenstler Lexikon für Böhmen und Mähren, und zum Theil auch Schlesien (Prague, 1815; volume 3, columns 270–271) Dlabacž described Tomesch as follows:

Subsequently, Poštolka extended the list of Tomeš's alleged compositions to include the ballet Orpheus and Eurydice, which was given its premiere on 26 March 1791 in the King's Theatre, Haymarket during one of the Hanover-Square Rooms' ‘Entertainments of Music and Dancing’, the first part consisting of ‘A collection of Serious Music, By different Composers, but particularly by Paesiello’, and the second part of ‘A collection of Comic music, by different Composers, but principally by Paesiello’, ‘After which will be given an Historical Dance, called Orpheus And Eurydice, by Mons. Vestris, Mademoiselle Hillisbergh, Mons. Victor, Mademoiselle Mazon, Mons. Vermilly, Mademoiselle St. Amar, &c. Director of the Music, Signor Federici, Leader of the Band, Mr. Salomon, Director of the Dance, Mons. Vestris, Sen.’. The ballet was repeated on 2, 7 and 14 April, ‘by Particular Desire’ on 16 April, and again on 12 May and 18 June; it was also performed privately on 10 April (British Library, The Burney Collection, Collection of Playbills, 937.c.7; The London Stage, 1660–1800, part 5: 1776–1800, ed. Charles Beecher Hogan (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1968), volume 2, 1286, 1329, 1337, 1342, 1350–1352, 1354–1355, 1366). (Milan Poštolka notes that Haydn's L'anima di filosofo, on the same subject, written for the same theatre in the same year, was not performed – see Two Unknown Pupils of Haydn; Two Unknown Haydn Sources, 180.) From all existing references to this work – including playbills and advertisements in London periodicals – only the score of some of its music, printed for G. Smart in London in 1791 under the title The Celebrated Opera Dances for the Year 1791; as performed at the King's Theatre, Haymarket. Composed and adapted for the piano-forte, violin or flute by F. Tomich, bears the composer's name (London, British Library; Oxford, Bodleian Library; publishers' catalogues (BM 7896.h.40 (1–22)) – A Catalogue of Instrumental Music Published & Sold by Monzani & Co music Sellers to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales No 3 Old Bond Street, Near Piccadilly London – Tomich's Do [=Duo] with Violin Accompt. 26, c1780).

It should be noted that in the Brothers Hospitallers' papers, František Václav Tomeš – who became a member of the order in 1778 in Valtice (Feldsberg, up to the 1919 Treaty of St-Germain-en-Laye in Lower Austria, today in south Moravia) – was only ever mentioned as being an apothecary. Vincentius Kneer (mentioned above) described in his Nachrichten von Tonkünstlern aus dem Orden der Barmherzigen Brüder aus selbem Orden geschrieben the music education received by Tomeš and his activities as a boy chorister at the Hospitallers' monastery church in Wrocław (Breslau), his ability to play several instruments well (‘Clavier, Violin, Violoncello, Viola d'Amour’) and again his skill as a pharmacist who had studied and graduated in this subject at the University of Vienna, ‘und bis Anjetzo in grösseren Klöstern, als Apotheker Versteher mit Ruhm und Ehre den Orden dient’. (The Nachrichten are to be found in ‘Manuscripta.varii argumenti a variis conscripta. Collecta per me Godefridum Joann Dlabacž. A. D. 1798’, Prague, Strahov Premonstratensian Monastery Library, DD II 3.)

Neither Kneer nor Dlabacž mentioned Tomeš's links with Joseph Haydn or his travels abroad, which, should they have been as successful as the number of London performances of Orpheus and Eurydice suggests, would have certainly been of interest to them. Tomeš's supposed trips are also not documented in the Hospitallers' papers. Travel abroad by the members of all religious orders resident in the Austrian Empire was strictly forbidden by the Emperor Joseph II's edict of 24 May 1781. The Hospitallers were thus seemingly restricted to travelling solely for the sake of the Order, between the monasteries belonging to a specific province (by the end of the eighteenth century, the Austro-Hungarian Order province covered most of Central Europe, up to Silesia and today's Hungary, Romania and Croatia). According to the Valtice Capitul Buch ab Anno 1779 usque ad annum 1826, the Anmerkung der angekommenen und abgehenden Ordensbrüdern vom Jahre 1759 angefangen and the Capitul Buch ab Ao 784 usque [1808] (the latter two sources surviving in the Prostějov Order archives), Tomeš moved in late December 1791 from Valtice to Prostějov (Proßnitz, Moravia), where he remained until 2 July 1796, the date of his departure to Prague, where he stayed until his death. There is no record of his being away for a longer period of time (apart from his trip early in 1792 to Prague and back to Prostějov, to which he returned on 10 February 1792), or of the Order covering the expense of his trip to London (which would have certainly appeared in the convent administration books and accounts) (Brno, Moravian Regional Archives, Brothers Hospitallers' Papers – Prostějov, E 47/4, E 47/B 148; Brothers Hospitallers' Papers – Valtice, E 79/4).

To conclude: Joseph Haydn's London diary reference to ‘Mr. Tomich’ might have been marking the presence of the author of the ballet Orpheus and Eurydice, who was not identical with Flosculus František Václav Tomeš, and whose compositions, as mentioned, also appeared in the catalogues of Viennese music publishers long after Tomeš died in Prague, on 6 April 1801 (according to the catalogues of deceased members of the order, from which relevant names were read each day at the Hospitallers' table) (Prague, National Archives, Brothers Hospitallers Papers, book 4–12). This subject remains open for further research. (For more information on the relations between Joseph and Michael Haydn and the Order of Brothers Hospitallers see Michaela Freemanová, Collectio Fratrum Misericordiae Kukussiensis (Prague: Editio Praga, 1998), ‘The Two Haydns and the Brothers Hospitallers (Barmherzige Brüder, Fatebene Fratelli, O. S. I.): The Four Pupils, the Less Known Sources’, Hudební věda 38/3–4 (2001), 333–342, and Fratrum Misericordiae Artis Musicae Collectiones in Bohemia et Moravia Reservatae (Prague: Catalogus Artis Musicae in Bohemia et Moravia Cultae, 2012.)