The significant Slovak music composer and folk song editor. He was born in Trnava, to the family of a musician - guitarist. After he passed his secondary school, he started to study composition at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest, despite opposing wishes of his parents. He studied music also in Vienna and Prague, where he was an active member of the society "Detvan" that time managed by Slovak students. After the position of Trnava regenschori in St.Nicholas Basilica was vacant, he accepted this task gratefully, and thus the emphasis of his work moved to Church music. He composed a mass for the ordination of the first Slovak bishops ? “Missa stella matutina” and was commissioned to compile a Catholic songbook. His work was completed in 1937 by publishing „Jednotný katolícky spevník“. Apart from editing Slovak folk songs, he composed also his own ones published in the collections "Slzy a úsmevy", "Zo srdca", "Drobné kvety" and "Piesne o matke". The only e.mol symphony, "Spomienková" was written at the end of his life. During a large part of his life, he worked in Trnava, where he also died. He became the most popular Slovak composer of the 20th century and most significant representative of Slovak musical modernism.

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