Fransek Vincenc Kramar was born in Kamenice (Kamenitz, Southern Moravia) to an innkeeper who later became the mayor of Kamenice. He was instructed to play the organ and violin by his uncle, Anton Matthias Kramar, near Brno. After training in Simontormnya and Pecs among other places, Kramar arrived in Vienna in 1795 (some sources claim 1785), at which time he had assumed the new name of Franz Krommer to suit the Viennese lifestyle. Krommer established a reputation as a violin tutor, conductor, and composer. Despite numerous efforts to secure a position at the royal palace, it was not until 1815 that he became Imperial Court Composer, and in 1818, Krommer succeeded Leopold Kozeluh as Kammer-Kapellmeister, a post that ended following his passing in 1831. Krommer was already well-known and published as a composer by the time he became Kapellmeister, and he accompanied Emperor Franz I on trips to France and Italy, where he was well-received by the area's conservatories. He was portrayed as a "Hellenistic being transformed into the figure of a bourgeois musician with a wig and a lace jabot, short pants, and buckled shoes" by von Riehl in "Musikalische Charakterkopfe" around 1850. He was a kind, welcoming, and big-hearted man who was uninterested in the battle between literature and aesthetics, as well as wars between kings and individuals, living in a peaceful private world.
