Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760 – 1812) was a Czech
composer and pianist. He was an important
representative of Czech music abroad in the second half
of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th
century. Some of his more forward-looking piano works
have traits often associated with Romanticism.
Dussek was one of the first piano virtuosos to travel
widely throughout Europe. He performed at courts and
concert venues from London to Saint Petersburg to
Milan, and was celebrated for his tec...(+)
Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760 – 1812) was a Czech
composer and pianist. He was an important
representative of Czech music abroad in the second half
of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th
century. Some of his more forward-looking piano works
have traits often associated with Romanticism.
Dussek was one of the first piano virtuosos to travel
widely throughout Europe. He performed at courts and
concert venues from London to Saint Petersburg to
Milan, and was celebrated for his technical prowess.
During a nearly ten-year stay in London, he was
instrumental in extending the size of the pianoforte,
and was the recipient of one of John Broadwood's first
6-octave pianos, CC-c4. Harold Schonberg wrote that he
was the first pianist to sit at the piano with his
profile to the audience, earning him the appellation
"le beau visage." All subsequent pianists have sat on
stage in this manner. He was one of the best-regarded
pianists in Europe before Beethoven's rise to
prominence.
His music is marked by lyricism interrupted by sudden
dynamic contrasts. As well as his many compositions for
the piano, he also composed for the harp: his music for
that instrument contains a great variety of figuration
within a largely diatonic harmony, avoids dangerous
chromatic passages and is eminently playable. His
concerto writing is exciting. His music is considered
standard repertoire for all harpists, particularly his
Six Sonatas/Sonatinas and especially the Sonata in C
minor. Less well known to the general public than that
of his more renowned Classical period contemporaries,
his piano music is highly valued by many teachers and
not infrequently programmed. Franz Liszt has been
called an indirect successor of Dussek in the
composition and performance of virtuoso piano music.
His music remained popular to some degree in
19th-century Great Britain and the USA, some still in
print, with more available in period editions online.
The Dussek family had a long history as professional
musicians, starting at least as early as Jan Ladislav's
grandfather Jan Josef Dusík (b. 1712), and lasting in
the Moravian branch of the family at least into the
1970s. Jan Ladislav's mother, Veronika Dusíková (née
Štěbetová), played the harp, an instrument,
along with the piano, for which her son went on to
write much music. His father, Jan Josef, was also a
well-known organist and composer. His sister, Katerina
Veronika Anna Dusíkova, was also a musician and
composer.
Jan Ladislav, the oldest of three children, was born on
12 February 1760 in the Bohemian town of Čáslav,
where his father taught and played the organ. His first
musical instruction came from his father, who began
teaching him piano at 5, and organ at age 9. His voice
was also found to be good, so he also sang in the
church choir.
St. Rumbold's Cathedral in Mechelen.
He studied music at the Jesuit gymnasium in Jihlava,
where he studied with Ladislav Špinar, its choir
director; his grades were reported to be poor. From
1774 to 1776 he studied at the Jesuit gymnasium in
Kutná Hora, where he also served as organist in the
Santa Barbara Jesuit church. In 1776 he went to the New
City Gymnasium in Prague, where he was again reported
to be a lazy student. In 1777 he enrolled in the
University of Prague, where he lasted one semester.
The vast majority of Dussek's music involves the piano
or harp in some way. He wrote 35 sonatas for piano and
11 for piano duet, as well as numerous other works for
both configurations. His chamber music output includes
65 violin sonatas, 24 piano (or harp) trios, and a
variety of works for harp, harp or piano, or harp and
piano. Some sonatas had trio parts added by J. B.
Cramer. Orchestral works were limited to concertos,
including 16 for piano (one of them had lost and two of
them are remained dubious attribution), six for harp
(three of them lost), and one for two pianos. He wrote
a modest number of vocal works, include 12 songs, a
cantata, a mass, and one opera, The Captive of
Spilberg. His compositions also included arrangements
of other works, especially opera overtures, for
piano.
Cataloging Dussek's compositions has a history of its
own. Dussek's oeuvre has historically been difficult to
organize, due in part to the number of publishers who
originally published his work, and to the fact that
some of his works were published by more than one
publisher. Some works published by multiple publishers
were assigned different opus numbers; sometimes
different works were given then same opus number by
different publishers. Dussek further complicated this
by arranging works for different instrument
combinations. .
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Ladislav_Dussek)
Although originally written for Piano, I created this
Interpretation of the Sonata in C Minor (Op. 35 No. 3)
for Oboe & Piano.
