Biography
A pianist and composer whose professional circles encompassed C. P. E. Bach, Ludwig Spohr, and Punto, Dussek appeared before or in service to the courts of Catherine II, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, and Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia. His European itineraries were extensive, and many regarded him as the foremost keyboard virtuoso of his era. He originated the practice of angling the piano sideways on stage to display the performer’s profile to the public and advocated lengthening the keyboard compass first to five-and-a-half octaves and subsequently to six. His catalog embraced vocal and theatrical pieces, concertos, accompanied sonatas, chamber works, piano sonatas—one of which was performed at Prince Louis Ferdinand’s funeral—and the treatise “Instructions of the Art of Playing the Piano Forte or Harpsichord.” Among the earliest musicians to sustain a career solely through public recitals, he wrote chiefly within Classical conventions, yet his later compositions incorporated fuller chordal textures, remote modulations, and chromatic alterations. Most of these scores demanded virtuoso technique. While many passages recall contemporaneous figures, the closest stylistic affinities surfaced later in the music of Weber, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Dvořák, Brahms, and Smetana.