Every week, CBC Radio 2’s In Concert digs up an unjustly forgotten composer from the sands of time and devotes the final segment of the show to that composer’s music. This week, it’s the Czech piano master Jan Ladislav Dussek.
Who was Jan Ladislav Dussek?
Before there was Liszt, there was Dussek. Born in 1760, this guy was the prototypical touring virtuoso. He spent most of his life traipsing Barry Lyndon-like across Europe, dazzling audiences with hitherto unknown piano skills and crossing paths with seemingly every historically notable figure along the way.
He accompanied Napoleon's violin playing on the piano. He ingratiated himself so thoroughly to Marie Antoinette that she begged him not to leave France. He was thrown out of Russia under suspicion of trying to assassinate Catherine the Great. He had affairs with royalty. He started a publishing business in London, which failed, and he fled the country leaving his erstwhile business partner (and father-in-law) to go to debtors' prison.
Dussek was a man of tremendous excesses. He died drunk, and so obese that he could no longer reach the keys of his piano from the bench. But, in his prime, he cut a handsome figure. And, he put that figure on display by turning the piano sideways, so that the audience could see his profile instead of his back, as was usual for the time. Nowadays, that's how all pianists do it.
Why have I never heard of him?
That's a very good question. Given his extraordinary story and massive celebrity in his own lifetime, you might expect that Dussek would have remained a commonly known name. But it seems like nobody took the trouble to maintain Dussek's fabulous reputation after his death — perhaps taking for granted that a reputation like Dussek's would look after itself.
Nonetheless, editions of his music dried up, and the notables of the 19th-century music world stopped talking about him. Before long, Dussek had gone from being an enormous sensation to an obscure historical footnote.
Why should I check him out?
Dussek's piano music (and it is mostly piano music) sits at an unusual tipping point between Mozart's classicism and the sort of romantic virtuoso music that would make Franz Liszt famous, decades later. It's a novel experience to hear such forward-looking music by a person so obviously steeped in 18th-century musical trends.
Where should I start?
Here’s a playlist of a few Dussek masterpieces. While you’re listening, check out the gallery above for a bit of info on each piece. For more from the life and works of Jan Ladislav Dussek, tune in to CBC Radio 2’s In Concert with host Paolo Pietropaolo, this coming Sunday between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. for The Revival Hour.
(Note: For more on Dussek, check out Grove, David Mason Greene's Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers and these liner notes from Hyperion.)
Follow Matthew Parsons on Twitter: @MJRParsons
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