2. Jan Ladislav Dussek Born in 1760 in Caslav, Bohemia Died in 1812 at the age of 52 Composed forty piano sonatas; eighteen piano concertos; nearly ninety accompanied keyboard sonatas; chamber music; several works with harp. He also composed vocal works, including an opera (The Captive of Spillberg,1798) and a Solemn Mass (1811). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duguKeOazK4&feature=related

3. Upbringing His parents were both musicians. Father (Jan Josef) was an organist and composer, Mother (Veronika) was a harpist He was taught piano (age 5) and how to play the organ (age 9) as a child. He attended the Jesuit elementary school in Iglau and grammar school in the mining town of Kutna Hora. Went on to study at Charles University in Prague for two years.

4. Employment Employed as an organist and music teacher 1780-82 in the Netherlands Soon after began his career as a piano virtuoso in Berlin in 1784, Mainz (1785) and St. Petersburg (1786). After implicated in a plot against the Empress Catherine II, he went to Paris from 1786 to 1789 He fled Paris in 1789 for London

5. Family 1792 he married Sofia the daughter of the music publisher and composer Domenico Corri. Around 1800 his firm became bankrupt and he fled to Hamburg leaving family and debtors behind.

6. Later years After a series of concerts in his native country, he entered the service of Prince Louis Ferdinand as an unsalaried pianist. Louis Ferdinand died in the battle of Saalfeld in 1806. On the occasion of Louis Ferdinand’s death, Dussek composed perhaps his best-known piano sonata "Elegie harmonique sur la mort de Prince Louis Ferdinand de Prusse"op. 61 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW62rOpMr1M&feature=relmfu

7. Later years The composer and pianist Jan Václav Tomasek mentions that Dussek was the first pianist to place the piano sideways on the concert podium In 1807 he returned to Paris where he remained until his death, partly from his obesity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4AGOCWU hL0&feature=relmfu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4AGOCWU hL0&feature=relmfu

8. References http://radiomelasudas-beaumarchais.blogspot.com/2011/01/jan-ladislav-dussek-sonata- in-f-sharp.html http://radiomelasudas-beaumarchais.blogspot.com/2011/01/jan-ladislav-dussek-sonata- in-f-sharp.html http://members.klosterneuburg.net/handerle/COMPOSER.HTM http://www.hoasm.org/XIIC/Dussek.html\ http://www.classical-composers.org/comp/dusik http://sdems.blogspot.com/2012/04/death-of-harpsichord-and-beheading-of.html http://www.oocities.org/vienna/strasse/3239/Dusik.jpg