Jan Ladislav Dussek - Piano Concerto in E Flat Major Op.70 (No.11)

Tuija Hakkila/Finnish Baroque Orchestra/Tuomas Hannikainen
00:00 Allegro Brillante ma non troppo
14:50 Adagio ma non troppo - Lento
20:23 Rondo
Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812) was a Bohemian composer. 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.
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. Franz Liszt has been called an indirect successor of Dussek in the composition and performance of virtuoso piano music.
The evolution of style found in Dussek's piano writing suggests he pursued an independent line of development, one that anticipated but did not influence early Romanticism.
Dussek was one of a number of foreign-born composers, including Muzio Clementi and John Field, who contributed significantly to the development of a distinct "London" school of pianoforte composition.
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.