[USED:Cond.AB] Piano Trios: Trio 1790

Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812), according to BAKER'S BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF MUSICIANS, was an "outstanding composer" and "a virtuoso at the keyboard" who, along with his contemporary Muzio Clementi introduced the "singing touch" manner of piano playing. Dussek's character, however, seems to have provided the model for Peter Schickele's DEFINATIVE BIOGRAPHY OF P.D.Q. BACH (1807-1742?). Constantly on the move in order to escape revolution (Paris, 1789) or creditors (London, 1800, causing Lorenzo da Ponte's financial ruin and the imprisonment of his abandoned spouse, Sofia Corri) and notoriously gluttonous in meal-taking, Dussek did not provide posterity with much reason to bestow good will towards his musical creations.
The works presented on this disc are entitled "sonatas," but only one is for solo piano: the others are written for piano trio. The instruments are modern copies of historical models from the 17th and 18th centuries, and the resulting sound quite appropriately falls somewhere between Baroque "fortspinnung," the continuous cascade of brief rhythmic articulations, and the Classical style of clearly articulated phrase and sectional caesuras.