Frantisek Josef Benedikt Dusik: The Biography of an Eighteenth-Century Composer

DON JUAN ARCHIV WIEN

SPECULA SPECTACULA

2

Series Editors

HANS ERNST WEIDINGER · MICHAEL HÜTTLER

Matjaž Barbo

FRANTIŠEK JOSEF

BENEDIKT DUSÍK

The Biography of an Eighteenth-Century Composer

Editorial assistance, copy-editing and index: Caroline Herfert, Inge Praxl (Vienna, Austria)

English copy-editing: Heather Evans (Kingston, Canada)

Translation: Neville Hall (Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Layout: Johann Lehner (Vienna, Austria)

Cover design: Loys Egg (Vienna, Austria)

Printed and bound by: Interpress (Budapest, Hungary)

Published with support of Firmengruppe HOLLITZER and

Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Vienna

Translation supported by Slovenian Book Agency

Matjaž Barbo: František Josef Benedikt Dusík: The Biography of an Eighteenth-Century Composer. Wien: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2011 (Specula Spectacula 2)

© Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, Wien, 2011

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ISBN 978-3-99012-002-6 Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, Wien, pbk

ISBN 978-3-99012-003-3 Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, Wien, e-book edition

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PARENTS AND HOME

DUSÍK’S YOUTH

ARRIVAL IN LJUBLJANA

COLLABORATION WITH THE PHILHARMONIC SOCIETY

COLLABORATION WITH THEATRE COMPANIES

DEPARTURE FROM LJUBLJANA

TRAVELLING THEATRE IN THE TIME OF THE MAELSTROM OF WAR

DUSÍK’S WORKS

DUSÍK AND SLOVENE MUSIC? (IN PLACE OF A CONCLUSION)

APPENDIX

ABBREVIATIONS OF LOCATIONS

LIST OF DUSÍK’S WORKS

DUSÍK’S LIFE IN BRIEF

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ABBREVIATIONS

REMARKS

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PREFACE

This book offers a survey of the life and work of Czech composer František Josef Benedikt Dusík, who lived at the turn of the nineteenth century. The majority of his work was devoted to music theatre, although he was also active in broader musical life. But his association with opera led him from his native Czech lands to the cities of northern Italy, where he appeared at the most important theatres of his time. For about ten years, he also lived in Ljubljana (Slovenia), where he married and established a family. However, his stormy nature and the turbulence of the Napoleonic Wars drew him back to the life of a musical wanderer. We unfortunately do not know where he passed the last days of his life, but it is possible that he returned once again to Ljubljana prior to his death.

Today Dusík’s works are spread through various archives, which on first view creates the impression of a modest opus, an impression that is further reinforced by the frequent tendency to confuse František Dusík with various other composers with similar names. Only a complete survey of his opus reveals an astonishing compositional tradition, with all of the musical genres opulently represented. However, his legacy extends beyond his compositional work alone. As an important musician he contributed creatively to the transformation of concert life into that which we know today. He thus represents a characteristic type of musician of the nascent concert stage, a musician who built his career as a touring virtuoso and composer. It seems that sometimes researchers do not choose their own topics, but rather the topics themselves find a researcher. I believe that this is the case in my engagement with Dusík. As the genuine, albeit somewhat neglected, beginning of symphonic production in Slovenia, Dusík represented a special research challenge. In addition to this, Dusík’s mysterious human fate, as well as his clearly stormy and unstable character, triggered my imagination and led me to search archives for documents that would sharpen my insight into the depths of his personality.

On concluding my work I must acknowledge that a range of questions that I set myself in my years of dealing with Dusík remain unresolved. I regret in particular that in the archival material I was unable to uncover information about his death. It seems that studying a particular person is unavoidably destined to lead to inadequacy and imperfection, later inevitably joined by the at least partial arbitrariness of our research and interpretation. Nonetheless, this cannot be a justification for mistakes and inconsistencies, for which I take full responsibility myself. While not seeking excuses for such inconsistencies, I can at least explain them with the belief that it is worth publicly presenting the broader findings of my research, as this represents an essential precondition for a more extensive mutual complementing of knowledge, and with this the development of the completeness of our knowledge.

In my research I encountered the benevolent assistance of a range of archives, many of which it would be difficult to thank enough. Amongst them I would like particularly to emphasize the kind assistance of Dr. Drahomíra Novákova from the Municipal Museum in Dusík’s native Čáslav. In addition, I am grateful to Simona Moličnik for her valuable assistance in seeking out relevant sources related to the composer and his time in the Music Collection of Ljubljana’s National and University Library. For their abundant guidance and advice I am also grateful to my colleagues Dr. Aleš Nagode and Dr. Radovan Škrjanc, whose research interests also extend to the topic of this book. Special thanks are due to Neville Hall, who, as a meticulous translator, drew my attention to certain imperfections in the manuscript. Finally, I am especially grateful to the series co-editors Dr. Michael Hüttler and Dr. Hans Ernst Weidinger who accepted the book in the Specula Spectacula series of the Don Juan Archiv Wien.

PARENTS AND HOME

František Josef Dusík (1765–after 1817) came from the small town of Čáslav in the central Czech lands. His father, Jan Josef¹ (1738²–1818), was born in Mlázovice u Hořic in the Czech lands, the son of a weigh-master, whose name was also Jan, and his wife, Alžběta Mlázovicka (Elisabeth Mlasovicensis), née Schreiner.³ As the christening register of the local parish states, Jan Josef was christened by the chaplain Jan Procházka on 16 August 1738, and his godfather was Jan Batkovský, a miller.⁴ At the age of ten years he lost his father, after which his mother sent him to his uncle Johann Wlach, with whom he received his primary school and music education. Jan Josef was a very capable young man and at only sixteen years of age became a primary school teacher, or assistant, in Langenau, where he also taught basso continuo.⁵ At the age of twenty he moved to Čáslav, a town with a relatively rich musical tradition, where he became a teacher.⁶

From the very beginning, Jan Josef Dusík attracted attention with his organ playing, as well as with his numerous compositions that sounded from the choir loft of the deanery church of Saints Peter and Paul. Amongst his works, which were also known elsewhere in the Czech lands, are a number of sonatas, pastoral masses and hymns, the latter of which achieved particular popularity. The regens chori (‘choirmaster’) was Martin Kruch, a colleague and friend of Dusík’s who served in the choir loft for almost fifty-seven years, while Dusík himself devoted a full sixty years to the choir loft.⁷ People apparently travelled from near and far to admire the music making of Čáslav’s musicians.⁸

Kruch and Dusík were also teachers at the Čáslav school. Kruch taught the first grade and Dusík the second; these were the only two grades the school had at the time. Both men had arrived in Čáslav in the same year, in 1758. On the retirement of the former cantor and teacher Martin Šubrt⁹ it was Martin Kruch who was first appointed to the position of teacher at the Čáslav primary school, as well as being appointed organist and cantor at the deanery church. At the end of the year, Jan Josef Dusík was employed as Kruch’s assistant in the choir loft and at school, replacing the deceased organist Václav Kovařík. Kruch and Dusík were also granted town privileges in the same year, in 1771.¹⁰ According to Gottfried Johann Dlabacž (1758–1820), Jan Josef’s younger brother, Wenzel Dusík (born in 1750 in Mlázovice), also came to Čáslav in 1758. He apparently lived with his older brother, as well as receiving instruction from him. When he had become ‘a good organist and bass singer’ he departed from his brother and earned his living as a musician, first in Olomouc and later in Biteš in Moravia.¹¹

On 9 May 1759, shortly after his arrival in Čáslav, Jan Josef Dusík married a singer from the choir, Veronika, née Štěvetová (Stievetyovou,¹² 1735–1807), the daughter of a local judge and a talented harpist. They lived in their own house near the Čáslav town church. The house at no. 171 (the former address was Stadtring no. 103) is still standing, preserved in a row of buildings that surround the extraordinarily large and spacious rectangular town square. During the period that the Dusíks lived in the house it was called Lejtnantovský, and prior to that it had been known as Kopřivovský.¹³ The house in which the married couple lived with their children, and in which Jan Josef also hosted his school class, was purchased by the Dusíks in 1773. It was evidently difficult for a family with several school-age children to live on the salary of a teacher and organist. Due to various loans from the town council and elsewhere, the house was burdened with a mortgage as early as the 1780s. Thus, burdened with debt, the Dusíks had to sell their home in 1805. The record of the sale is still extant:

Dne 23. ledna 1805 prodali manželé Jan a Veronika dusíkovi svůj vlastní dům […] i s připojeným dvorečkem a zahrádkou a všemi obvyklými právy za sumu 2.750 zl výše jmenovaným manželům Matěji a Nepomuceně Bělohlávkovým.¹⁴

(‘On 23 January 1805, the married couple Jan and Veronika Dusík sold their own home […] along with the adjacent courtyard and garden and all of the usual possessions for the sum of 2,750 zl to the above named married couple, Matěj and Nepomucena Belohlavka.’)

We can imagine that this was a cruel blow for seventy-year-old Veronika, and that it perhaps had an impact on the worsening of her health. As there was no money for health care, she died in 1807 at the age of seventy-two.¹⁵

Illustration 1: Vincenc Morstadt: Čáslav in 1812, pencil drawing. The drawing shows the main square; on the left of the square stands Dusík’s birth house; in the background is the church of Saints Peter and Paul and the city hall.

Now alone, the life of the elderly Dusík became increasingly difficult, as is witnessed by various letters with requests for support addressed to the Čáslav town administration.¹⁶ One of the rare bright points of his later years was a visit he paid to his eldest son, Jan Ladislav, in Paris, where on 17 January 1809 he attended a large concert at the Odéon Theatre. The success of his triumphant son before an enthusiastic Paris audience filled the modest organist and teacher from Čáslav with great joy. After the concert, various artists went to Jan Ladislav’s apartment, where they managed to persuade his elderly father to play one of his own compositions on the piano. Those present apparently received his performance with genuine admiration.¹⁷

Jan Josef Dusík taught until 1817, when he became so frail that he was no longer able to work. He died on 24 June the following year in a house bearing the number 158, which was later demolished and in 1864 an evangelical church was erected on the site.¹⁸ It was only after Dusík’s death that František Hainovski was appointed as his successor, which is perhaps testimony to the fact that it was not until Dusík passed away that all hope was lost that the much loved musician would nonetheless return to school and to the church’s choir loft.

Illustration 2: Birth house of Dusík on Čáslav’s city square, photograph.

It was at the house on the town square where all of Jan Josef Dusík and his wife’s children were born:¹⁹ Jan Ladislav in 1760, Marie Josefa in 1763, František Josef in 1765, Antonie Veronika Kateřina in 1767, Kateřina Veronika Anna Rosalia in 1769, Františka Kateřina in 1770 (died as an infant), Václav Antonín in 1772, and a second Františka Kateřina in 1774.²⁰

GENEALOGY

Father Jan Josef (1738–1818), mother Veronika, née Štěvetová (1735–1807):

• Jan Ladislav (Johann Ludwig) (Čáslav 9./12.2.1760–20.3.1812 Paris)

+ married Sophia, née Corri (Edinburgh 1775–1847 London)

- daughter Olivia Buckley, née Dusík (1798/99–after 1841)

• Marie Josefa (1763–?)

+ married Josef Žanifl

• František Josef Benedikt (1765–after 1817)

+ married Anna (Maria) Focke

- daughter Gertrud (1788/89?–1814)

• Antonie Veronika Kateřina (1767–?)

• Kateřina Veronika Anna Rosalia (Čáslav 1769–1833 London)

+ married Francesco Cianchettini

- son Pio Cianchettini (London 1799–1851 Cheltenham)

• Františka Kateřina (1770–1771)

• Václav Antonín (1772–?)

• Františka Kateřina (1774–?)

1 In the literature we find both names, although Jan Bušek believes that he was christened Jan. Cf. Jan Bušek: Rod Dusíkův, in: Hudební Výchova, 10, 1909, pp. 22-24, here: p. 22.

2 Cf. ibidem. Bušek points out that an incorrect year of birth, 1739, sometimes appears in the literature.

3 Leo Schiffer: Johann Ladislaus Dussek. Seine Sonaten und seine Konzerte. Leipzig: Noske, 1914, p. 1.

4 Bušek: Rod Dusíkův, p. 22.

5 Schiffer: Johann Ladislaus Dussek, p. 1.

6 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once spent the night in Čáslav, a fact that perhaps much later encouraged director Miloš Forman (b.1932), who was also a native of Čáslav, to make the celebrated film Amadeus.

7 František Škrdle: Jan Jos. Dusík. Čáslavský kantor a varhaník. 1738–1818. Čáslav: Josef Malý, 1993 (orig.: 1934), p. 5.

8 Bušek: Rod Dusíkův, p. 22.

9 Škrdle: Jan Jos. Dusík, p. 6.

10 Ibidem, p. 13.

11 Dlabacž: Dussik, Franz Benedikt, in: Allgemeines historisches Künstler-Lexikon für Böhmen und zum Theil auch für Mähren und Schlesien. Second reprint: Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1998 (orig.: 1815), pp. 345-346.

12 Kutna Hora Archive, Liber testam. 1700–1787, fol. 130; cited in Škrdle: Jan Jos. Dusík, p. 10.

13 Bušek: Rod Dusíkův, pp. 22-23.

14 Kutna Hora Archive, Liber contr. X, 57, cited in Škrdle: Jan Jos. Dusík, p. 31.

15 Škrdle: Jan Jos. Dusík, p. 36.

16 Ibidem, illus.

17 R. Anderlová: J. L. Dusík, in: Podoubravi, vol. 2, p. 86; cited in Škrdle: Jan Jos. Dusík, p. 38.

18 Škrdle: Jan Jos. Dusík, p. 44.

19 The genealogy of Dusík’s musical family, which originated from the Czech town of Hradec Králové, can be traced from the fifteenth century onwards. Cf. Jitka Snížková: František Josef Benedikt Dusík, in: Muzikološki zbornik – Musicological Annual, 26, 1990, pp. 29-35, here: p. 29.

20 Here Sedláček relies on the testimony of Vácslav Setikovski, an inhabitant of the town who was eighty-seven years old at the time and apparently knew the family personally. Cf. August Sedláček: Děje města Čáslavě. Praha: Klaudy, 1874, p. 250, note 383; cf. also Bušek: Rod Dusíkův, pp. 22-24, which forms the basis of Škrdle: Jan Jos. Dusík.

DUSÍK’S YOUTH

František Josef Dusík was born on 22 March 1765. This date is provided by Kliment Čermák (1852–1917), who bases it on extant sources. Čermák himself states that his information is first taken from authentic records in the register of the dean’s office in Čáslav.²¹ The information about the composer’s birth is accepted as the most reliable by the majority of authors of contemporary biographical presentations of Dusík, which are all in one way or another derived from Čermák’s findings.²² Nonetheless, it is also possible to find completely different information about Dusík’s birth. The oldest lexical sources mention 13 March 1766 as his date of birth.²³ In some places, in otherwise precise literature, we also find the date 22 March 1766,²⁴ as well as 13 March 1765²⁵ or even 2 March 1765,²⁶ which in some cases can perhaps be attributed simply to a printing error. This confusion even results in a case of two contradictory pieces of information about the composer’s birth being provided in the same monograph.²⁷

In the christening register of the deanery church²⁸ we find the following entry for 1765:

22 Martÿ in Ecclesia Decanali SS. Petri et Pauli Czaeslaviae à Presbytero Wenceslao Knoflitius loci Capellano baptizatus fuit Franciscus Josephus legitimus filius D. Joannis Dussik Organistae Czaeslaviensis liberi uxoris Veronicae natus eadem die. Levans fuit Praenob ac Consultissimus D. Franciscus Bojan