Josef Dessauer

Josef Dessauer was an Austrian composer, pianist, and musical figure of Jewish origin, born in Prague on 28 May 1798 into a wealthy merchant family and later active in Vienna and Paris. He studied piano at the Prague Conservatory under Friedrich Dionys Weber and composition with Václav Jan Tomášek, who introduced him to the historian František Palacký, with whom Dessauer developed a lifelong friendship.

After his father’s death in 1825, Dessauer moved to Vienna and dedicated himself fully to music, later undertaking numerous European tours. In 1831 he traveled to Paris, where he quickly gained recognition in influential artistic circles. Among his close acquaintances were Hector Berlioz, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Gioachino Rossini, Felix Mendelssohn, and Fromental Halévy. Franz Liszt wrote piano transcriptions of several of Dessauer’s songs, and Frédéric Chopin dedicated to him his Deux Polonaises, Op. 26. Dessauer also maintained a long correspondence with George Sand.

His works span a wide range of genres, including operas, chamber music, symphonic works, and numerous instrumental and vocal compositions. Despite this diversity, Dessauer achieved his greatest acclaim as a song composer, creating more than twenty song cycles inspired by the folk traditions of various European cultures. He is regarded as a worthy successor to Franz Schubert in the art of the Lied. Among his lesser-known works are the unperformed opera Oberon and the piece Das Zerbrochene Ringlein.

His operatic works include Ein Besuch in Saint-Cyr (Dresden, 1838); Lidwinna, staged in Prague in 1840 with a libretto by Karl Egon Ebert; Paquita; and Dominga oder Die Schmuggler in den Pyrenäen, also known as Dominga oder Die Freier von Oléron, performed in Vienna in 1860.

Dessauer died in Mödling near Vienna on 8 July 1876.

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