Josepha Duschek
Encyclopedia
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
singer of the Classical
Classical period (music)
The dates of the Classical Period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1750 and 1830. However, the term classical music is used colloquially to describe a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or...
era. She was a friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, who wrote a number of works for her to sing.
Her name is most often given in its German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
version as above. In Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
her name was Josefína Dušková or (with Germanized spelling) Josepha Duschkova.
Life
She was born Josepha Hambacher in PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, then a provincial capital of the Austrian Empire, on 6 March 1754, and lived in Prague all of her life. Her father was a prosperous apothecary
Apothecary
Apothecary is a historical name for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients — a role now served by a pharmacist and some caregivers....
, Anton Adalbert Hambacher (also "Hampacher") and her mother was Maria Domenica Colomba, who came from Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
. Her father’s pharmacy was in the house called "Zum weissen Einhorn" ("The White Unicorn"). Built in the Baroque style, it was situated in the Old Town Square where the pharmaceutical business flourished until the 20th century.
In her youth Josepha studied music with František Xaver Dušek
František Xaver Dušek
František Xaver Dušek , was a Czech composer and one of the most important harpsichordists and pianists of his time....
, whom she married on 21 October, 1776. Josefa’s husband already had an international reputation as a music teacher. He was a welcome guest in the music salons and he and his wife became well-known hosts at their home, Villa Bertramka
Bertramka
Bertramka is a villa in Prague where Mozart was a frequent guest. Bertramka is now a museum dedicated to the memory of Mozart and to the former owners and Mozart’s hosts: Mr and Mrs Dušek.Bertramka is situated about a mile from the city centre...
a short walk from the city gates. It is not known whether the couple performed together as musicians, but they hosted frequent musical gatherings at which many famous people were present.
Josefa had earlier been the lover of the art patron Count Christian Philipp Clam-Gallas, and it was said that she continued to profit long afterwards from the relationship as the Count provided her with an annuity of 900 Gulden and even contributed to the purchase of the Villa Bertramka.
Her career as a singer was long and successful; she gave concerts in many different cities, including Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, Dresden, Weimar, Leipzig , Warsaw and Berlin.
The singer and her husband were also close with the composer Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
. While Beethoven was in Prague in 1796, he wrote his concert aria, Ah, perfido! Op. 65 for this talented singer. She was not able to sing the piece at its debut because of a conflicting engagement, but she did perform the piece in both Prague and later in Leipzig. The debut was performed by the Countess Josephine Clary, to whom Beethoven later dedicated the piece. This concert aria was also featured on Beethoven's mammoth Akademie concert at Theater an der Wien
Theater an der Wien
The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Completed in 1801, it has seen the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music...
in 1808, sung by a 17 year old Josephine Killitschgy, who was unable to meet the vocal demands of the piece.
She never accepted a permanent engagement, but always remained a freelance singer.
After her husband’s death in 1799 she retired from public life. She sold Bertramka, and lived in increasingly smaller apartments in Prague. By the time of her death in 1824 she had become impoverished.
Duschek and Mozart
Duschek met Mozart in 1777 when she visited Salzburg, where her mother was from and she had relatives. At that time Mozart composed for her the recitative and aria "Ah, lo previdi," K. 272.Mozart accompanied her at a private concert before the Viennese court in 1786, shortly after the success of his opera The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
.
In 1787, The Marriage of Figaro was mounted in a Prague production. A number of Prague music lovers invited Mozart to come to Prague and hear the production; the Grove Dictionary suggested that Duschek and her husband František were among them.
Later that year Mozart returned to Prague in order to complete and then produce his next opera, Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. At this time, he stayed with the Duscheks in their summer house, called the Villa Bertramka
Bertramka
Bertramka is a villa in Prague where Mozart was a frequent guest. Bertramka is now a museum dedicated to the memory of Mozart and to the former owners and Mozart’s hosts: Mr and Mrs Dušek.Bertramka is situated about a mile from the city centre...
, at Smíchov near Prague. Mozart may also have stayed there while completing his opera La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito , K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio...
in September 1791.
The composition of "Bella mia fiamma, addio"
During the 1787 visit, Mozart wrote the concert aria "Bella mia fiamma, addio," K. 528 (it is dated 3 November 1787). The composition of this aria was somewhat unusual; the following tale is attributed to Mozart's son Karl ThomasKarl Thomas Mozart
Karl Thomas Mozart was the second son, and the elder of the two surviving sons, of Wolfgang and Constanze Mozart. The other was Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart....
:
- Petranka [sic] is well-known as the villa in which Mozart enjoyed staying with his musician friends, the Duscheks, during his visit to Prague, and where he composed several numbers for his "Don Juan" [Don Giovanni]. On the summit of a hill near the villa stands a pavilion. In it, one day, Frau Duschek slyly imprisoned the great Mozart, after having provided ink, pen, and notepaper, and told him that he was not to regain his freedom until he had written an aria he had promised her to the words bella mia fiamma addio. Mozart submitted himself to the necessary; but to avenge himself for the trick Frau Duschek had played on him, he used various difficult-to-sing passages in the aria, and threatened his despotic friend that he would immediately destroy the aria if she could not succeed in performing it at sight without mistakes.
Bernard Wilson, commenting on the story, adds: "There seems to be some corroboration of this account in the aria itself. The words Quest' affano, questo passo è terribile per me (mm. 27-34) are set to an awesome tangle of chromatic sequences artfully calculated to test the singer's sense of intonation and powers of interpretation. Apparently Mme. Duschek survived the passo terribile, since the autograph bears her name in Mozart's hand.
In 1789 Duschek sang the work along with other arias at concerts given by Mozart in Dresden and Leipzig, during his German tour
Mozart's Berlin journey
One of the longest adulthood journeys of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a visit, beginning in Spring 1789, to a series of cities lying northward of his adopted home in Vienna: Prague, Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin.-Departure:...
of that year.
Were Mozart and Duschek lovers?
Maynard SolomonMaynard Solomon
Maynard Solomon has carried out a multiple career: he was a co-founder of Vanguard Records as well as a music producer, and later became a writer on music.-Career in the recording industry:...
has suggested that Mozart and Duschek were lovers. The available information does not permit such assertions to be made with certainty. For discussion, see Mozart's Berlin journey
Mozart's Berlin journey
One of the longest adulthood journeys of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a visit, beginning in Spring 1789, to a series of cities lying northward of his adopted home in Vienna: Prague, Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin.-Departure:...
.