Dreyschock, Felix
Dreyschock, Dreyšok, Aleksander, *15 October 1818 Žáky, near Kutná Hora, †1 April 1869 Venice, Czech pianist and composer. He studied under J.V. Tomášek (piano and composition) in Prague, from where he went on artistic journeys to Germany (1838), Poland and Russia (1840–1842), then to Brussels, Paris and London, the Netherlands, Austria, and Hungary (1846), Denmark and Sweden (1849), and again to Germany in 1858. He gave concerts in Warsaw in 1840 and in the winter of 1860/1861. Invited by A. Rubinstein to St. Petersburg, he taught piano at the conservatory there from 1862 to 1868, from 1865 he was both director of the theatre school and court pianist. In the winter of 1868/1869 he went to Italy, where he died shortly afterwards. He was renowned pianist in Europe, who impressed with his excellent left hand technique. J.B. Cramer, having heard Dreyschock in Paris, said: “he lacks a left hand, he has two right hands”. He composed, among others: the opera Florena, Overture for Orchestra, Piano Concerto in D minor Op. 137. Dreyschock’s works, mostly piano pieces, in the style brillante, has been forgotten.