Sophia Dussek (1775 – 1847)
Sophia Dussek was born Sophia Giustina Corri in Edinburgh. Her father was Italian composer and impresario Domenico Corri, who had taken his family to Scotland to form an opera company. That didn’t work out, so the family later moved to London.
Sophia studied singing with her father, and sang in many public performances, including the first performance of Haydn’s The Storm and the London premiere of Mozart’s Requiem. In 1792 she married Czech composer and pianist Jan Ladislav Dussek, with whom she performed as a pianist and harpist. That marriage eventually floundered, and the couple separated a few years later. Following the death of Jan in France in 1812, she married a violist, John Alois Moral.
For some time, much of Sophia Dussek’s music was credited to her prolific first husband. But Sophia’s music for solo harp has been established as her own. This Sonata for Harp in C Minor was the third of three sonatas published under her name) by the Corri Dussek company around 1800. It is performed here by Turkish harpist Güneş Hızlılar.