František Xaver Dušek, (whose name can also be spelt with the variants Duschek, Duscheck and Dussek (1731 – 1799), was the son of a peasant. He attended the Jesuit secondary school at Hradec Králové, studied music in Prague with František Václav Habermann and subsequently in Vienna with Georg Philipp Wagenseil. In about 1770 he returned to Prague, where he remained for the rest of his life and became a sought-after and esteemed teacher. Dusek lived in the period of transition from the Baroque to the Classical style. He was influenced by Wagenseil, Hasse, Galuppi and most notably Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

Dusek is an exponent of the so-called Empfindsamer Stil, the expression of a wide range of human emotions on the basis of the Theory of Affects, the rules of drama and rhetoric. This is the first complete survey of Dusek’s keyboard works, 24 solo keyboard Sonatas and several sonatas for 4 hands, alternatively played on the harpsichord and the fortepiano. Played by Marius Bartoccini, solo keyboard. Bartoccini is a pianist who specialized in fortepiano. As a soloist he played with Sigiswald Kuijken and Federico Maria Sardelli. On this recording he plays on an original Schantz fortepiano, and a copy of a Nannette Streicher.