2-888-556 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Labitzky - (from a daguerreotype by Messrs. Beard), 1850. Portrait of Bohemian composer and musician Joseph Labitzky. 'The natural bent of his aptitude for dance composition was early developed, his first waltzes having won universal popularity...At St. Petersburg [in Russia] he was an especial favourite of, and much patronised by, the Imperial family. Labitzky is now the Kapelmeister of Carlsbad, and has given to the world some one hundred and eighty works...If Labitzky's compositions do not appertain to the highest class of music, he manages, by his imaginative temperament, clever contrivance, and ingenious devices, to raise dance music immeasurably above ordinary and vulgar effects, by the sentimental expression and melodious imagery interwoven in choregraphic movements'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.