Johann Peter Pixis

[1] Johann Peter's older brother, also Friedrich Wilhelm Pixis (1785–1842), was a violinist who later became prominent in the musical life of Prague.

[2] The two brothers received early musical training from their father, who took the talented boys on concert tours beginning in 1797; they traveled through Germany and to Denmark, Russia (St. Petersburg), and Poland (Warsaw).

While in Hamburg in 1798, Viotti was so impressed by Friedrich Wilhelm junior that he gave daily lessons, which Johann Peter also attended, for two months, and he organized a concert for the two boys.

The brothers gave a series of very successful concerts in Karlsbad and Prague in 1807, during which Johann Peter began to perform his own compositions.

Friedrich Wilhelm junior moved to Prague in 1810, while Johann Peter settled in Vienna, where he had contact with, among many others, Beethoven and Schubert.

[4]Pixis also writes in glowing terms about the Vienna premiere of Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz, and he relates a story about Henriette Sontag when she first arrived in Vienna as a young student: Pixis says that he split the cost of voice and Italian lessons with her, to enable her to afford them.

Perhaps as a result of his early experiences with his brother, Pixis was an excellent collaborative pianist and toured with several violinists, including concerts in Paris, where he moved in late 1824.

[6] Pixis stayed, living in Paris for twenty years and quickly earning a strong reputation as a composer, concert pianist, and chamber music collaborator.

[7] Pixis himself made the piano reduction for the opera's vocal score (1831) and he wrote two original compositions: Caprice dramatique sur 'Robert le diable', Op.

The fact that he was asked by Liszt to participate, along with Chopin, Czerny, Herz, and Thalberg, is evidence of his status in Parisian musical circles.