Alexander Dreyschock was born at Žáky in Bohemia on 15 October 1818; his talent was noticed at eight, and at fifteen he went to Prague to study piano and composition with Václav Tomášek. He made his first professional tour in December 1838, at twenty, through northern and central Germany, and followed it with Russia in 1840–42, Paris in the spring of 1843, London, the Netherlands, Austria and Hungary in 1846, and Denmark and Sweden in 1849. He visited Liszt at Weimar and Spohr at Kassel in 1858, though Spohr’s records do not mention it. He was the brother of Raimund Dreyschock and uncle of Felix Dreyschock, and died of tuberculosis in Venice on 1 April 1869, aged fifty; at his family’s wish he was buried at the Olšany Cemetery in Prague.

He built his fame on execution — thirds, sixths and octaves at speed, and a left hand that became a legend in itself. His Paris debut in 1843 included a piece for the left hand alone, and his best-known stunt was playing the left-hand arpeggios of Chopin’s Revolutionary Étude in octaves, which contemporaries reported he took at the proper tempo and which he programmed in every recital. Johann Baptist Cramer, hearing him in Paris, said the man had no left hand and two right ones; Edward Dannreuther called him the hero of octaves, sixths and thirds and his playing the last word in mechanical training. In 1862 Anton Rubinstein brought him onto the staff of the new Saint Petersburg Conservatory, and he was made Court Pianist to the Tsar and director of the Imperial School of Music for the Operatic Stage, holding both posts for six years until the climate broke his health. His own compositions did not succeed; the piano pieces were judged brilliant and shallow, though the variations on God Save the Queen were widely known.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Dreyschock
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q600969