As pianist, conductor and composer, Jean Louis Nicodé (1853 – 1919) was one of the most highly respected musicians of his day. Born in Posen in Prussia (Poznań in present - day Poland), he became a stalwart of musical life in Dresden in the closing years of the nineteenth century.

Today his name is as good as unknown, although he was a highly accomplished composer , with his reputation as a performer suffering the same fate as his music . His piano music has hints of Chopin, Liszt and Schumann, and the spirit of dance is never far from the surface, but his expansive, and only, piano sonata has a visionary quality with its origins in late Beethoven.