Composer of the Month 4/2012: Josef Myslivecek (selected by Peter van Dessel / Belgium)

Czecholovakia 12.5.1956 The video shows Ana de la Vega and the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Alexander Briger performing the 2nd movement of Myslivecek's Flute Concert in D at Cadogun Hall, London in December 2010. The Czech composer Josef Myslivecek was born in Prague on 9th March 1737. After a broken off study of philosophy and literature he entered 1758 the parental mill where he took his mastership examination. Starting from 1761 he took composition and organ instructions and made his money as violinist for count Vincenz von Waldstein, to whom he dedicated his first six symphonies in 1763. In November 1763 Myslivecek went Venice where he studied singing and composition. His first opera "Semiramide" was performed in Bergamo 1765. The success of the opera "IL Bellerofonte" (1767) brought him further orders. Myslivecekek became the best paid opera composer of Italy and his fame spread in all of Europe. He composed operas for the Court in Portugal and his works were printed in Paris, Amsterdam and London. Further orders led him to Prague, Venice, Padua, Florenz, Vienna and Munich. In 1770 he met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at Bologna, who remained connected in a friendly manner from then on. At the end of the 1770 decade his works failed to be successful and Josef Myslivecek died in Rome after serious illness impoverished and to a large extent forgotten on 4 February 1781. In 2012 the music world remembers his 275th birth anniversary. More composer can be found in the members only section