Josef Myslivecek dropped out of university at the age of sixteen, and along with his twin brother became an apprentice to the family millers’ business. In 1758 both became journeymen, and in 1761, master millers. It was soon after this that Myslivecek decided to devote himself to music. He studied organ and composition and in 1763 left Prague for Venice where he studied operatic composition. He immediately became known as ‘Il Boemo’ (The Bohemian) because his name was impossible for the Italians to pronounce. Myslivecek’s first opera was staged in 1766 and a further opera was produced a year later for the birthday of the King of Naples, but despite this early success and the enormity of his output (which included concertos, a quantity of chamber music, some forty-five symphonies, oratorios and nearly thirty operas), Myslivecek died in abject poverty, in Rome, at the age of fifty-four.

Josef Myslivecek’s output of orchestral music offers some of the finest examples of a gracious eighteenth-century Italian symphonic style that is little heard today except for occasional performances of Sammartini, Boccherini and J.C. Bach, and a group of Italianate symphonies by W.A. Mozart. Myslivecek was the most talented symphonist resident in Italy at the time of Mozart’s visits in the early 1770s and he provided Mozart with many important stylistic models. In fact, Myslivecek was on friendly terms with both Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart for many years but the relationship soured in 1778 when Myslivecek failed to secure a promised operatic commission for Wolfgang.

Myslivecek’s symphonies contain a wealth of impressive orchestral techniques as well as exquisite slow movements. It is arguably possible to discern in his music some traces of a dynamic personality whose outstanding qualities were described by Mozart as ‘fire, spirit and life’.