[체코] Josef Mysliveček

Josef Mysliveček

Josef Mysliveček ( 1737 –  1781/ 영조13년-정조5년, 44세)

was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music. span>

Mysliveček provided his younger friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with significant compositional models in the genres of symphony, Italian serious opera, and violin concerto; both Wolfgang and his father Leopold Mozart considered him an intimate friend from the time of their first meetings in Bologna in 1770 until he betrayed their trust over the promise of an operatic commission for Wolfgang to be arranged with the management of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. He was close to the Mozart family, and there are frequent references to him in the Mozart correspondence

Relationship with Mozart

A portrait of Mozart, aged 14, in Verona, 1770, by Saverio dalla Rosa (1745–1821)

In 1770 Mysliveček met the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Bologna.^[3] He was close to the Mozart family until 1778, when contacts were broken off after he failed to make good on a promise to arrange an opera commission for Mozart at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples.^[4] Earlier, the Mozarts found his dynamic personality irresistible. In a letter to his father Leopold written from Munich on 11 October 1777, Mozart described his character as "full of fire, spirit and life." Similarities in his musical style with the earlier works of Mozart have often been noted. Additionally, Mozart used musical motives drawn from various Mysliveček compositions to help fashion opera arias, symphonic movements, keyboard sonatas, and concertos. He also made an arrangement of Mysliveček's aria "Il caro mio bene" (from the opera Armida of 1780). The old text was replaced with the new text "Ridente la calma", KV 152 (210a), in a scoring for soprano with piano accompaniment.

According to the same letter of Wolfgang Mozart written from Munich on 11 October 1777, an incompetent surgeon burned off Mysliveček's nose while trying to treat a mysterious illness.^[5] A letter of Leopold Mozart to his son of 1 October 1777 refers to the illness as something shameful for which Mysliveček was deserving of social ostracism. Mysliveček's reputation for sexual promiscuity, Leopold's insinuations, and the reference to facial disfigurement in Wolfgang's letter hint unmistakenly at the symptoms of tertiary syphilis. Mysliveček's explanation for his condition to Wolfgang--bone cancer caused by a carriage accident—is on the face of it preposterous. The concern Mozart revealed to his father at this time for Mysliveček's sufferings was very touching. In the entire Mozart correspondence, no individual outside the Mozart family was ever the cause for so much outpouring of emotion as what is found in Wolfgang's letter of 11 October 1777.