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Despite being the most successful opera seria composer of his generation, the Prague native Josef Myslivecek (1737-1781), if regarded by modern writers at all, is generally mentioned only as a footnote in the context of Mozart's rapid rise to fame. Myslivecek has similarly been ignored by the bulk of modern performers and recording companies; only in the past decade or so has this pattern of neglect started to shift. Daniel Freeman's welcome new monograph is the most exhaustive, important and thorough work on the composer published to date.
The few aspects of Myslivecek's life that are occasionally mentioned in the literature are usually the stuff of myth (such as the spurious sobriquet 'Il Divino Bohemo'), and Freeman sets about his task by dismantling the old mythology and replacing it with a much more interesting (and certainly just as colourful), detailed and analytical study of the man and his music. Freeman is quite right to point out that Myslivecek's Czech heritage has been a hindrance to his modern reception. In Gluck's case, scholars have traditionally been able to play down his Czech background because of his German birth (Martin Cooper making one of the more biting remarks, that in 1750 Gluck's 'Czech origin would only be remembered occasionally, regarded lightly and casually, as a joke most probably' ( Gluck (London: Chatto and Windus, 1935), 38-39). Freeman's study, however, rightly steers clear of unnecessary nationalist narratives by carefully unfolding the story of a Czech musician composing what is essentially Italian music.
Myslivecek left a promising career as a miller on the banks of the Vltava in Prague to pursue a seemingly precarious one in music. Unlike his Bohemian predecessor Gluck, whose career followed a similar path, Myslivecek found nearly instant early success. He published his first set of symphonies (Op. 1) less than a year after leaving the mill trade to begin his musical studies. Within two and a half years of arriving in Venice in 1766 his first Italian opera Semiramide