Sei Sonate

As far as numbers go, the first place in the works of Josef Myslivecek (1737–1781) is held by operas – he wrote twenty-eight of them, and together with his arias, oratorios and cantatas, they comprise one of the most extensive vocal corpuses of all the compositions of his Czech contemporaries. The composer was predisposed for his success in the field of vocal music by his relentlessly gushing, melodically almost fathomless font of inventiveness. Melody reigns supreme in his instrumental works also. This holds true for the six piano sonatas of the current publication.

In a letter to his father from Mannheim from 13 November 1777, the twenty-one-year-old Mozart writes: “I know Myslivecek’s sonatas. I played them in Munich. They are very easy and pleasant to listen to. I would advise my sister (…) to play them very expressively, with zest and passion, and to learn them by heart. For they are sonatas that everyone must like, they are easy to remember and they must cause a sensation if played with the appropriate precision.” The current edition draws from the autograph of the work and the first print from 1938. Further details are contained within the Editor’s Notes by Veroslav Nemec and the Preface by Olga Zuckerová (Czech, German, English).