 Consacrant la redécouverte de l’œuvre de Myslivecek, le Quatuor Doležal et Supraphon nous concoctent opportunément, au prix de patientes recherches donnant lieu à des premières mondiales, ce délicieux récital associant, quasi en alternance, trois quatuors à cordes et trois quintettes avec hautbois. Autant de réels petits bijoux. Difficile, franchement, de bouder la suavité d’un tel programme, si fidèlement éclairé par des interprètes aussi dévoués qu’excellents. D’autant que, au-delà du plaisir premier de l’oreille, on est encore plus durablement conquis par la maitrise tant mélodique qu’harmonique, la finesse d’écriture de ce musicien tchèque parti rechercher la célébrité en Italie. En témoigne d’emblée la délicatesse du menuet du quintette n° 1. On comprend que le compositeur ait favorablement impressionné le jeune Mozart, ses quintettes n° 2 ou 3 n’étant pas sans anticiper certains accents propres au prodige salzbourgeois. Mais c’est peut-être encore plus à Haydn que nous fait songer le mouvement central des quatuors en Fa ou en Sol. On l’aura compris, il importe sans tarder, avec ce cd et – espérons-le – au-delà, de redonner sa juste place à ce musicien qu’en outre un passionnant livret en quatre langues, dont le français, permet de mieux resituer dans le contexte de son époque, lui restituant enfin son irréductible personnalité. (Alain Monnier) Josef Myslivecek has most frequently been mentioned in connection with W. A. Mozart (who, for a certain time, viewed him as a model and inspiration) and is best known for his operas. At the age of 26, he left Prague for Italy, where four years later, in Naples, he celebrated his first triumph, with the opera Il Bellerofonte (1767). A prolific and gifted composer, Myslivecek also wrote instrumental music, including symphonies and chamber pieces. His first cycle of string quartets was published in Paris in 1768, the final one in Amsterdam, shortly after his death. These works were often performed in extended formations as symphonies. Myslivecek’s quartets are characterised by wonderfully refined slow middle movements. Even more unique are his oboe quintets. For a long time, they were only known owing to Leopold Mozart’s reference to them in a letter to his son Wolfgang, dated October 1777 – Myslivecek wanted Leopold Mozart to offer his quintets and other pieces to the Archbishop of Salzburg. Only due to the initiative of the performers featured on this album, primarily the oboist Michaela Hrabánková and Václav Dvorák, the first violinist of the Doležal Quartet, have the missing oboe parts for three of the six quintets been retrieved in private collections across Europe. The CD thus contains world premiere recordings of rediscovered Myslivecek works, whose significance is further enhanced by a stylistically sensitive interpretation. Our picture of “Il divino Boemo“, whom the renowned music historian Charles Burney ranked alongside such masters as Hasse, Gluck and Haydn, is now more complete – and more beautiful.
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