Wenzel Sukowaty

Wenzel Sukowaty was an Austrian music copyist born and died in Vienna, in 1746 and 1810 respectively. His name is linked to the production of scores and performing parts at a time when the circulation of music depended largely on manual copying, and his workshop therefore played a real part in the dissemination of the Viennese repertoire at the end of the eighteenth century.

Although his workshop may apparently have been founded around 1784, payment records show that Sukowaty was already the principal copyist for the Viennese court theatres in 1778, a post he held until 1796. Among the copies produced in his workshop are performance scores of Mozart operas such as Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte, some bearing annotations in the composer's own hand, as well as signed manuscripts of works by Sarti and Salieri preserved in Budapest.

His activity raises questions about the authorship of many copies, as they often display several hands, and it is not known with certainty how many assistants worked for him, over what periods, or whether they also collaborated with other workshops. None of his copyists has so far been identified by name. Besides serving the theatres, he sold manuscripts to the public, including orchestral scores, individual arias and piano reductions, and he frequently advertised his wares in the Viennese press, above all in the Wiener Zeitung.