# Anton Reicha



## science

Let's try this one! Any music that you know or love by this composer? Feel free to mention works alone, or specific recordings!


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## starry

Wind Quintet No.3 in E flat Major, Op.88 No.2


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## emiellucifuge

Of course all of the wind Quintets


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## StlukesguildOhio

All I know of Reicha is his Requiem:










He was a lifelong friend of Beethoven and teacher to Liszt and Berlioz and seems to have been quite known for his chamber works for winds... especially his wind quintets. I found the Requiem to be quite a marvelous piece... certainly making him worthy of further investigation.

:tiphat:


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## jurianbai

I know he composed several string quartets, I would like to know more on this one, for eg. Grand quatuor concertant in Eb Op. 104


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## HarpsichordConcerto

He wrote a quintet for clarinet and string quartet, op.89, that's worth listening.


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## science

I wonder if we have any other ideas this time around?


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## Winterreisender

I know nothing beyond the Wind Quintets, although they are some mightily fine compositions. I recently got my hands on this box set...









...where the quintets receive a very bright and breezy performance. My favourite is Op. 100, No. 5 (which I was recently inspired to add to the Talk Classical Project ). Much of the music has a classical elegance which reminds me of Mozart, and I also enjoy hearing this combination of instruments.


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## Bulldog

I have quite a few Reicha discs. The one I enjoy the most is on Sony Vivarte and includes three quintets for cello and string quartet.


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## jurianbai

The first proper Reicha string quartet recording already released last year...

The Kreutzer String Quartet planned to recorded them all, let's wait.









http://amzn.to/19TZPvb


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## science

Winterreisender said:


> I know nothing beyond the Wind Quintets, although they are some mightily fine compositions. I recently got my hands on this box set...
> 
> View attachment 33234
> 
> 
> ...where the quintets receive a very bright and breezy performance. My favourite is Op. 100, No. 5 (which I was recently inspired to add to the Talk Classical Project ). Much of the music has a classical elegance which reminds me of Mozart, and I also enjoy hearing this combination of instruments.


Yeah, I saw that. I don't remember what inspired me to start this thread in 2011, but I revisited it because of that. Interestingly, there is only one complete recording of op. 100 available at the moment (according to arkivmusic.com) and it's in that box. But that box is a bit too big for me to invest in now, so I decided I'd try some other Reicha instead.


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## Winterreisender

There seems to be a nice Naxos disc available containing Op. 100 No. 5 and Op. 88 No. 2 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reicha-Wind...8&qid=1390593334&sr=8-5&keywords=reicha+naxos).






The Wind Quintets are all I know at the moment, but I am now tempted to check out the Requiem mentioned above


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## hpowders

Hey Anton! Copying Beethoven. Not so easy, eh?


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## Funny

The wind quintets are all I know also, but they have a remarkable good humor and frequent wit to them.


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## kangxi

I have his set of 36 fugues for piano, written to accompany his new theory of fugues (which Beethoven rapidly dismissed, saying the system produced a fugue that wasn't a fugue). There's an interesting wiki page on the set:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36_Fugues_(Reicha)

One of the fugues (no 18) is has a subject consisting of one note. Beat that, JSB.

They're a bit dry, but after reading the wiki article on them I'll try them again.

Here's the recording (obviously produced by the same graphic designer as one further up this thread:


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## KenOC

kangxi said:


> I have his set of 36 fugues for piano, written to accompany his new theory of fugues (which Beethoven rapidly dismissed, saying the system produced a fugue that wasn't a fugue).


Haven't heard these! But #20 is one of the first pieces entirely in 5/8 time. Don't know of an earlier.

I see you now have a fitting avatar!


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## kangxi

Actually, now that I'm re-listening to these fugues they're pretty good.

KenOC: glad you like my new yellow party frock!

If you like obscure time signatures, have you heard this?







Brahms uses the most fiendish of independent times: eg a different prime number for each hand - 11/7, 7/5 etc.


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## AH music

One of my highlights when starting to explore lesser known composers was discovering the wind quintets by Reicha (thank-you again, Naxos - their CD of Op 88 no 2 and Op 100 no 5 is by now a long standing favourite listen of mine). Still plenty of these quintets left to explore. Listening to a rather good clarinet quintet right now (thank you again, spotify). Listened a couple of times to one or two symphonies, which also seem worthwhile - many neglected composers are worthy of much more interest and exposure than they get, even by many who appreciate the recognised "greats". There is such a world to explore, and it is so much easier to do these days. Intrigued by the piano fugues, must give those a listen too.


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## norman bates

It's intriguing to read how much his ideas were ahead of his time. Polytonality, polyrhythms, microtonality, spatialism... he was a sort of Stravinsky or Charles Ives of the eighteen century.


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## Rhombic

I am a horn player so I had come across Anton Reicha's Horn Trios in several occasions. After visiting the Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris, while looking for Poulenc's grave I walked by the side of a relatively tall block with the inscriptions "OPERA. CONCERTINOS. TRIOS." etc, vertically down the side of the grave. I felt really intrigued by the composer that might be there, since it was not stated in the tourist-like leaflet that I had collected (Poulenc was included here, as well as Dukas).
ANTON REICHA.
A clear surprise since his Classical style had never appealed to me, but I developed a great interest into getting to know his other works. That was a fabulous idea that I have never regretted. Unearthing some of this composer's music was indeed a great experience of finding innovation in the formally inflexible style of Classicism. By the way, finding his grave among so many other was just another example of serendipity... both surprising and awesome.


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## Myriadi

I've mentioned Reicha in another thread the other day, and thought I'd look for a thread specifically about him... Well, to find it so far into the Composers Guestbooks section is disappointing! And how unfair for one poster to imply Reicha copied Beethoven - he did nothing of the sort, and had as original a mind as any, contemplating quarter tone music and polytonality long before those became real. His musical experiments were too much for Beethoven, which is saying something.

I've always thought Reicha's most successful works were the 36 piano fugues from the second Vienna period. There's no one performance that does them justice, though - Tuma, Wirtz, the fragmentary Langer record, all have their downsides. And although there is a wealth of wonderful music there, I think that already in that comparatively early work you can see how Reicha's melodic gift was simply not good enough. Many of the best fugues are based on other composers' melodies, including even a brilliant adaptation of the opening of Mozart's Haffner Symphony. It is played far too quickly in the only available Youtube video, but perhaps it is still possible to appreciate Reicha's ingenuity:






There are a lot of borrowings in the wind quintets, too, and fascinatingly developed. But like I said, when Reicha has no Mozart, Scarlatti, or Handel to fall back on, and no folk music to imitate, his own melodies have always seemed to me inadequate - especially for someone who wrote a treatise on melody - unmemorable, serving admirably the needs of the schemes Reicha devised, but doing no more. It is rewarding to listen to the wind quintets closely, following the lines and noticing every little surprise, every masterful solution, every interesting find Reicha makes; but at the end of it all, you realize that there was nothing particularly forceful, nothing daring or especially gentle, not a single line of mystery, no romantic suspense, no anxiety. It is as if everything was taken from a large collection of carefully prepared templates.

Reicha's story is a sad one to me - a man quite beyond his time (one could, with little effort, justify calling him a genius) who had very few flaws, yet each of those fatal, so to speak. He would've been similarly forgotten even if his melodies could rival those of Chopin - for a man who cared so little about publicity, disliked performing, and sought no publisher deals, the music would've still fallen into obscurity.

Anyway. I hear they've started recording Reicha's string quartets. Apparently there is some wonderful music there, and perhaps more romantically expressive than the wind music. Norman Lebrecht at http://www.sinfinimusic.com/uk/revi...lbum-of-the-week/anton-reicha-string-quartets named one of the discs essential listening, for what it's worth. I haven't heard any of that. Perhaps someone here has, and can comment on the music?


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## arpeggio

Big Reicha fan. In another thread I referenced his _Symphony for Band_: 




I am surprised that no one in this thread has acknowledged that Reicha invented the woodwind quintet. His first was in 1811.


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## Myriadi

arpeggio said:


> I am surprised that no one in this thread has acknowledged that Reicha invented the woodwind quintet. His first was in 1811.


Apparently he wasn't the first, since _Grove Online_ lists Rosetti and a couple of composers I'm not familiar with (Nikolaus Schmidt, G.M. Cambini). And really, who can say how many quintets or quintet-like pieces were written as _Harmoniemusik_ by the likes of Rosetti et al...

Doesn't take anything away from Reicha's achivement, of course - just me being overly scrupulous.


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## arpeggio

Myriadi said:


> Apparently he wasn't the first, since _Grove Online_ lists Rosetti and a couple of composers I'm not familiar with (Nikolaus Schmidt, G.M. Cambini). And really, who can say how many quintets or quintet-like pieces were written as _Harmoniemusik_ by the likes of Rosetti et al...
> 
> Doesn't take anything away from Reicha's achivement, of course - just me being overly scrupulous.


I really find posts like this very frustrating. Based on my experiences it appears that Reicha invented the woodwind quintet. Then out of the blue someone tells me I am misinformed. I really have better things to do with my time then spend several days doing the research necessary to determine if the information is correct so I let it ride.

This week I attended the Staunton music festival. They perform all sorts of music including period instruments. There was a fastening lecture on period instruments where the various artists discussed the pros and cons of performing on period instruments. They performed demonstrations including a woodwind quintet by Cambini on period instruments. It was really cool.

After the lecture I approached the clarinetist, Edward Matthew, to discuss the origins of the woodwind quintet.

Note: Following bio from Staunton website:

"Ed Matthew has served as guest-principal clarinetist with Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque, Pacific MusicWorks, the American Classical Orchestra, Clarion Music Society, ARTEK, and Musica Angelica. He has performed with REBEL, Apollo's Fire, Washington Bach Consort, Opera Lafayette, Sinfonia New York, Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society, Arcadia Players, and other period ensembles. He is a member of Bläser Band, Pit Stop Players, and the New York Clarinet Quartet, among other groups. On modern clarinet and woodwinds, he is in the orchestra of the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera, and has performed in many other Broadway pits. His recording of Passages, a clarinet concerto by Gary William Friedman, is on the 150Music label. He was a founding member of Arizona's award-winning wind quintet Quintessence."

He informed me that it really is unclear who actually invented the woodwind quintet: Reicha, Danzi or Cambini. Most likely Reicha.

He mentioned that the Rosetti is really not a traditional woodwind quintet. The standard woodwind quintet is composed of a flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon. This is the instrumentation that was established by the above three composers. The Rosetti quintet was flute, oboe, clarinet, English horn and bassoon.


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## Myriadi

Just a heads up for any fellow Reicha enthusiasts, Toccata Classics have issued this CD just a few months ago (I only found out now ):

https://toccataclassics.com/product/antoine-reicha-piano-music/

I think Löwenmark's performances are very solid. It'd be great if he recorded more of Anton's lesser known pieces, and I'd also love to hear him do the _36 Fugues_.


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## Myriadi

arpeggio said:


> I really find posts like this very frustrating. Based on my experiences it appears that Reicha invented the woodwind quintet. Then out of the blue someone tells me I am misinformed. I really have better things to do with my time then spend several days doing the research necessary to determine if the information is correct so I let it ride.


I can't figure out if this is a veiled insult or not. (Maybe you could've just said "please don't contradict me, I really hate it when someone does"? I did mention my source of information, after all.) I'll try to respond in kind: thank you, arpeggio, for informing us that clarinetist Edward Matthew considers the matter unclear. It's very helpful to know.


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## Pugg

​
Anton (Antonín, Antoine) Reicha (Rejcha) (*26 February 1770 *- 28 May 1836) was a Czech-born, later naturalized French composer. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, he is now best remembered for his substantial early contributions to the wind quintet literature and his role as teacher of pupils


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## tortkis

The 36 fugues for piano seem very interesting. I downloaded Wirtz's recording and just started listening to it. So far, I found them wonderful.

Brilliant Classics is going to release Quatuor Scientifique (c. 1806) by Reicha Quartet. I am looking forward to it as I liked his string quartets very much. (I heard op. 49 no. 1, op. 90 no. 2 and op. 94 no. 3 played by Quatuor Ardeo.) Wikipedia says that Quatuor Scientifique contains 3 fugues (no. 3, 4 & 7) from the 36 fugues.

https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/r/reicha-quatuor-scientifique/
_This new recording presents the first recording of the Quatuor Scientifique, a unique, 13-movement work in which the four movements of the standard string quartet are alternated by fugues (a "scientific" form according to Reicha), and with an introduction titled "La Pantomime", in which the music describes certain mythological stories._


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## tortkis

I enjoyed Wirtz's Op. 36 recording very much. It seems Reicha was experimenting several ideas in the 36 fugues. The motif of no. 29 is repeated descending semitone at a time, creating a mysterious and ambiguous mood, while in the Beethovenean no. 36, the fast ascending theme is raised by a semitone at a time.
Löwenmark has released three volumes of the complete piano music on Toccata. They are very good. The series is still constantly being released, one volume per year, though the label's string quartets releases have stalled for 5 years (which I did not like much.)


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## Joachim Raff

Contents:
Eybler: Divertisment für Fasching Dienstag 1805 for Orchestra
*Reicha, A: Sinfonia Concertante for 2 Cellos in E major*
Romberg, B: Concertino for 2 Cellos in A Major, Op. 72
Conductor
Goebel, Reinhard

_Reinhard Goebel leads the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra with a keen ear for this wonderful Sinfonia Concertante_


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## Acadarchist

I have this set, and it`s very good. 
I also enjoyed this set. 







24 trios for 3 Horns.
I discovered Reicha by accident, but I`m pleased I did.


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## Knorf

I've played several of his wind quintets, no surprise there, and I like them. Also I've played a number of the trios for two horns and bassoon, and they're pretty great.

I own this recording:










Its ambition exceeds its inspiration, so I wouldn't call it a "masterpiece," but it is undeniably very interesting and certainly worth hearing.


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## flamencosketches

I like this stuff, the horn trios, the wind quintets, etc. I should try and get my hands on some of it. That being said, did Rejcha write much noteworthy music in other genres besides wind-driven chamber music?


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## Knorf

flamencosketches said:


> I like this stuff, the horn trios, the wind quintets, etc. I should try and get my hands on some of it. That being said, did Rejcha write much noteworthy music in other genres besides wind-driven chamber music?


Definitely the string quartets and some piano music. There's a few neat orchestra pieces, too, including a charming overture entirely in 5/8`time.


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