Anton Reicha

[LeMartinPecheur]

After listening to a Reicha wind quintet in a live concert the other day I wrote in my concert diary that I ought to check out other music by him. This http://www.peter-sheppard-skaerved.c...pard-skaerved/ looks extremely interesting. The CDs don't appear to be out yet but MP3s and FLACs are.

Berlioz studied with, and IIRC spoke well of, Reicha. Mendelssohn apparently called him a dried-up chrysalis. Any knowledgeable modern views here??

[Tony Halstead]

Last weekend I played, in a memorial concert for a late horn player, a Trio by Reicha for 2 horns and bassoon. A delightful little piece.
Some 'factoids' : AR wrote an 'Overture in D' in 5/4 time - maybe the earliest known example of this?
He also wrote 24 ( I think) preludes and fugues for piano. He advocated the use of quarter-tones or micro-tones. There may well be 24 wind
quintets by him, some of which are lovely and others rather interminable.

[umslopogaas]

I have one LP of Anton Rei(j)cha, its a Supraphon stereo SUA ST 59663, dated 1965, and featuring the wind quintets in E min. Op. 88 no. 1 and in A maj. Op. 91 no. 5. Which suggests there is a lot more out there, justly or unjustly forgotten. I recall that the music was most agreeable, which is a polite way of saying I cant remember a note of it.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I have one LP of Anton Rei(j)cha, its a Supraphon stereo SUA ST 59663, dated 1965, and featuring the wind quintets in E min. Op. 88 no. 1 and in A maj. Op. 91 no. 5. Which suggests there is a lot more out there, justly or unjustly forgotten. I recall that the music was most agreeable, which is a polite way of saying I cant remember a note of it.

umslop: there are 10 CDs-worth of R wind quintets out there: invest £79 and tell us what you think! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anton-Reicha...+wind+quintets Oddly enough it seems to be Op88/1 & 2 that get the live performances - it was 88/2 I caught the other night, and had previously heard it, 88/1 and 100/3. What worries me now after reading Amazon CD reviews is that there seems to be a widely-circulated, dodgy, truncated edition of 88/2 - I just can't bear the thought that I got short-measure!