(1752–1795)
Joseph Reicha
Parthia in D (4°651) for 2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets, 3 Horns and 2 Bassoons & Basso
The cellist Joseph Reicha, born on 12 February 1752 in Chudenice near Klatovy (West Bohemia), was trained in Prague. In 1774 he joined the court orchestra at Wallerstein as principal cellist. From around 1780 he also served as its Kapellmeister. In 1781 he took in his nephew Anton Reicha (1770–1836), later so famous, and taught him to play several instruments. He certainly also taught him composition.
Prince Kraft Ernst evidently valued his Kapellmeister highly: his salary of 750 gulden was twice as high as the highest income of the other musicians in the orchestra. Nevertheless, in 1785 Reicha left the court of Wallerstein to enter the service of the Archbishop of Cologne, Maximilian Franz, as concertmaster. A short time later the Archbishop appointed him director of concerts of the Bonn court orchestra, with a salary of 1,000 gulden. In 1790 his nephew Anton played in this orchestra as violinist and flautist, alongside the young Beethoven as violist.
In the early 1790s Reicha fell ill with gout, and he died in Bonn on 5 March 1795.
Reicha’s compositions were written almost exclusively during his eleven years at Wallerstein. They include symphonies, solo concertos and chamber music.
The Parthia in D was composed around 1783/84 in Wallerstein. The autograph score survives under the shelfmark HR III 4 1/2 4°651 in the Oettingen-Wallerstein court library, now kept at Augsburg University Library.
As already in his Parthia in F (ROM 79), Reicha again uses three horns here, underlining the work’s hunting-related character. Other court musicians of the time – among them Paul Wineberger, Georg Feldmayr and Antonio Rosetti – likewise used three or even four horns in their wind partitas.
The fourth movement of this Parthia was for a time attributed to Georg Feldmayr. Only more recently could the work be fully assigned to Joseph Reicha.
1st movement: Allegro