Anton Reicha – Symphonie de Salon No. 1
for Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon, 2 Violins, Viola, Cello & Double Bass
First Edition
Anton Reicha
Anton Reicha (also Antonín Rejcha), born 26 February 1770 in Prague, died 28 May 1836 in Paris.
Reicha’s father, a baker, died before his son was one year old. At the age of eleven (1781), the boy moved to Wallerstein to live with his uncle Joseph Reicha, who, being childless himself, adopted his nephew as his own son. Under his uncle’s care, Anton – who until then spoke only Czech – received a broad education, learned German and French, and studied flute, violin and piano with great dedication. Together with his uncle he joined the court orchestra of the Elector Maximilian of Cologne in Bonn; by 1790 he is recorded there as a violinist and as a flautist at the Cologne National Theatre. Within the orchestra, he became friends with Beethoven.
Symphonie de Salon No. 1
Between 1825 and 1827, Reicha composed three “Symphonies de Salon”: No. 1 for nine instruments (oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, 2 violins, viola, cello and double bass), and Nos. 2 and 3 for ten instruments with an additional flute. Since Nos. 2 and 3 share the same ten-instrument scoring, Reicha himself renumbered them as No. 1 and 2; in this first edition, however, all three works are numbered consecutively.
Maurice Emmanuel mentioned the three Symphonies de Salon as early as 1937 in his Reicha biography, though without citing a source, and the works themselves long remained untraced. They were rediscovered only in 2017 at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, among sheet music from the publishing archive of Jobert, which had entered the BnF’s holdings in 2009.
The manuscripts appear to have been ready for engraving, and the publisher Zetter & Cie announced them – yet they were never printed. The firm was absorbed by Richault in 1855, which in turn became part of Les Éditions Costallat in 1898; in 1998 the catalogue passed to Jobert, from which the manuscripts finally entered the BnF in 2009.
Symphonie de Salon No. 1 was probably performed from the manuscript on 4 February 1849 at the Société de Musique Classique in the Salle Herz in Paris; no record survives of performances of the other two symphonies. In 2019 the Aparte label released a premiere recording of Symphony No. 1 on CD, paired with Beethoven’s Septet, Op. 20, performed by the ensemble Le Concert de la Loge.
- Symphonie de Salon No. 1 has been published as ROM 411. Original title:
No 1 // Grande Symphonie // de Salon // pour IX // Instruments // Solos. // Deux Violons, Alto, Violoncelle, // Hautbois, Clarinette, Cor, // Basson et Contre-Basse // Par // Ant. Reicha
Symphonie de Salon No. 2 for 10 instruments will be published as ROM 412, and Symphonie de Salon No. 3 as ROM 413.