Anton Reicha – Symphonie de Salon No. 3
for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon, 2 Violins, Viola, Cello & Double Bass
First edition · ROM 413
Anton Reicha
Anton Reicha (also Antonín Rejcha), born 26 February 1770 in Prague, died 28 May 1836 in Paris. His father, a baker, died before his son was a year old. At the age of eleven (1781), Anton went to Wallerstein to live with his uncle Joseph Reicha, who had no children of his own and raised him as his son. There Anton, who until then had spoken only Czech, received a general education, learned German and French, and studied flute, violin and piano with great enthusiasm. How far his uncle taught him himself is unknown. Together they joined the court orchestra of Elector Maximilian of Cologne in Bonn. In 1790 Anton is recorded there as a violinist, and at the Cologne National Theatre as a flautist. In the orchestra he became friends with Beethoven.
Symphonie de Salon No. 3
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, that is, with an additional flute. Reicha numbered them by scoring: the two ten-instrument works he renumbered as No. 1 and No. 2. In our first edition, by contrast, all three symphonies are numbered consecutively in chronological order.
In his 1937 biography of Reicha, Maurice Emmanuel mentioned three Symphonies de Salon, but without citing a source, and the works remained lost for a long time. They were only rediscovered in 2017 at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, among holdings from the archive of the publisher Jobert that had come to the BnF in 2009.
The manuscripts had evidently already been prepared for engraving, and the publisher Zetter & Cie announced their publication, but they were never printed. The firm was taken over by Richault in 1855, by Les Éditions Costallat in 1898 and by Jobert in 1998. From there the manuscripts passed to the BnF in 2009.
The edition
- ROM 411: Symphonie de Salon No. 1 (9 instruments)
- ROM 412: Symphonie de Salon No. 2 (10 instruments)
- ROM 413: Symphonie de Salon No. 3 (10 instruments)
Original title of this symphony (designated “No 2” by Reicha):
No 2 // Grande Symphonie // de salon // pour X instruments // obligés Solos : // 2 Violons, Alto, Violoncelle, // Contrebasse, flûte, Hautbois, // Clarinette, Cor et // Basson // Par Ant. Reicha
The set of parts includes, in addition to the original clarinet part in C, a part in B-flat, and likewise, in addition to the original horn part in E, a part in F.