Anton Reicha (also Antonín Rejcha) was born on 26 February 1770 in Prague and died on 28 May 1836 in Paris.
His father, a baker, died when Anton was not yet a year old. In 1781, at the age of eleven, he went to live with his uncle Joseph Reicha in Wallerstein, who was married but childless and took his nephew in as his own child. Under his uncle's care, Anton — who until then had spoken only Czech — received a general education: he learned German and French and studied flute, violin and piano with great enthusiasm. How much of his musical training came directly from his uncle is not known. Together they joined the chapel of the Elector Maximilian of Cologne in Bonn; in 1790 Anton is recorded there as a violinist, and as a flautist at the Cologne National Theatre. In the chapel he became friends with Beethoven.
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In the chapel, Reicha came to know works of the Mannheim School and Viennese Classicism, and above all French opera — it was here that his fondness for wind instruments developed.
In 1790 Reicha met Joseph Haydn, who passed through Bonn on his first journey to London. When the chapel was disbanded after the outbreak of the French Revolution, Reicha left his uncle Joseph and moved to Hamburg in 1794, where he taught privately.
In 1799 Reicha moved to Paris. The thriving musical life and liberal atmosphere of the French capital held a strong attraction for him. In the winter of 1801/02 he left the city for Vienna. Warmly received by Haydn, he continued his compositional training there under him as well as under Albrechtsberger and Salieri, and also renewed his friendship with Beethoven.
Reicha turned down the attractive offer of the post of Kapellmeister to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia. As a teacher of composition he enjoyed the widest recognition. In October 1808 he settled permanently in Paris, but despite all his efforts his operas met with little response. His instrumental works, however — above all the wind quintets — met with lasting success, and as a teacher he earned a high reputation.
A professorship was created for him at the Paris Conservatoire, which he took up on 1 January 1818. Together with Cherubini, Paër, Lesueur, Berton and Boieldieu, he was a member of the Comité d'enseignement. Besides his compositions, his theoretical writings were also published.
In 1819 Reicha married a Frenchwoman, and in 1829 he took French citizenship. In recognition of his services to music, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1831, and on 23 March 1835 he succeeded Boieldieu as a member of the Institut de France. Soon afterwards he fell ill and died.
His pupils included Adam, Onslow, Liszt, Berlioz, Dancla, César Franck and J. G. Kastner, among others.
12 Trios for 2 Horns and Cello, Op. 93 (Original Version)
Alongside the version arranged for three horns by Louis-François Dauprat, there is also Reicha's own original edition for two horns and cello, published around 1825 by Pleyel in Paris under plate number 1378/79.
Unusual as this combination may seem at first, there had already been earlier attempts at it before Reicha, for instance works by the horn virtuosi brothers Boeck.
Reicha may have been drawn to the idea of replacing the tonally limited low natural horn with a more flexible instrument. That this in turn spurred the ambition of the horn player Dauprat can be seen in his arrangement for three horns mentioned above.
