REICHA REDISCOVERED Ivan Ilić piano CHAN 20194 Reicha.indd 1 8/10/20 12:07 AM CHAN 20194 Reicha.indd 2 Antoine Reicha, 1830 Antoine Portrait, in a Private Collection, by Charles Constans (1778 – 1847) / Heritage Images / Fine Art Images / AKG Images, London 8/10/20 12:07 AM CHAN 20194 Reicha.indd 7 8/10/20 12:07 AM Reicha Rediscovered, Volume 3 L’Art de varier, Op. 57 Director) of the orchestra of the Austrian The career of Antoine Reicha (Antonin Archduke Maximilian Franz, brother of Rejcha, Anton Reicha), composer, pedagogue, Emperor Joseph II, and Prince Elector of and theorist, is divided into two major parts, Cologne, resident in Bonn. Anton followed the turning point occurring at the end of his uncle there as a violinist and flautist, and 1808, at the moment of his permanent move struck up a connection with a colleague and to Paris following six years spent in Vienna. keyboard player, and (from 1788) viola player, L’Art de varier (The Art of Variation) dates one Ludwig van Beethoven, a native of Bonn. from the beginning of his Viennese period. In May 1789, both enrolled at the University, Reicha was born in Prague, on 27 February studying philosophy and mathematics. 1770, the same year as Beethoven, but ten In November 1792, Beethoven left Bonn months before him, and lost his father before for Vienna to become a student of Haydn. he was a year old. Regarding his education as Reicha stayed for another two years, until the lacking, in his eleventh year he went to the occupation of the city by French troops. house of his paternal grandfather, near the He then moved to Hamburg. It was there, border with Bavaria, and asked him to send he tells us in his autobiography (from around him to his uncle Josef (1752 – 1795), who 1824), that since 1774 had been principal cellist, then I bid goodbye for ever to performance Kapellmeister, to the Prince of Oettingen- and gave myself up entirely to Wallerstein in Swabia (present south-western composition, which I interrupted Germany). Josef had married a French only to read scientific works [...]. It woman, a native of Metz. From him, Anton was in Hamburg that I began to think received his first musical instruction, and it is seriously about musical composition, thanks to her that, while familiarising himself about its nature, about the manner in with German, he began to speak French. In which to teach it, about how easy it is 1785, Josef Reicha became leader (and in 1789 to overindulge its resources, etc. My 8 CHAN 20194 Reicha.indd 8 8/10/20 12:07 AM study of algebra gave me an analytical chief among them Kunst der practischen outlook. Harmonie (The Art of Practical Harmony). In In October 1797, in a letter to the Viennese Paris there appeared, published by Imbault, publisher Artaria, he offered a list of works of Twelve Fugues for piano composed which several were chamber pieces or works for and dedicated to Citizens Méhul, for piano. Artaria published none of them. Cherubini, Gossec, Le Sueur, and On the advice of French expatriates, Reicha Martini, Inspectors of the Conservatoire left for Paris, which he reached in October of Music, by A. Reicha. 1799, shortly before the return of Napoleon And in 1804, Steiner of Vienna published, Bonaparte from Egypt. He stayed in France with a dedication to Haydn, ‘Thirty-six for three years, upon which ‘the desire to Fugues for the piano, composed according make new progress in art and to benefit to a novel system’. Also in 1804, Breitkopf further from the counsel of Joseph Haydn’ & Härtel announced another work for persuaded him to go to Vienna. He arrived piano, L’Art de varier, Op. 57, composed in there in October or November 1802 and 1803 – 04: a theme followed by fifty-seven re-encountered not only Haydn, whom he variations, the correspondence between the had met in Bonn in 1790 and / or 1792 and opus number and the number of variations in Hamburg in 1795, but also Beethoven. As by no means being a matter of coincidence. early as January 1803, Karl van Beethoven, At this very moment, Beethoven was himself Ludwig’s brother, wrote to Breitkopf & Härtel also preoccupied with the fugue and variation (the publishing house at Leipzig) that forms, as witnessed by his Six Variations in Mr Reicha, ‘just arrived from Paris, has asked F major, Op. 34 and his Fifteen Variations me to propose to you some works [...] which I and a Fugue in E flat major, Op. 35 for piano can offer you at a reasonable cost’. Among them (published by Breitkopf & Härtel, in April were three string quartets, three symphonies, and August 1803). Beethoven conceived a sonata for flute and keyboard, and a violin these as variations on a ‘grand’ scale, hitherto concerto. unprecedented, renewing a genre which he had Reicha also produced learned and didactic discussed (along with that of the fugue) with works – not entirely unrelated to theoretical Reicha. From these debates he emerged with writings that would soon appear in German, conflicting feelings, ambivalent conclusions. In 9 CHAN 20194 Reicha.indd 9 8/10/20 12:07 AM a letter of 18 December 1802 to the publisher ‘stay longer with Haydn’ and ‘to remain free’. in Leipzig, he describes Reicha as a French Vienna is for him the city in which Haydn composer whose ‘new method makes a fugue and Mozart ‘have created beautiful and no longer a fugue’. He could have said the genuine instrumental music’. The theme same thing about that in his own Op. 35. of Op. 57 is an Andante in F major The Thirty-six Fugues andL’Art de varier by (the same key as Beethoven’s Op. 34) of Reicha earned some devastating criticism twelve bars in 4 / 4, simple and songful, in in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, two sections but three phrases (A – B / A’). the house paper of Breitkopf & Härtel, for The first section A (up until the middle of instance, ‘These fugues are fugal fantasies, bar 4) is not repeated, the second is. The first not fugues’, ‘Why do most of these fugues phrase A is played at the unison (one voice conclude in a different key from that in which only); we then move on to two voices, in they began?’, and ‘In what way does the fugue delineating the dominant (phrase B), then to benefit from this new manner?”. The retort three voices, and finally to four (phrase A’). that Reicha gave? In summary this: Any In short order, with accumulating richness, theme can become a fugal subject, and all the the musical texture allies itself to the realm artistic procedures that in our time enrich of baroque counterpoint. Similarly, in the tonality and harmony may be integrated into introduction to Op. 35 by Beethoven, what fugal composition, bestowing upon the fugue the latter called the bass of the theme (two a higher aesthetic value. It was in this spirit, times eight bars, repeated) is announced first taking account of the difference in genre, that at the unison, then in a polyphony ‘A due’, he turned to tackle the variation. ‘A tre’, and at last ‘A quattro’. The structure L’Art de varier, Op. 57, appeared with a of the theme of Op. 57 may be analysed in dedication to Prince Louis-Ferdinand of terms that Reicha came to deploy afterwards, Prussia (1772 – 1806), a talented pianist defining certain types of musical idea: phrase and composer and the dedicatee (likewise in (French: dessin / German: Phrase), the 1804) of Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 37 by smallest part of a melody, comparable with Beethoven. Reicha recounts that, the prince what in a text comes between two commas; having offered him a position asKapellmeister clause (French: membre / German: Halbsatz), and teacher of composition, he preferred to a larger part of the melody than phrase 10 CHAN 20194 Reicha.indd 10 8/10/20 12:07 AM and requiring at least a clearly articulated in expressivity, as much from one variation harmonic and melodic half-cadence; rhythm to the next as, sometimes, within a single (French: rythme / German: Rhythmus), variation. The variations are easy or difficult, that which divides and separates ideas in a virtuosic or not, complicated or not, symmetrical and well-proportioned way, that polyphonic or not, in the major or (more which beautiful proportions in architecture rarely) the minor mode; the theme is, or is achieve for the eye; and period (French: not, more or less modified and fragmented. période / German: Periode), the idea at its One here confronts, ‘as it were, a kaleidoscope most developed, composed of phrases, clauses, of genres, of compositional techniques, and and rhythms, which feels perfectly complete of often highly demanding performance and closed, that is well-defined, and requiring techniques’ (Ana Stefanović). A comparison a melodic and harmonic perfect cadence. with the ‘Diabelli’ Variations (1819 – 23) of According to these definitions, the theme Beethoven is justified: the variations are yet of Op. 57 consists of two periods (A and more numerous, some seeming to lose touch B / A’) of which the first, the shorter, the one with the theme. at the unison, is divided into two clauses, The majority of the variations of Op. 57 themselves divided into two phrases: four nevertheless preserve the twelve bars, all phrases, then, of which two are identical, but eight of them the key of F major (in the first and the third, and two similar, the Beethoven’s Op. 34, only the theme and the second (ending in a half cadence) and the final variation are in F major), and many of fourth (ending in a perfect cadence).