ANTON

JOSEPH

See also:

• ANTON JOSEPH REICHA (1770-1836)

REICHA (1770-1836)  , French musical theorist and teacher of composition, was born at Prague on the 27th of February 1770, and educated chiefly by his uncle, Joseph Reicha (1746-1795), a clever violoncellist, who first received him into his house at Wallerstein in Bohemia, and afterwards carried him to Bonn . Here, about 1789, he was made flutist in the orchestra of the elector . In 1794 he went to Hamburg and gave music lessons there, also producing the opera Godefroid de Montfort . He was in Paris in 1799 and in Vienna from 1802 to 18o8, during which period he saw much of Beethoven and Haydn . In the latter year he returned to Paris) where he produced three operas without much success . In 1817 he succeeded Maul as professor of counterpoint at the Conservatoire . In 1829 he was naturalized as a Frenchman, and in 1835 he was admitted as a member of the Institute in the place of Boieldieu . He died in Paris on the 28th of May 1836 . He produced a vast quantity of church music, five operas, a number of symphonies, oratorios and many miscellaneous works . Though clever and ingenious, his compositions are more remarkable for their novelty than for the beauty of the ideas upon which they are based . His fame is, indeed, more securely based upon his didactic works . His Traite de melodie (Paris, 1814), Cours de composition musicale (Paris, 1818), Traite de haute composition musicale (Paris, 1824-26), and Art du compositeur dramatique (Paris, 1833), are valuable and instructive essays for the student, though many of the theories they set forth are now condemned as erroneous .