Description on Youtube:
Antonín Rejcha - Symphony in E Flat Major, Op. 41 (1799), Musica Florea Orchestra, Marek Štryncl (conductor); performance on original instruments
I. Largo — Allegro spirituoso – 00:00
II. Andante un poco adagio – 06:12
III. Menuetto. Allegro — Trio — Menuetto da capo – 11:57
IV. Finale. Un poco vivo – 15:33
Anton (Antonín, Antoine) Reicha (Rejcha) (26 February 1770 – 28 May 1836) was a Czech-born, later naturalized French composer.
„Antonin Rejcha was Beethoven's contemporary; he was born into a musical family in Prague in 1770, not quite ten months before his more famous colleague. Their lives intersected relatively early on, in Beethoven's birthplace, Bonn, where Antonin Rejcha arrived in 1785 at the age of fifteen to take up the position of flautist in the elector's Hofkapelle, directed by his uncle Josef. Young Beethoven played the viola in the same orchestra, both studied composition with court organist Christian Gottlob Neefe, and also at the city's university. After a short period in Hamburg, where Rejcha finally abandoned his profession as an orchestral player in order to concentrate on his teaching and composition, his subsequent career unfolded in Paris; he worked here briefly from 1799 to 1801, returning in 1808 to settle in the city for good. In the meantime he tried to establish himself in Vienna, where he befriended the aging Haydn, and it was also here that he met Beethoven again. Rejcha was a sought-after and respected teacher, an intellectual who took a keen interest in musical-theoretical questions and was always ready to apply and clarify them in writing, whether in illustrative compositions or theoretical texts. Naturally, his example was Joseph Haydn who, in his countless symphonies and other works written in the "Esterhazy laboratory", systematically examined all kinds of problems and possible compositional solutions. Apart from the fugue, Rejcha initially focused chiefly on issues of rhythm. Thus in his practical examples he analyses compound metre, for instance; then, in his very next example, he turns his attention to his favourite 5/8 time: "This time signature affords so many rhythmical combinations!" Needless to say, his findings influenced his own works as well - he exploited the versatility and variability of 5/8 time in his brilliant Overture in D major for large orchestra (note: the work is on the same album), which he had already completed before the year 1799 and later revised, adding a slow introduction in 1823.
Symphony in E flat major, Op. 41 was penned in 1799 during the composer's first sojourn in Paris and was performed here the following year to great success. When Rejcha moved to Vienna in 1802 his symphony came out in print in Leipzig. There is no record that the work was ever performed in Vienna, which would, in fact, be entirely consistent with the composer's grievances over unreceptive Viennese audiences. It is written for a smaller ensemble without trumpets or clarinets, and only with one flute.
