Reicha, Antoine Ouverture générale pour les Séances des Quatuors
£15.00
Description
Reicha, Antoine Ouverture générale pour les Séances des Quatuors
FE177 Antoine Reicha Ouverture générale pour les Séances des Quatuors
Almost certainly the only score to contain the instruction “Light your candles during these empty bars”, this work by Reicha seems conceived as a warm-up for a string quartet rehearsal. In the first movement, the players tune their instruments and try out various figures and techniques in an improvisatory way. The easy harmonies of the second movement, an Andante Siciliano, give them a chance to test their newly-tuned intruments and the third, an Allegro assai, sees the quartet rapidly exchanging brief motifs as a way of getting used to playing together. All this, however, does not prevent the work from being performed in public by musicians who will already have tuned up off-stage. The piece was composed in 1816, but we have no account of any performance of it in the composer’s lifetime. It has been heard once or twice in recent times, played ‒ bravely ‒ from the manuscript.
Score and parts £15
