Antonín Rejcha rediscovered
Czech-born composer and teacher Antonín Rejcha, who spent most of his life in France and who is the subject of a new book published by the Moravian Library in Brno. In Today’s edition of Sunday Music Show you can listen to his Quintet in B flat major for clarinet and strings, Op. 89.
Born in Prague, Antonín Rejcha was a peer and friend of Ludwig van Beethoven, a renowned professor of composition, and the first native Czech to be elected a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts. As a distinguished professor at the French Conservatory he acquired French citizenship.
The book, published by the Moravian Library in Brno, presents the results of the latest research on the composer’s life and work, including unique documents from private collections, as well as newly digitized musical manuscripts. It also presents reproductions of Rejcha’s notebook, which was discovered last year lying by trashcans in Paris.
Antonín Rejcha was a prolific composer, but with the exception of some of his earlier pieces for woodwinds, his works are not that widely played today.
To find out more about Rejcha, visit the virtual exhibition dedicated to the Czech-French composer at rejcha.knihovny.cz, which is continuously updated and expanded.
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