Symphony F major - Antonín Rejcha (ed. Jakub Michl)
Antonín Rejcha (26th February 1770 – 28th April 1836) gained his renown not only as a progressive composer of his day, but mainly as a music theoretician whose influence on the history of European music lay in his theoretical and teaching activities.
In spite of Rejcha’s efforts to break through mainly as an author of operas, the focal point of his compositional output remains in the field of chamber music, especially represented by his works for wind quintet. Rejcha’s symphonic music is thus rather overshadowed; however, it ranks high among works that the composer himself highly appreciated.
Symphony F major is one of the three symphonies Rejcha composed in Vienna in 1808. Of these three, only Symphony No. 1, G major, and Symphony No. 3, F major, have been preserved. The first was finished on 13th June and the third on 4th August of the same year, as mentioned on the title page of each of the manuscripts. Symphony No. 3 F major is actually a work which Rejcha opened his new productive period with. After his arrival to Paris, Rejcha became an integral part of a circle of friends that included mainly Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842), François-Joseph Gossec (1734–1829), Étienne Nicolas Méhul (1763–1817) or Charles Simon Catel (1773–1830). Cherubini, the head of the Conservatoire de Paris at the time, put the piece on the programme of a concert on 7th May 1809. The composition met with good success both among the critics and the cultural public of Paris, introducing thus Rejcha to the music scene of the metropolis, and – in a way – also to the Conservatory itself.
The edition of Antonín Rejcha’s Symphony F major is based on the score autograph stored at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France – Paris under the location number MS 14499.
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Other compositions by Antonín Rejcha published in Czech Radio:
Ouverture in C major, op. 24