ANTON REICHA: Woodwind Quintets, Volume 10 – Quintet in F Major, Op. 100, No. 1; Quintet in D Minor, Op. 100, No. 2 – Westwood Wind Quintet – Crystal Records CD 270, 73:06 ***:
An exact contemporary and friend of Beethoven, Bohemian composer Anton Reicha lived and worked in a number of cities including Hamburg and Vienna before settling in Paris. He became a French citizen in 1829 and was honored as chevalier de la légion d’honneur. As a teacher at the Paris Conservatory, he taught counterpoint to a virtual Who’s Who of 19th-century composers: Adam, Berlioz, Gounod, Liszt, and Franck. Reicha’s orchestral and chamber music was well received, but like all good Frenchmen native or adoptive, he tried to make his name in opera though without success.
Today, he is best known for the twenty-five wind quintets he wrote between 1810 and 1820. The Westwood Wind Quintet’s recording of Volume 10 of the complete quintets features only the first two of six from Opus 100. They make a well-contrasted pair, the first sunny and outgoing (but with a funereal slow movement), the second serious except for its bubbly Minuet, with heroic overtones in its outer movements at least. The minuets of both works are really tantamount to scherzos, ebullient affairs but with unconventional structures that the copious notes to this recording explain in detail.
The quintets feature a surprising amount of counterpoint for compositions of the Classical era. They also exploit the full range of the instruments involved and really put them through their paces; the horn part is particularly difficult.
The first movements of both quintets start with slow introductions. They are typical sonata-allegro movements but with multiple themes and stretch to remarkable lengths; each is more than fifteen minutes long. The quintets are truly symphonic in scope, lasting about as long as the typical late-Classical symphony by the likes of Louis Spohr or Ferdinand Ries. And despite the variety in terms of harmony and melody that Reicha works into his quintets, they do tend to go on a bit. Taking them one at a time is probably best unless you’re looking for background music.
The performances by the Westwood Quintet are certainly dedicated. Also, since the Westwood has already committed many of Reicha’s works to disc, they have the idiom well under their fingers. That said, I can imagine more spirited renditions, and intonation is not as clean as it might be. I find Peter Christ’s oboe a bit sour, for instance, while tutti are occasionally hard on the ear. Recorded sound is decent though not the last word in stereo. In short, if the repertoire interests you, this CD is worth sampling. If you decide to pass, you’ll be OK too.
– Lee Passarella
