I place at your disposal, in PDF files and with piano accompaniment, the original version of Anton Reicha’s Concerto for clarinet and orchestra.
To receive the files you can contact me at my email address: nicobertelli@virgilio.it. But first I suggest you read the little article below to learn the true story of this great masterpiece.
Anton Reicha (1770-1836) composed the Grand Concerto in G minor for clarinet and orchestra – fl., 2ob., 2fg., 2cor., timp., 2vl., v.la and bass – in Paris, in 1815. He dedicated it to the new thirteen-key clarinet patented by the famous clarinetist Iwan Müller. Unfortunately the autograph score (today kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in Paris – Musique Ms 20374 – free at imslp.org), the only remaining source, is incomplete. In the first movement, an [Allegro], except for a few bars, Reicha does not notate the solo clarinet part. In the second and last movement, however, a Rondeau: Allegretto, the clarinet part is notated but some pages are missing, even if most likely intended for the refrain, therefore a negligible loss.
– The absence of the classic slow central movement between the [Allegro] and the Rondeau is typical of the French tradition, just think of some concertos by F. Devienne, M. Yost and also by Iwan Müller himself. –
However, the magnificent orchestral interventions of the [Allegro] and the superb Rondeau are sufficient to consider this concert one of the most important pieces of the clarinet repertoire of the early nineteenth century.
- The only clarinetist who recorded this Concerto was the great Dieter Kloecker. He commissioned Eberhard Buschmann to complete all of the clarinet part of the first movement and all of the second half of the second movement (the original second half was only discovered in 2021). Without declaring it, Kloecker also inserts an Andante with variations between the two movements, which instead turns out to be the second movement of a concert by Muller, the number 3. –
Below are some notes on the criteria adopted for the reconstruction of the clarinet part of the first movement.
Bars 73 and 74, 81 to 84, and 205 are the only originals. The first so-called “di bravura” intervention (92-106) is inspired by the passage proposed by the orchestra at 236. The second theme (107-122) is the one performed by the orchestra at 30. For the second “di bravura” intervention (141 -161) the triplet was chosen as the rhythmic basis, in contrast to the first with a rhythmic basis of quatrains. A new theme (205-213) opens the second section of the first movement. The third “di bravura” intervention (238-261) is once again inspired by the orchestral passage exposed at 236, while its closing in syncopated rhythm recalls an analogous passage from the first movement of the Quintet for clarinet and strings op.89 by Reicha himself. Finally, the second theme again followed by the fourth and final “di bravura” intervention still based on the rhythm of triplets.
The second movement, as I have already said, is instead original and includes the second part of the movement discovered in 2021.
Nico Bertelli – copyright 2023-2025