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Scan 79
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 1916
12 lines. Read by computer on 6 September 2026. Printed page 51. See the scan on archive.org.
1praises from the correspondents of the A. M. Zeitung in Prague and Vienna for his extraordinary execution on both instruments, the very artistic and individual character of his performance, and the sweetness of his cantabile. The concertina was patented by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1829[see CONCERTINA], but did not come into use till Regondi took it up. He wrote two concertos for it, and a very large number of arrangements and original compositions. He also taught it largely, and at one time his name was to be seen in almost all concert programmes. He was a great friend of Molique's, who wrote for him a Concerto for the Concertina (in G) which he played with great success at the concert of the Musical Society of London, April 20, 1864. When he went abroad for his second tour, his performance and the effect which he got out of so unpromising and inartistic an instrument astonished the German critics. (See the A. M. Zeitung for 1846, p. 853.) Regondi appears to have been badly treated by his father, and to have had wretched health, which carried him off on May 6, 1872.
3REHEARSAL (Fr. Répétition, Ger. Probe). In the case of concerts, a trial performance preliminary to the public one, at which each piece included in the programme is played through at least once, if in MS. to detect the errors inevitable in the parts, and in any case to study the work and discover how best to bring out the intentions of the composer, and to ensure a perfect ensemble on the part of the performers. In England, owing to many reasons, but principally to the over-occupation of the players, sufficient rehearsals are seldom given to orchestral works. The old rule of the Philharmonic Society (now happily altered) was to have one rehearsal on Saturday morning for the performance on Monday evening, and the Saturday Popular Concerts were originally, in like manner, rehearsals for the Monday evening concerts. No new works can be efficiently performed with less than two rehearsals; and in the case of large, intricate, and vocal works, many more are requisite. We have it on record that Beethoven's Eb Quartet, op. 127, was rehearsed seventeen times before its first performance; the players therefore must have arrived at that state of familiarity and certainty which a solo player attains with a concerto or sonata.
5In the case of Operas, every practice of either chorus, principals, or orchestra, separately or together, is termed a rehearsal. These will sometimes continue every day for six weeks or two months, as the whole of the voice-music, dialogue, and action has to be learnt by heart. Whilst the chorus is learning the music in one part of the theatre, the principals are probably at work with the composer at a piano in the green-room, and the ballet is being rehearsed on the stage. It is only when the music and dialogue are known by heart that the rehearsals on the stage with action and business begin. The orchestra is never used until the last two or three rehearsals, and these are termed Full Band Rehearsals (Germ. General-probe). Last of all, before the public production of the work, comes the Full Dress Rehearsal, exactly as it will appear in performance.
7REICHA, ANTON JOSEPH, born at Prague, Feb. 27, 1770, lost his father before he was a year old; his mother not providing properly for his education, he left home, and took refuge with his grandfather at Glattow, in Bohemia. The means of instruction in this small town being too limited, he went on to his uncle Joseph Reicha (born in Prague, 1746, died at Bonn, 1795), a violoncellist, conductor, and composer, who lived at Wallerstein in Bavaria. His wife, a native of Lorraine, speaking nothing but French, had no children, so they adopted the nephew, who thus learned to speak French and German besides his native Bohemian. He now began to study the violin, pianoforte, and flute in earnest. On his uncle's appointment, in 1788, as musical director to the Elector of Cologne, he followed him to Bonn, and entered the band of Maximilian of Austria as second flute. The daily intercourse with good music roused the desire to compose, and to become something more than an ordinary musician, but his uncle refused to teach him harmony. He managed, however, to study the works of Kirnberger and Marpurg in secret, gained much practical knowledge by hearing the works of Handel, Mozart, and Haydn, and must have learned much from his constant intercourse with Beethoven, who played the viola in the same band with himself and was much attached to him. At length his perseverance and his success in composition conquered his uncle's dislike. He composed without restraint, and his symphonies and other works were played by his uncle's orchestra.1
9On the dispersion of the Elector's Court in 1794, Reicha went to Hamburg, where he remained till 1799. There the subject of instruction in composition began to occupy him, and there he composed his first operas, 'Godefroid de Montfort,' and 'Oubaldi, ou les Français en Egypte' (two acts). Though not performed, some numbers of the latter were well received, and on the advice of a French émigré, he started for Paris towards the close of 1799, in the hope of producing it at the Théâtre Feydeau. In this he failed, but two of his symphonies, an overture, and some 'Scènes Italiennes,' were played at concerts. After the successive closing of the Théâtre Feydeau and the Salle Favart, he went to Vienna, and passed six years (1802-8), in renewed intimacy with Beethoven, and making friends with Haydn, Albrechtsberger, Salieri, and others. The patronage of the Empress Maria
111 See an interesting notice by Kastner, quoted by Thayer, Beethoven, i. 188.
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