We are still waiting for the definitive word on the symphonies of this neglected master, and this newcomer, alas, while promising, doesn’t quite fill the bill. Antonin Reicha was a brilliant composer with a fascinating, inquiring mind. His wind quintets are well known, but his musical experiments included odd-numbered meters (there’s a delightful overture in 5/8 time on MDG), quarter tones, and massed timpani (a lesson not lost on one of his prize students, Hector Berlioz). The symphonies are more conservative in idiom, but brilliantly orchestrated, particularly for Reicha’s beloved woodwinds. Jan Caeyers and his Beethoven Academie play musically, and they are gorgeously recorded, but the overall effect is more correct than exciting. Movements such as the F major symphony’s remarkable finale, with its chains of syncopation and witty exchanges between instrumental groups, cry out for less smoothness and more verve, and the same holds true in all of the fast music. Reicha’s roots are in Haydn. Like that master, he always should sound surprising. These performers offer much that is superficially pretty, but few thrills.
