Anton Reicha (1770-1836)
Concerto pour piano en mi bémol majeur

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Concerto pour piano n° 5 en mi bémol majeur, op. 73 "Empereur"

Jan Bartos, piano
Wiener Symphoniker
Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
Petr Popelka, direction

Just like the well-known drama of Beethoven’s life, the biography of Anton Reicha would also make an exciting film, but this recording mainly shows us the friendship of the two great composers at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. They were born the same year, and from their first encounter as 15-year-olds in the Bonn court orchestra, they became close friends. They studied together at the university in Bonn, and they both became friends of Haydn. Their music also shared similarities mainly during Reicha’s period in Vienna. It was while Reicha was in Vienna that he wrote his only piano concerto and that Beethoven wrote his fifth and most famous work in the genre. Both concertos are in the “heroic” key of E flat major. While Beethoven’s “Emperor Concerto” is a mainstay of the piano literature, this is the first complete recording of Reicha’s concerto. Missing pages from the solo part were first discovered in 2018. Jan Bartoš is a highly acclaimed interpreter of Beethoven, and here he is following in the tradition of his teachers Ivan Moravec and Alfred Brendl. The wonderful playing of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, which has Beethoven’s blood in its veins, gives the live recording from the Prague Spring Festival the hallmark of authenticity. Playing the meticulously detailed accompaniment in the studio recording of Reicha’s concerto is the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. Bartoš’s partner at the helm of both orchestras is Petr Popelka, today undisputedly a world-class conductor who has the rare ability to breathe meaning and life into every note. The friends Beethoven and Reicha are symbolically reunited after more than two centuries on a single album in special musical company.