ORFEO International – Reviews
Important Releases Briefly Introduced
January 2020
ORFEO 2 CD MP 1903
Beethoven • Reicha: Egmont • Lenore
While Ludwig van Beethoven’s only 
MP 1903opera Fidelio remains at home timelessly on all the major stages, concert audiences are usually only aware of the relevant overtures of the other stage music by the great composer. However, the eminently appealing music of Egmont with its beautiful and catchy songs and its energetic and melodious orchestral scores might be considered as Beethoven’s most interesting and worthwhile stage music after Fidelio.
Antonín Reicha’s dramatic cantata Lenore is the musical setting of the eponymous horror ballade by the German poet Gottfried August Bürger, famous today above all as the author of the tales concerning the Baron of the Lies, Münchhausen. In comparison with Beethoven (who is said greatly to have admired Reicha’s Lenore and even to have recommended it be performed), in musical terms Reicha’s cantata does not point into the future despite all its onomatopoetic effects, but takes its bearings audibly from the epic oratorio style of Reicha’s mentor and friend, Joseph Haydn.
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