Anton Reicha- 12 Duos pour violon & Violoncello, precedes d’un petit Traite… Op. 84, Bk. 1 & 2. (Paris : Gambaro, [n.d.])Peter Sheppard Skaerved-Violin, Beate Altenburg-Cello

Duo No 3. B flat Major Lento-Allegro Poco Vivo

Anton Reicha- Lithograph by A. Frey

The third duo gently introduces pizzicato,which Reicha has so far eschewed. Halfway through the first movement, with the return of the them in the tonic, the cello figuration, is, just for two bars, plucked. This is in clear imitation of the harp, and reminds me of the lines from Amandus Gottfried Adolf Müllner’s Die Schuld, which Beethoven quotes in is Tagebuch in 1812. 

7. c Elvira (alone, harp in her arm, ending the music with ever quieter and softly disappearing tones):’As the last tone dies away/That sounds under a soft hand/From the harp’s strings/Like a drop fallen/On the clear crystal pond,…’

The second movement introduces a gesture that is pure Beethoven-and compartively rare in duo writing for strings. The ‘stretto’ coda is introduced with a IV-V-I cadence where the two instruments hurl the chords back and forth at each other (recalling the 1st movement of Beethoven’s Op 18 No 4, the C minor Quartet).