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 Altenberg-Cello
Recorded 2004

 No 5 D major-Allegro Moderato

This is the first of two duos in the cycle based on a repeating bass or Chaconne. At the top of the page of music (violin) it says ‘Voyez au bas de la page la basse de ce morceau’. At the bottom of the page we read ‘Basse du morcea précédent’ and the instruction to repeat 21 times before dropping an octave to finish, ‘forte’.  So this is a Chaconne based on 22 variations of a 4 bar figure (88 bars). In many ways, Reicha is looking back to the composers that he admires and cites in the treatise attached to the duos, Tartini and J S Bach, but to my ears, there is a clear echo of Marin Marais’s work, particularly his ‘la Folia Variations’.