The death of his father in 1771 left the ten-month old Antonín Rejcha in the care of a mother who was unable to look after him properly. He ran away to his paternal grandfather when he was eleven and then accepted the offer of a home and education with his uncle Josef, a highly respected cellist and the Konzertmeister at the celebrated court of Oettingen-Wallerstein. Rejcha later recalled that the worst moment of this second lonely journey came when he had to feign eye trouble in order to persuade a border guard to let him pass without any proper documentation.

During the next three years Antonín learned to play the flute, violin and piano, and in 1785 joined the Elector’s orchestra in Bonn as a violinist and flautist. There could hardly have been a better opportunity, for the Elector already employed the young Beethoven as an organist and