Antoine Reicha (1770-1836)
Wind Quintets

Following the death of his father in 1771, the one-year-old Antonine Reicha was left in the sole care of his mother. She, however, had neither the inclination nor the ability to look after him properly, and when he was eleven he ran away to his paternal grandfather. Once there, he accepted the offer of a proper education and family life with his uncle Josef, a highly respected cellist and the Konzertmeister at the celebrated court of Oettingen-Wallerstein. He therefore set out on a second journey alone and later recalled that his worst moment came at the border crossing at Regensburg. Speaking little German and possessing no documentation, he waited for the customs officer to start his lunch and then feigned eye trouble, saying that he had his papers somewhere and that he was travelling to a shrine in the hope of a miraculous cure. The ruse worked and the bemused official let him across.

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