36 Fugues (Reicha) - Historical Background

Historical Background

Reicha most probably started composing the fugues during his short stay in Hamburg. In 1799 he moved to Paris and soon published a collection of twelve fugues there, all of which were subsequently included in 36 Fugues (as numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 20–23, 25–27 and 35). By 1802 Reicha moved to Vienna, but the same year two more works that would later be included in the collection were published in Paris. These were a fantaisie from Etude de transitions et 2 fantaisies, Op. 31, and a fugue on a theme by Domenico Scarlatti, Op. 32.

The complete cycle was published in 1803 in Vienna under the French title Trente six fugues pour le pianoforte, composées d'après un nouveau système ("Thirty-six fugues for the piano, composed using a new system"). The collection was dedicated to Haydn, whom Reicha knew since the early 1790s, and included a dedicatory poem by Reicha, in French and German. The fugues were preceded by extensive textual notes, in which Reicha defended his methods, particularly polyrhythm, for which he cites numerous examples from traditional music of Switzerland, Alsace, Greece and western France around the Bay of Biscay.

The second edition was published in Vienna in 1805 and included a short theoretical text, Über das neue Fugensystem, in which Reicha explains the theoretical basis of the fugues in form of a polemic against the numerous opponents of his ideas. These included Ludwig van Beethoven, who dismissed Reicha's method for turning the fugue into something that is no longer a fugue ("daß die Fuge keine Fuge mehr ist"), and Robert Schumann. Also mentioned in Reicha's text are the circumstances that led to the composition of some of the fugues with borrowed themes: apparently, his Parisian friends had chosen several themes and asked Reicha to compose fugues on them using the new method.