Letters: Rediscovering Reicha

Your editorial (In praise of... 5/4 time, 7 December) suggests that classical music had to wait for Bartók and Stravinsky before it got pieces in a rhythm of 5/4. Leaving aside Tchaikovsky's one contribution, may I put in a word for Antoine Reicha (1770-1836)? He was a friend of Beethoven, admirer of Haydn, and ended up as professor of fugue and counterpoint at the Paris Conservatoire. He was highly reputed in his lifetime, but it is only really in the last 25 years that his music has begun to ...

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