Anton, an excellent composer and didactic writer on musical composition, was born at Prague on 27th February 1770. Having learned singing and the elements of music, he left Prague in his seventeenth year to join his uncle, Joseph Reicha, an eminent violoncellist and good composer, who was settled at Bonn, in the service of the Elector of Cologne, and who completed the musical education of Anton. Some of Anton Reicha's biographers assert that he studied music under Mozart and Michael Haydn. In 1794 Anton Reicha went to Hamburg, and remained there for five years as a teacher of the piano and of accompaniment. There he composed the music of a French opera, which he was advised to bring out at Paris. Arriving at Paris in 1799, he produced a successful symphony at the Rue de Cléry concerts; but owing to the closing of the Feydeau and Favart theatres, was disappointed in bringing out an opera. He then went to Vienna, where he held friendly intercourse with Haydn, Albrechtsberger, Salieri, and Beethoven. He now devoted himself to composition, and produced a great number of various works. Among these were Trente-six Fugues pour le Piano, d'après un Nouveau Système, dedicated to Haydn. There was nothing new in this system, it having been suggested to Reicha by a bad treatise on fugue published by the French writer H. F. M. Langlé, and founded on a false system of responses to fugue subjects on every degree of the scale, and the destruction of all distinct tonalities. Reicha's work was published in 1803, but met with no success, although some writers were so ignorant of the truth as to call Reicha "the restorer of the fugue." About the close of 1808 Reicha sought refuge in Paris from the evils of a new war in Germany. In Paris he began to teach musical composition according to an expeditious method, which consisted in directing the attention of his pupils solely to the forms of modern music, to the exclusion of all those forms which it is necessary to study in order to obtain a real knowledge of the art of composition. In 1814 he published his Traité de Méloïdie, in which he claims the merit of being the first to write upon that subject,—thereby proving his complete ignorance of the various excellent works on melody published by Italians and Germans, and even of the work on composition published by the Frenchman Monigny in 1806. There are good things in Reicha's work, although he takes too narrow a view of his subject under the aspect of rhythm and melodic phrases only, neglecting altogether the laws of melody as these relate to tonality, modulation, harmony, and beauty. In 1817 he succeeded Méhal as professor of counterpoint in the Paris conservatory; and in 1818 published his Cours de Composition Musicale,—a work founded upon wrong views of the theory of chords, but containing much useful practical information. In 1824 and 1826 he published his Traité de Haute Composition Musicale, in which his ignorance of historical facts, and of the forms of ancient music, were so great as to bring him under the severe criticisms of the Abate Baini, in the latter's work on Palestrina. Reicha treats of double counterpoint as applicable to modern composition, but takes no notice of simple counterpoint, which is really the foundation of all other kinds.

While settled in Paris Reicha enjoyed the friendship and counsel of Cherubini. Very desirous to obtain success as a dramatic composer, he produced three operas,—Cagliostro, which fell flat on the first representation; Natalie in 1816, and Sepilo in 1822; both unsuccessful. Several times he sought to be admitted as a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts, but was denied that honour until after the death of Boieldieu in October 1835, whose place he then obtained. He died at Paris, of inflammation of the chest, on 23rd May 1836, and was buried on the 30th in the cemetery of Père Lachaise. His funeral obsequies were performed in the church of St Roch, and were attended by Cherubini, Paér, Auber, and all the members of the Institute, as well as the professors and pupils of the Conservatory, and the artists of the Royal Academy of Music and of the Comic Opera. He bore the rank of Knight of the Legion of Honour, and was highly esteemed in private life by his numerous friends. Besides the works already mentioned, Reicha published many others. His best compositions are his twenty-four Quintets for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon, which are much esteemed by connoisseurs. Three of his didactic works are Études ou Théories pour le Pianoforte, 1800; Art du Compositeur Drama-