Classical Music | Clarinet Music

Recorded on 09/19/2010, uploaded on 09/19/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes
Virtuoso flutist Mathieu-André Reichert was also a composer, influenced by and an influence to Brazilian music. The impeccable flute technique of Reichert's in contact with the Brazilian ginga of Joaquim Antônio da Silva Callado Jr. is assumed to be the origin of the Brazilian flute lineage. 

The son of nomadic musicians, Reichert began to play in cafés early in his childhood, soon becoming a professional. Taken by professor Jules Demeur and François-Joseph Fétis to the Brussels Conservatory, he had such a fulgurant performance there. At 17, he won the Conservatory's first prize and was hired as musician of the Belgium court. At the same time, he became an international concerto flutist, playing in Europe and the United States. In 1859, Brazil's Emperor D. Pedro II hired a group of European virtuosi to play at the palace. On June 8, 1859, Dutch violinists André and Ludwig Gravestein, Italian trompa player Cavalli, Italian clarinetist Cavallini, and Reichert arrived in Rio. The first performance was at theTeatro Lírico Fluminense, and Reichert became the first flute of the Teatro Provisório. On July 3 of the same year, he opened in the position of soloist and performed throughout São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Pernambuco, Bahia, and Pará and had a great number of noted disciples, among them Manoel Marcelino Vale and Duque Estrada Meyer. 

In Rio, he became friends with Joaquim Antônio da Silva Callado Jr., the great Brazilian flutist of those times. But he inadvertently provoked the animosity of the fans of Callado, who pretended to create a rivalry between them that never existed.