[ivancdg]

The wind quintets are extraordinarily well-written for their instruments, something easy to take for granted today as so many composers followed Reicha's lead.

He was not the very first to write for that ensemble, but the instant popularity of the 24 (actually 25) wind quintets led a lot more people to write for that instrumentation (flute, oboe, clarinet, French or English horn, bassoon).

The blanket statement that Beethoven's octet is a higher standard than anything Reicha wrote for quintet is a little dicey. There's a reason all wind players play Reicha. The works are sophisticated, comfortable and formally pretty quirky, with plenty of memorable moments. That said, if you don't find Haydn memorable then there's not much I can do to argue in his favor, except urge you to listen more of it.

The important point here is that the wind quintets make up a tiny proportion of Reicha's music, and that dozens of hours of music have never been recorded. Much of the music is only available in (messy) original manuscripts in France's National Library in Paris (BnF). Implication: it is hard to make generalizations about Reicha's music because we just don't know it well enough yet. Keep in mind that he composed just as much experimental music as conventional music, drawing conclusions and extrapolating from one opus to the whole output isn't a good idea.

[natechols]

Obviously my statement was extremely subjective - although I am far from the only person holding this opinion. However in my experience the reason all wind players play Reicha is that there's very little competition in the Romantic era. A handful of Danzi quintets (they're okay), a few gems from Klughardt, Foerster, and Taffanel (all of which I think are superior to the Reicha quintets, but they're also at least 50 years newer), and I haven't found much else worth playing so far. If you're a student or amateur, or playing for a relatively unsophisticated audience, of course you're going to end up playing Reicha at some point.