A prolific composer, Pecháček senior wrote in all contemporary genres, including music for social dance. His 12 Ländler, for an ensemble unusual in the repertoire of the waltz—2 clarinets, 2 horns, and bassoon—were published in 1801.
Like Beethoven's Ländler in WoO11 and WoO15, written at the same time, this set provides an excellent example of the violinistic Ländler in its traditional form—as distinct from the later keyboard Ländler of Schubert and many other composers in the 1820s, who strive to make the Ländler congenial and specific to the piano, holding to the form and characteristic figures but using less common keys often with chromatic twists and exaggerated registral play, the result being to blur the distinction between music for dance and music for recital. A characteristic Pecháček's 12 Ländler do share with later Ländler is their repetitiousness, a marker of their primary role as music for dance, not for performance.
I have reproduced the first clarinet part below, with annotations about themes in the first strains. Of the twelve pieces, the first strains of two are clearly—and two more are probably—presentation + consequent themes, the type with least variation in its units. Five are clearly periods—and two others might be. There is just sufficient difference between basic idea and contrasting idea to identify the opening phrases as antecedents. In the majority of the numbers, the theme's cadential idea is derived from the figure of bars 3-4.
What applies to the first strains also does to the second.
Published parts downloaded from IMSLP.
Wikipedia article on Pecháček: link
Wikipedia article on Pecháček: link
