Austrian writer on music and biographer of Alban Berg, writer of monographs on Bartók, Berg, Schoenberg, and other topics.

Reich completed a dissertation on Martini at the University of Vienna in 1934, was a pupil of Berg 1927–35 and Webern 1936‒38, and served as music critic for several newpapers in Vienna and abroad. From 1932 to 1937 he edited the journal 23—eine Wiener Musikzeitschrift, in which the current Viennese musical world was criticized, and which vigorously championed the Second Viennese School; in the June 1933 issue, he criticized National Socialism. The journal was banned after the Anschluss.

Reich moved to Switzerland in 1938, where he worked as a freelance writer and music critic and lectured at the Technische Hochschule in Zurich (1959‒70).

Reich and the Schenker circle

Reich was well aware of Schenker's work, for he wrote an article "Kant, Schenker, und der Nachläufer" in 23—eine Wiener Musikzeitschrift 15‒16 (1934), in which he accused Oswald Jonas of lying in his Das Wesen des musikalischen Kunstwerks (Vienna: Saturn Verlag, 1934), p. 54. Jonas produced a response, "Vorläufer und Nachläufer. (Ein Dokumentarischer Nachweis)," prepared for a lawsuit against Reich and not published. (A copy of the issue containing Reich's article is preserved among Schenker's papers as OC 30/89, together with a typescript of Jonas's response as OC 30/91‒98; another copy of both articles is preserved as OJ 38/52.)

This matter is raised in a letter from Jonas to Schenker (OC 44/9, Oct 27, 1934), which includes the remark "Mr. Reich even partly opened his heart for Schenker, at least for the valuable original editions," suggesting that at some point Reich had contacted Schenker in relation either to the latter's Beethoven piano sonata edition (1921‒24) or to the Photogram Archive. However, on May 31, 1933 (diary), Schenker had written to Herman Roth that he "knew nothing about Reich."

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