Robert Fuchs
born Frauenthal, Styria, Feb 15, 1847; died Vienna, Feb 19, 1927
Documents associated with this person:
Austrian composer and teacher.
Career Summary
Robert Fuchs studied with his brother Johann Nepomuk Fuchs, moving to Vienna in 1865. He became organist at the Piaristenkirche in 1866, and studied composition at the Conservatory with Otto Dessoff, and himself became a professor of harmony, counterpoint, and composition at the Conservatory in 1874, continuing for thirty-seven years during which his many students included Ernst Decsey, Gustav Mahler, Jean Sibelius, Franz Schmidt, Franz Schreker, Hugo Wolf and Alexander von Zemlinsky. In 1912 he was forcibly pensioned off by the new administration along with Hermann Grädener to make way for "new blood" (Moriz Violin's outspoken pamphlet about the state of affairs at the Conservatory in 1912 contains a long section about this).
His works include two operas, five symphonies, five serenades and other orchestral works, a large amount of chamber music including piano quartets and trios, string quartets and trios, violin sonatas, cello sonatas, piano sonatas, also many choral works and collections of solo songs.
Fuchs and Schenker
Brahms thought very highly of Fuchs, and that ‒ along with Violin's admiration ‒ probably endeared him to Schenker. And yet in 1907 he commented that an orchestral serenade by Fuchs was "very short-breathed and spiritually too primitively shaped" (OJ 1/6, p. 32).
Sources:
- Moriz Violin, Die Zustände der k. k. Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst (Vienna: privately published, 1912), pp. 15‒18
- Grove Music Online (Robert Pascall) (2012)
Contributor:
- Ian Bent