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Ernst Friedrich Richter

born Großschönau, Saxony, October 24, 1808; died Leipzig, April 9, 1879

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Music theorist, teacher, and composer.

Career Summary

Richter studied at the Thomasschule in Leipzig, became a professor of harmony and counterpoint at the newly founded conservatory there in 1843, and in 1868 succeeded Moritz Hauptmann as head of music at the Thomasschule (the post of Thomaskantor). He wrote textbooks on harmony, counterpoint, and fugue; these were translated into English by Franklin Taylor. His Lehrbuch der Harmonie (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1853) became dominant throughout Europe and the United States for several generations.

Richter and Schenker

Schenker uses Richter’s harmony textbook as surrogate for all (in his view) defective past harmonic pedagogy, in Part I of his Harmonielehre (1906), Section 2, chapter 3, “Critique of previous teaching methods with respect to our theory of Stufe,” blaming him for confusing strict counterpoint with harmony and for inability to find passages from “the masterworks” to use as music examples (pp. 223–28, 235; Eng. transl. pp. 175–77, 181).

Sources

  • Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 12 (1965), cols 447-51 (Ernst Tittel)
  • The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980) (Maurice Brown)
  • Wason, Robert W., Viennese Harmonic Theory from Albrechtsberger to Schenker and Schoenberg (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982, 1985), esp. pp. 31-84
  • Damschroder, David and David Russell Williams, Music Theory from Zarlino to Schenker: A Bibliography and Guide (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1990), pp. 330-32

Contributors

  • Ian Bent and William Drabkin

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Correspondence

  • OJ 5/35, [5] Handwritten draft letter from Schenker to Ernst Rudorff, dated October 10, 1909

    Schenker, on receipt of the score of a Rudorff choral work, praises its textural clarity and melodic articulation, comparing them favorably to the writing of the current generation. — He reports the success of his own recent theory works, and inroads made into the Vienna Academy for Music and Performance Art.

  • OJ 10/1, [52] Handwritten letter from Dahms to Schenker, dated June 9, 1920

    Reflecting on the difficulty of finding housing and provisions, and on the recent German federal elections, Dahms asks whether mastery of chorale and fugue is to be obtained solely by exercises in the manner of [E. F.] Richter and others. — He inquires whether Schenker knows Kurth's Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunkts, and whether there are any worthwhile [musical] people in Salzburg.

  • OJ 9/34, [8] Handwritten letter from Cube to Schenker, dated May 28, 1927

    Cube reports on the state teaching examination, on which he was graded "satisfactory," deploring the way it was conducted.

  • OJ 6/8, [1] Handwritten letter from Schenker to Violin, dated January 9, 1931

    In this long and wide-ranging two-part letter, which includes a graphic analysis of J. S. Bach’s Two-part Invention in E-flat major, Schenker praises the work of Hans Weisse, who has recently returned from lecturing in Berlin and may be offered a post there (on Furtwängler’s recommendation), emigrate to America (with the help of Gerald Warburg), or even found an institute that would give employment to Felix Salzer and other Schenkerian disciples under one roof. — A letter from Violin, which has just arrived in the morning post, speaks of Violin’s own intention to establish a Schenker Institute in Hamburg. For this, Schenker recommends Felix-Eberhard von Cube (in preference to Reinhard Oppel) and Otto Vrieslander as possible theory teachers, if not Weisse himself. — The letter concludes with a tirade against those who have caused him financial misery (including his brother Mozio), culminating in a cynical passage in which Schenker advises his friend to look after himself and engage some dull pedagog to teach conventional theory. In the end, he wishes Violin luck with the enterprise, and thanks him for having helped rescue him from Hertzka’s clutches.

  • LC ASC 27/45, [34] Handwritten letter from Moriz Violin to Schoenberg, undated [October 1?, 1949]

    Violin reports on a successful performance of a C. P. E. Bach concerto at the Carmel Bach Festival and on a Music Teacher's Convention in San Francisco.

Diaries