Robert Fuchs

Fuchs, Robert
(b Frauental, nr Deutschlandsberg, Styria, 15 Feb 1847; d Vienna, 19 Feb 1927). Austrian composer, teacher, organist and conductor, youngest brother of Johann Nepomuk Fuchs.

He studied the flute, the violin, the piano, the organ and thoroughbass with his brother-in-law at an early age. In 1865 he moved to Vienna and earned a meagre living as a répétiteur and teacher, becoming the organist at the Piaristenkirche the following year; he studied composition at the conservatory with Dessoff. After his early G minor Symphony had met with an indifferent reception in 1872, he had a decisive success with his Serenade no.1 (1874). In 1875 he was appointed conductor of the orchestral society of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and professor of harmony at the conservatory (he later taught theory and counterpoint there). He was also organist of the Hofkapelle from 1894 to 1905.

Fuchs taught a generation of musicians that included Ernst Decsey, Mahler, Sibelius, Franz Schmidt, Schreker, Wolf and Zemlinsky. He was a friend of Brahms, who gave him early encouragement as a composer and introduced him to Simrock. Brahms thought highly of his work, being particularly impressed by the Symphony no.1 in C, for which Fuchs was awarded the Beethoven prize in composition by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in 1886; he said of him in 1891: ‘Fuchs is a splendid musician; everything is so fine and so skilful, so charmingly invented, that one is always pleased’.