#robertfuchs

Lesser Known Composers #2 with David Pulsford - Intro

There are SO many really good lesser known composers, that for this article I'm going to stick to the romantics.

I sometimes wonder about the change from romantic to modern styles. Maybe in the 20th Century some composers became a little obsessed with being different, new, experimental, so that if your music wasn't like this, it was deemed not so acceptable. I think this is still a slowly dissipating thing - and not just in classical music. Having said that, the change to a different style obviously gave rise to some cool stuff. 

Also, if a composer's music is in the style of someone else's, like for instance Beethoven and Ferdinand Ries, that's not necessarily a bad thing (unless it's blatant copying). Some musical artists are innovators, eg Schoenberg and Beethoven, others may perfect an existing style like, say, J S Bach. Whatever, I'm glad that there have been composers that have written music in the style of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner... They may not have kept up with the trends of the day, they may have been a little conservative or stuck in their ways, but it's a shame they are still in the shadows of the mainstream and being left out of concert programmes, although, I do think this has changed quite a lot recently.

1. Robert Fuchs (1847-1927)

An Austrian composer born in Frauenthal in Styria, he was the youngest of 13 childrenand learned flute, violin, piano and organ. He trained as a teacher and in 1865 he moved to Viennawhere he was taught composition by Otto Dessoff, earning a living as an organist and also teaching. In 1874 the success of the first of his five serenades established him as a composer and earned him the nick-name, serenaden fuchs. A year later he was appointed Professor of Harmony at the Vienna Conservatory and in 1886 hewas awarded the Beethoven prize for his C major symphony. He wrote a lot of different types of music including opera, songs, orchestral, instrumental but mainly chamber works.

He was a friend of Brahms who rated him highly ! (and Brahms was not free with his praise), and he is famous for teaching many well known composers, among these are Franz Schmidt, Mahler, Franz Schreker, Sibelius, Hugo Wolf, Zemlinsky...

I really like his music, it's neatly put together, there's a lot going on and in the case of the work featured here, his first Cello Sonata, the melody in the first movement is positively gorgeous!

Other composers’ Cello Sonata's that I like:

Jean Louis Nicode - 2nd Sonata for Cello and Piano in G major (1882)

Ernő Dohnányi - Sonata for Cello and Piano in B flat major, Op.21

Giuseppe Martucci - Cello Sonata in F flat minor, Op.52