Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] 83

Fuchs, Ignacije.

See Lisinski, Vatroslav.

Fuchs, Johann Leopold [Fux, Leopol'd Ivanovich; Fux, Ivan Ivanovich]

(b Dessau, 2 Nov 1785; d St Petersburg, 3/15 April 1853). German composer, pianist and writer on music. At the turn of the 18th century he moved from Germany to Russia, where he was highly thought of as a music teacher in St Petersburg: among his pupils were Glinka, Yury Arnol'd, Modest Rezvoy and others. In connection with his teaching work, Fuchs wrote textbooks on composition, harmony and piano playing. Some of his large-scale vocal compositions were performed at St Petersburg Philharmonic Society concerts: his cantata (or oratorio) Bog (‘God’), on a text by Gavriil Derzhavin (23 March 1831), and the oratorio Pyotr Velikiy (‘Peter the Great’), performed in Platon Obodovsky's Russian translation of the original German text by F.A. Gelbke (23 March 1842). Most of Fuchs's other works, which include quartets and quintets, remained unpublished and are lost.

WORKS

Vocal: Bog [God] (cant. or orat, G. Derzhavin), 4vv, chorus, orch, 1831; Peter Velikiy [Peter the Great] (orat, F.A. Gelbke), 3vv, chorus, orch, 1842

Inst: Str Qnt, op.2 (Leipzig, n.d.); Pièces et exercises appartenant à l'ouvrage: Méthode d'enseigner le piano et les principes de la musique (Moscow, 1851); other chbr works

WRITINGS

Praktische Anleitung zur Komposition, sowohl zum Selbstunterricht, wie auch als Handbuch für Lehrer, nebst einer besonderen Anweisung für Komponisten des russichen Kirchengesanges (St Petersburg, 1830, 2/1841 as Neue Lehrmethode der musikalischen Komposition, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die praktische Anwendung der gegebenen Regeln [in Ger. and Russ.]; Russ. trans of 1st edn, 1830)

Anweisung für junge angehende Lehrer und Lehrerinnen, den ersten Unterricht auf dem Piano-Forte in einer stufenweisen Folge zu ertheilen (St Petersburg, 1834, 2/1844) [in Ger., Fr. and Russ.]

Harmonielehre für Damen, enthaltend alle Vorkenntnisse, die eine gute Clavierspielerin oder Sängerin als Erleichterungsmittel zum Entziffern, Präludieren und zum richtigen Vortrage bedarf (Leipzig, 1843, 2/1844; Fr. trans., 1843)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

B. Steinpress: ‘Der Petersburger Musiker Leopold Fuchs’, Mf, xv (1962), 39–44

BORIS SHTEYNPRESS

Fuchs, Johann Nepomuk

(b Frauental, Styria, 5 May 1842; d Vöslau, nr Vienna, 5 Oct 1899). Austrian conductor, teacher, editor and composer, brother of Robert Fuchs. He studied theory with Simon Sechter in Vienna and was appointed Kapellmeister of the Bratislava Opera in 1864. He then worked as an opera conductor in Brno (where his only opera, Zingara, was first produced in 1872), Kassel, Cologne, Hamburg, Leipzig and finally, from 1880, at the Vienna Hofoper. In 1873 he married the singer Anthonie Exner in Kassel. Fuchs became a professor of composition at the Vienna Conservatory in 1888 and succeeded Hellmesberger as its director in 1893; the next year he received the title of assistant Hofkapellmeister for his work at the court opera. He played an important part in preparing the Schubert Gesamtausgabe, editing the dramatic works and some of the orchestral music. He also edited operas by Handel, Gluck and Mozart and wrote songs and piano pieces.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (A. Ott) [incl. list of works]

A. Mayr: Erinnerungen an Robert Fuchs (Graz, 1934)

A. Bettelheim: ‘Fuchs, Johann Nepomuk’, Österreichisches biographisches Lexicon 1815–1950, ed. E. Obermeyer-Marnach (Vienna, 1954)

H. Walter: ‘Haydns Schüler am Esterházyschen Hof’, Ars musica, musica scientia: Festschrift Heinrich Hürchen (Cologne, 1980), 449–54

C. Fifield: True Artist and True Friend: a Biography of Hans Richter (Oxford, 1993)

R.J. PASCALL

Fuchs, Joseph

(b New York, 26 April 1900; d New York, 14 March 1997). American violinist and teacher, brother of Lillian Fuchs. He graduated in 1918 from the Institute of Musical Art in New York where he studied with Franz Kneisel. In 1926 he was appointed leader of the Cleveland Orchestra but resigned in 1940 to pursue a solo career. After a successful New York début in 1943, he was co-founder there of the Musicians’ Guild, a chamber music organization which he directed until 1956. He toured extensively in Europe, appearing at the 1953 and 1954 Prades festivals, and in South America, the USSR, Israel and Japan; he also played as a soloist with every important orchestra in the USA. A Ford Foundation grant in 1960 enabled him to commission Piston’s Violin Concerto, the première of which he gave that year in Pittsburgh. Fuchs also gave the first performances of concertos by Lopatnikoff (1944–5), Ben Weber (1954) and Mario Peragallo (1955); Martinů’s Madrigaly for violin and viola, dedicated to Fuchs and his sister (1947); the revised version of Vaughan Williams’s Violin Sonata, with Artur Balsam (1969); and the posthumous American première of Martinů’s Sonata for two violins and piano (1974). Fuchs became a violin professor at the Juilliard School of Music in 1946, and in 1971 he received the Artist Teacher’s Award from the American String Teachers’ Association. He played a Stradivari violin, the ‘Cadiz’ of 1722. His style of playing was vigorous and large-scaled, with a masterful technique and a rich, warm tone.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SchwarzGM

J. Creighton: Discopaedia of the Violin, 1889–1971 (Toronto, 1974), 226ff

D. Rooney and R.D. Lawrence: ‘Joseph Fuchs’, The Strad, xcix (1988), 896–904

M. Campbell: Obituary, The Independent (18 March 1997)

BORIS SCHWARZ/R