FUX, JOHANN JOSEPH (1660-174.1)

This article appears in Volume V11, Page 375 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: FRA-GAE

FUX, JOHANN JOSEPH (1660-174.1) , Austrian musician, was born at Hirtenfeld (Styria) in 166o. Of his youth and early training nothing is known. In 1696 he was organist at one of the

principal

PRINCIPAL

churches of Vienna, and in 1698 was appointed by the emperor

Leopold

LEOPOLD (M.H. Ger. Liupolt; O.H. Ger. Liupald, from hut, Mod. Ger. Leute, " people," and paid, " bold," i.e. " bold for the people ")

I. as his " imperial court-composer," with a salary of about a6 a month. At the court of

Leopold

LEOPOLD (M.H. Ger. Liupolt; O.H. Ger. Liupald, from hut, Mod. Ger. Leute, " people," and paid, " bold," i.e. " bold for the people ")

and of his successors Joseph I. and Charles VI., Fux remained for the rest of his life. To his various court dignities that of organist at St Stephen's

cathedral

CATHEDRAL

was added in 1704. He married the daughter of the government secretary Schnitzbaum. As a proof of the high favour in which he was held by the art-loving Charles VI., it is told that at the

coronation

CORONATION (Lat. corona, crown)

of that emperor as king of Bohemia in 1723 an opera, La Constanza e la Fortezza, especially composed by Fux for the occasion, was given at Prague in an open-air theatre. Fux at the time was suffering from gout, but the emperor had him carried in a litter all the way from Vienna, and gave him a seat in the imperial box. Fux died at Vienna on the 13th of February 1741. His life, although passed in the

great

GREAT

world, was eventless, and his onlytroubles arose from the intrigues of his Italian rivals at court. Of the numerous operas which Fux wrote it is unnecessary to speak. They do not essentially differ from the style of the Italian opera seria of the time. Of greater importance are his sacred compositions, psalms, motets, oratorios and masses, the celebrated Missa Canonica amongst the latter. It is an all but unparalleled tour de force of learned musicianship, being written entirely in that most difficult of contrapuntal devicesthe canon. As a contrapuntist and musical scholar generally, Fux was unsurpassed by any of his contemporaries, and his

great

GREAT

theoretical

work

WORK

, the Gradus ad Parnassum,

long

LONG, GEORGE (1800-1879)
LONG, JOHN DAVIS (1838– )

remained by far the most thorough treatment of counter-point and its various developments. The title of the

original

ORIGINAL

Latin edition is Gradus ad Parnassum sive manuductio ad compositionem musicae regularem, methoda nova ac certa nondum ante tam exacta ordine in lucem edita, elaborata a Joanne Josepho Fux (Vienna, 1715). It was translated into most European languages during the 18th century, and is still studied by musicians interested in the history of their art. The expenses of the publication were defrayed by the emperor Charles VI.
Fux's

biography

BIOGRAPHY (from the Gr. (3ios, life, and yp&4 , writing)

was published by Ludwig von Michel (Vienna, 1871). It is based on minute

original

ORIGINAL

research and contains, amongst other valuable materials, a complete catalogue of the composer's numerous works.

End of Article: FUX, JOHANN JOSEPH (1660-174.1)

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