Fux, Johann Joseph
Fux, Johann Joseph
Fux, Johann Joseph, renowned Austrian organist, music theorist, pedagogue, and composer; b. Hirtenfeld, near St. Marein, Styria, 1660; d. Vienna, Feb. 13, 1741. He was born into a peasant family. Fux enrolled in the Jesuit Univ. in Graz as a “grammatista” in 1680, then in 1681 he entered the Ferdinandeum there, a Jesuit residential school made up mostly of musically gifted students. He also studied at the Jesuit Univ. of Ingolstadt, being listed as logica studiosus in 1683. He served as organist at St. Moritz there until 1688. By 1696 he was in Vienna, where he was organist at the Schottenkirche until 1702. Fux was made court composer by the Emperor in 1698; about 1700 the latter is believed to have sent him to Rome, where he studied composition. He became vice Kapellmeister at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna in 1705, and was then its principal Kapellmeister from 1712 to 1715. He became vice Kapellmeister to the court in 1713. Fux was named Ziani’s successor as principal Kapellmeister to the court in 1715. Among his noted students were Gottlieb Muff at, G.C. Wagenseil, and J.D. Zelenka. Fux was the last representative of the Baroque tradition in composition and music theory in Austria. As a composer, he was an outstanding contrapuntist. He found inspiration in the a cappella polyphonic mastery of Palestrina, which led to his adoption of 2 contrasting styles in his sacred music: the stylus a cappella (without instruments) and the stylus mixtus (with instruments). In his solo motets, operas, and oratorios, he prepared the way for the Viennese Classicists. More than 200 works have been added to the original 405 cataloged by Kochel. As a music theorist, he produced the classic treatise on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum (1725). It had a profound influence on his successors, and remains an invaluable textbook.
Works
DRAMATIC Opera (all 1st perf. at the Hoftheater, Vienna, unless otherwise given): II fato monarchico, festa teatrale (Feb. 18, 1700; music not extant); Neo- exoriens phosphorus, id est neo-electus et infulatus praesul Mellicensis, Latin school opera (1701; music not extant); L’offendere per amare ovvero La Telesilla, dramma per musica (June 25,1702; music not extant); La clemenza d’Augusto, poemetto drammatico (Nov. 15, 1702; music not extant); Julo Ascanio, re d’Alba, poemetto drammatico (March 19,1708); Pulcheria, poemetto drammatico (June 21,1708); // mese di Marzo, consecrato a Marte, componimento per musica (March 19, 1709); Gli ossequi della notte, componimento per musica (July 15, 1709); La decima fatica d’Ercole, ovvero La Sconfitta di Gerione in Spagna, componimento pastorale-eroico (Oct. 1, 1710); Dafne in Lauro, componimento per camera (Oct. 1, 1714); Orfeo ed Euridice, componimento da camera per musica (Oct. 1, 1715); Angelica vincitrice diAlcina, festa teatrale (Sept. 14, 1716); Diana placata, componimento da camera (Nov. 19, 1717); Elisa, festa teatrale per musica (Laxenburg, Aug. 28, 1719); Psiche, componimento da camera per musica (Nov. 19, 1720); Le nozze di Aurora, festa teatrale per musica (Oct. 6, 1722); Costanza e Fortezza, festa teatrale (Prague, Aug. 28, 1723); Giunone placata, festa teatrale per musica (Nov. 19, 1725); La corona d’Arianna, festa teatrale (Aug. 28, 1726); Enea negli Elisi, ovvero II tempio deU’Eternita, festa teatrale (Aug. 28, 1731). O r a t o r i o s : Die Heilige Dimpna, Infantin von Irland (1702; only part 2 extant); La fede sacrilega nella morte del Precursor S. Giovanni Battista (1714); La donna forte nelle madre de’ sette Maccabei (1715); // trionfo della fede (1716); II disfacimento di Sisara (1717); Cristo nell’orto (1718); Gesu Cristo negato da Pietro (1719); Santa Geltrude (1719); La cena del Signore (1720); Ismaele (1721); // testamento di nostro Signor Gesu Cristo sul calvario (1726); Oratorium germanicum de passione Domini (1731; musk not extant). OTHER SACRED: II fonte della salute, aperto dalla grazia nel calvario, componimento sacro (1716); La deposizione dalla croce di Gesu Cristo Salvator Nostro, componimento sacro per musica al SS. Sepolcro (1728); about 80 masses; Te Deum for Double Choir (1706); motets; vespers and Psalms; antiphons; offertories; hymns; etc. INSTRUMEN TAL: About 50 church sonatas; some 80 partitas and overtures; Concentus musico-instrumentalis (1701); keyboard works.
Writings
Gradus ad Parnassum (Vienna, 1725; partial Eng. tr. as Steps to Parnassus: The Study of Counterpoint, N.Y., 1943; 2nd ed., rev., 1965, as The Study of Counterpoint); Singfundament (Vienna, c. 1832); Exempla dissonantiarum ligatarum et non ligatarum (publ. in H. Federhofer, “Drei handscriftliche Quellen zur Musiktheorie in Osterreich um 1700,” Musa—mens—musici: Im Gedenken an Walther Vetter [Leipzig, 1969]). A complete ed. of his works, ed. by H. Federhofer and O. Wessely under the auspices of the J.J. Fux-Gesellschaft, began publication in 1959.
Bibliography
L. von Köchel, J.J. F. (Vienna, 1872; includes thematic catalog and list of works); A. Liess, Die Triosonaten von J.J.F. (Berlin, 1940); idem, F.iana (Vienna, 1958); J. van der Meer, J.J. F. als Opernkomponist (3 vols., Bilthoven, 1961); E. Wellesz, K (London, 1965; new ed., 1991, as J.J. F.); C. Rutherford, The Instrumental Music of J.J. F. (diss., Colo. State Univ., 1967); R. Flotzinger, F. Studien (Graz, 1985); B. Habla, ed., J.J. F. und die barocke Blasertradition (Tutzing, 1987); R. Flotzinger, ed., J.J. F.-Symposium Graz ’91 (Graz, 1992); H. White, ed., J.J. F. and the Music of the Austro-Italian Baroque (Aldershot, 1992); A. Edler and F. Riedel, eds., J.J. F. und seine Zeit: Kultur, Kunst und Musik im Spatbarock (Laaber, 1996).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire