FUX, JOHANN JOSEPH

Preeminent baroque church musician in Austria; b. Hirtenfeld (Upper Styria), 1660?; d. Vienna, Feb. 13, 1741. His parents, simple country people, were Andreas and Ursula Fux. In 1680, as a young man, he began studies at the University of Graz, entered the Ferdinandeum, a Jesuit college, the following year, and apparently pursued further studies in Bologna. In 1696 he was appointed organist at the Schottenkirche, Vienna, maintaining this post until 1702; from 1698 he was also court composer to Emperor Leopold. From 1705 to 1715, when he became chief Kapellmeister to the court, he was music director at the cathedral of St. Stephen. His earliest composition (1697) is the Requiem for Archduchess Eleonora, Queen of Poland, performed also at the burial of Prince Eugene in 1737. This was followed by a seven-part Concentus musico-instrumentalis (1701) and his a cappella masterpiece, Missa canonica, both dedicated to the future Emperor Joseph I, and two operas (now lost), composed for saint's-day celebrations at court. His total compositions number more than 500 known items, some 300 of them for church use, including 60 Masses, 12 Requiems, 22 motets, 106 hymns, and several sonatas and settings of psalms and litanies, all distinguished by the perfection of his canonic writing, which even J. S. Bach admired. His great theoretical work, Gradus ad Parnassum (1725, dedicated to Emperor Karl V), is a fundamental textbook of vocal counterpoint; it played an influential part in compositional training for more than a century and is still consulted in one or other of many editions and translations. The first English version appeared in 1791.

Bibliography: Sämtliche Werke, ed. johann-joseph-fux gesellschaft (Kassel-New York 1959–); Ausgewählte Kompositionen, ed. j. mitterer (Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich [1893– ; repr. Graz 1959–] 3); Messen, ed. j. e. habert and g. a. glossner (ibid., 1); Steps to Parnassus, ed. a. mann (New York 1943), a new tr. of Gradus ad Parnassum. Also keyboard and instrumental works in various modern eds. o. strunk, ed., Source Readings in Music History (New York 1950) 535–563, with excerpts from Gradus ad Parnassum. a. liess, Fuxiana (Vienna 1958); Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. f. blume (Kassel-Basel 1949–) 4:1159–75. j. h. van der meer, Johann Joseph Fux als Opernkomponist, 4 v. in 3 (Bilthoven 1961). a. loewenberg and c. f. pohl, Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. e. blom, 9 v. (5th ed. London 1954) 3:527–575. p. h. lÁng, Music in Western Civilization (New York 1941). d. j. grout, A Short History of Opera, 2 v. (2d, rev. and enl. ed. New York 1965). m. f. bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era (New York 1947). h. fedehofer, "Johann Joseph Fux," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. s. sadie, v. 7 (New York 1980) 43–46. d. m. randel, ed., The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, Mass. 1996) 288. f. reidel, "Johann Joseph Fux: Vor 250 Jahren starb Österreichs großer Barockkomponist," Österreichische Musik Zeitschrift 46 (1991) 450–457. n. slonimsky, ed., Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th ed. (New York 1992) 586. h. white, "Erhaltene quellen der oratorien von Johann Joseph Fux: Ein bericht," Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch, 67 (1983) 123–131; "The Oratorios of Johann Joseph Fux" (Ph.D. diss. Trinity College, University of Dublin 1986); ed., Johann Joseph Fux and the Music of the Austro-Italian Baroque (Aldershot, Eng. 1992).

[f. haberl]