Presents

Robert Fuchs

Soundbites Terzetto No.1 Soundbite 1st Movt Soundbite 2nd Movt Soundbite 3rd Movt Soundbite 4th Movt

Soundbites Terzetto No.2 Soundbite 1st Movt Soundbite 2nd Movt Soundbite 3rd Movt Soundbite 4th Movt Soundbite 5th Movt

Two Terzettos for 2 Violins and Viola

No.1 in E Major, Op.61 No.1 / No.2 in D Major, Op.61 No.2

In Austrian composer Robert Fuchs (1847-1927) we have yet another whose music is almost always on the very highest level and deserving of performance in concert. Fuchs was born near the Styrian capital of Graz and attended the University of Vienna Conservatory studying with Otto Dessoff and Joseph Hellmesberger. By 1875, Fuchs himself was teaching at the Conservatory, eventually rising to the rank of Professor of Composition. He was one of the most famous and revered teachers of his time. Mahler, Sibelius, Hugo Wolf, Franz Schmidt, Alexander Zemlinsky, Franz Schrecker and Richard Heuberger were among his many students. Brahms, who almost never praised the works of other composers wrote, “Fuchs is a splendid musician, everything is so fine and so skillful, so charmingly invented, that one is always pleased.”

Writing in his Chamber Music Handbook, the famous chamber music critic Wilhelm Altmann has this to say about the Terzettos: “In his two Op.61 Terzette, published in 1898, Fuchs solves the very difficult problem of no bass—the absence of the cello—in as good a fashion as is possible. These works, which are structually excellent, contain many fine ideas and noteworthy melodies. Neither work presents any great technical difficulties other than what any normal string trio requires, good ensemble playing and purity of intonation."