Richard Fuchs (; 26 April 1887 – 22 September 1947) was a German composer and architect, the older brother of German national team Olympic football player Gottfried Fuchs.

Life

Fuchs was in the

German Army The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...

, and was awarded the Iron Cross. He was active in the Jüdischer Kulturbund Baden and President of the B'nai B'rith Lodge in Karlsruhe in the 1930s. He designed the Gernsbach

Synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

- destroyed in Kristallnacht in 1938 - among other buildings, few of which survive. After Kristallnacht he was in incarcerated at the age of 50, along with his brother Walter, on 1 November 1938 for some weeks in

Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

. He was released when his application to emigrate to New Zealand was accepted, and he did so via England, arriving on 17 April 1939, bringing with him a selection of his compositions, listed below. In Wellington he worked as an architect with Natusch and Sons, and the Housing Department while continuing to compose and taking an active part in the Wellington music scene. However, whereas in Germany he was persecuted as a Jew, in New Zealand, he was shunned as a German. He wrote further

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

, another

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...

and a

piano quintet In classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly a string quartet (i.e., two violins, viola, and cello). The term also refers to the group of musicians that plays a pian ...

, songs, including ''A New Zealand Christmas'' to the words of Eileen Duggan, which was sung for the Queen during her 1953 visit to

Rotorua Rotorua () is a city in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand's North Island. The city lies on the southern shores of Lake Rotorua, from which it takes its name. It is the seat of the Rotorua Lakes District, a territorial authority encompass ...

by a Maori girls' choir, and in a Broadcast to Schools by T. J. ("Tommy") Young's children's choir.

Legacy

Apart from some songs and a string quartet, few of Richard Fuchs’s compositions were performed in his lifetime. Now, he is virtually unknown, but there are moves to revive his work. In 2007, students of the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe performed some of the chamber music of Richard Fuchs at a special concert given in his memory. In May 2008, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra played a ''Symphonic Movement in F minor'' by Richard Fuchs composed in 1943. Chamber music that he wrote in New Zealand including Piano Quintet in D minor (1941) and String Quartet in E Major (1945), and his song, In Der Fremde (1937), were performed at a concert at Government House in 2008. His earlier chamber music, String Quartet in D minor (1932), was played in Auckland in 2009 together with some of his songs. A film about the life of Richard Fuchs, ''The Third Richard'' (the first two being Wagner and Strauss) has been produced by his grandson Danny Mulheron. Four of New Zealand's foremost singers, Richard Greager, Roger Wilson, Jenny Wollerman, and Margaret Medlyn, recorded a CD of songs by Richard Fuchs, ''In a Strange Land'', accompanied by Richard Mapp and Bruce Greenfield in 2011. His oratorio ''Vom Judischen Schicksal (Jewish Fate)'' was performed for the first time in Karlsruhe in January 2020. On the 75th anniversary of his death on 22 September 2022, works by Richard Fuchs were performed in the Stadthalle in Gernsbach, namely the Piano Quintet in D minor (1941), the String Quartet in E major (1945) and the Kaddish (1935) in an arrangement for a string quartet. (Biographical notes and compositions are in the manuscript collection of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand: Fuchs, Richard (Dr), 1887-1947 Papers, MS-Group-0859)

Works

* ''A Symphony for a large orchestra '' * ''Music for eight wind instruments'' * ''A piece for choir, four soloists and orchestra, Vom judischen Schicksal (Jewish Fate)'' set to poems by

Karl Wolfskehl Karl Wolfskehl (17 September 1869 – 30 June 1948) was a German Jewish author and translator. He wrote poetry, prose and drama in German, and translated from French, English, Italian, Hebrew, Latin and Old/Middle High German into German. Bio ...

and Süsskind von Trimberg * ''A String Quartet'' * ''Songs for soprano and orchestra, Fruhling'', set to text by Arno Holz * ''A Piano Quintet'' * Numerous songs to texts by Heine, Uhland, and many others

References

External links

Richard Fuchs Archive
The Richard Fuchs Archive was set up to preserve the memory of Richard Fuchs
Richard Fuchs Collection
at the Leo Baeck Institute, NY
Brief biography

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuchs, Richard 1887 births 1947 deaths Dachau concentration camp survivors New Zealand composers Male composers New Zealand architects Karlsruhe Institute of Technology alumni Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to New Zealand Architects from Karlsruhe 20th-century male musicians