Simon Sechter (11 October 1788 – 10 September 1867) was an Austrian music theorist,

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

, conductor, and organist. He is best known as a strict music teacher, whose many students included Anton Bruckner, Sigismond Thalberg, and Henri Vieuxtemps. In 1851, he was professor of composition at the Vienna Conservatory; after Sechter's death, his student Bruckner would succeed him and continue teaching his approach to

harmony In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...

and counterpoint. A highly prolific composer, his total output numbers more than 8000 compositions, particularly since he sought to write a

fugue In classical music, a fugue (, from Latin ''fuga'', meaning "flight" or "escape""Fugue, ''n''." ''The Concise Oxford English Dictionary'', eleventh edition, revised, ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson (Oxford and New York: Oxford Universit ...

every day. However, his Sechter's best known works are his later (post-1825) masses and oratorios. Carl Christian Müller (18311914) compiled and adapted Sechter's ''Die richtige Folge der Grundharmonien'' as ''The Correct Order of Fundamental Harmonies: A Treatise on Fundamental Basses, and their Inversions and Substitutes'' (Wm. A. Pond, 1871; G. Schirmer, 1898).

Biography

Sechter was born in Friedberg (Frymburk),

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

, then part of the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...

, and moved to

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

in 1804, succeeding Jan Václav Voříšek as court organist there in 1824. In 1810 he began teaching

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

and

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound produ ...

at an academy for blind students. In 1828 the ailing

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...

had one counterpoint lesson with him. In 1851 Sechter was appointed professor of composition at the Vienna Conservatory. His final years were spent in poverty due to his involvement in a son-in-law's bankruptcy. He was succeeded at the Conservatory by Anton Bruckner, a former student whose teaching methods were based on Sechter's.

Teaching methods

Others whom Sechter taught include Henri Vieuxtemps, Franz Lachner, Eduard Marxsen (who taught

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...

piano and counterpoint), Johann Nepomuk Fuchs, Gustav Nottebohm, Anton Door, Karl Umlauf, Béla Kéler, Nina Stollewerk, Sigismond Thalberg, Adolf von Henselt, Anton de Kontski, Kornelije Stanković and Theodor Döhler. Sechter had strict teaching methods. For instance, he forbade Bruckner to write any original compositions while studying counterpoint with him. The scholar Robert Simpson believes that "Sechter unknowingly brought about Bruckner's originality by insisting that it be suppressed until it could no longer be contained." Sechter taught Bruckner by mail from 1855 to 1861 and considered Bruckner his most dedicated pupil. Upon Bruckner's graduation, Sechter wrote a

dedicated to his student. In the three-volume treatise on the principles of composition, ''Die Grundsätze der musikalischen Komposition'', Sechter wrote a seminal work that influenced many later theorists. Sechter's ideas are derived from

Jean-Philippe Rameau Jean-Philippe Rameau (; ; – ) was a French composer and music theory, music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of ...

's theories of the fundamental bass, always diatonic even when the surface is highly chromatic; music theory historians strongly associate Sechter with the Viennese conception of fundamental bass theory.p. 60, Cook (2007) Nicholas. Oxford ''The Schenker project: culture, race, and music theory in fin-de-siècle Vienna'' Oxford University Press Sechter was an advocate of just intonation over well-tempered tuning.

As composer

Sechter was also a composer, and in that capacity he is mostly remembered for writing about 5,000 fugues (he tried to write at least one fugue every day), but he also wrote masses and oratorios. In addition he wrote five operas: ''Das Testament des Magiers'' (1842), ''Ezzeline, die unglückliche Gegangene aus Deli-Katesse'' (1843), ''Ali Hitsch-Hatsch'' (1844), ''Melusine'' (1851), and ''Des Müllers Ring'' (?). In 1823–24, he was one of the 51 composers who composed a variation on a waltz by Anton Diabelli for '' Vaterländischer Künstlerverein.''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sechter, Simon 1788 births 1867 deaths Musicians from the Austrian Empire 19th-century Austrian people 19th-century Austrian classical composers 19th-century classical musicians 19th-century keyboardists 19th-century Czech male musicians 19th-century organists Austrian classical organists Austrian Classical-period composers Austrian conductors (music) Austrian music educators Austrian music theorists Austrian opera composers Austrian people of German Bohemian descent Austrian Romantic composers Czech classical organists Classical-period composers from Bohemia Czech conductors (music) Czech male classical composers Czech music educators Czech opera composers Czech Romantic composers German Bohemian people Austrian male conductors (music) Austrian male opera composers Austrian male classical organists People from Český Krumlov District Mozart scholars