Richard Fuchs (composer)

Richard Fuchs ( April 26, 1887 in Karlsruhe - September 22, 1947 in Wellington , New Zealand ) was a German composer and architect who had to emigrate during the National Socialist era .

Life

Richard Fuchs, who was of Jewish origin, studied architecture at the Technical University of Karlsruhe , where he also received his doctorate in 1923 . In the First World War , Fuchs served as a soldier. His brother Gottfried Fuchs (1889–1972) was a well-known German football player .

Richard Fuchs co-founded the Jüdischer Kulturbund Baden and was president of the B'nai B'rith lodge . In addition to his work as an architect, he composed. The former war volunteer was banned from working as an architect in 1935. Richard Fuchs was arrested on the night of the pogrom in 1938 and held in the Dachau concentration camp for a few weeks .

In New Zealand , where he fled via Great Britain, he was considered an enemy alien at the beginning of the Second World War and became unemployed.

Last building

Richard Fuchs received his last contract as an architect in Germany in 1934/35 from his brother Gottfried, who was successful in the timber trade and real estate business. Gottfried Fuchs sold his property at Beiertheimer Allee 42a in Karlsruhe to the district chimney sweep master Ernst Giessler, on condition that the architect of the new building had to be his brother Richard.

Commemoration

For the first time in the Federal Republic of Germany, compositions by Richard Fuchs were performed on June 19, 2007 at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe under the title Eine Rehabilitation . There is The Richard Fuchs Archive in New Zealand . His grandson Danny Mulheron produced the documentary The Third Richard .

Works

Buildings

• Gottesauer Hof apartment block in Karlsruhe (around 1928, corner of Mozartstrasse 1–3 / Moltkestrasse 55–57)
• Conversion or redesign for Café Stübinger in Karlsruhe (1927, Kaiserstraße 153; canceled)
• Synagogue in Gernsbach , built 1927/28
• Residential building Beiertheimer Allee 42a

Compositions

• 1904 in May . A children's song based on Hugo Hasburger
• 1905 love dream . Song based on P. Walter Jacob
• 1931 quintet in D major . Chamber music
• 1931 Sonnette to Ead . After Anton Wildgans
• 1932 string quartet in D minor . Chamber music
• 1932 dream . After Christian Morgenstern
• 1933 Piano sketch for the symphony in C minor
• 1933 cheerful music . For eight wind instruments
• 1933 Symphony in C minor (lost)
• 1933 hymn to God . Hasidic song for tenor, organ and string orchestra
• 1934 Three songs for medium voice and orchestra . Hasidic. Dream. Tendons
• 1935 spring . Cycle of songs for soprano based on Arnold Holz from Book of Time, Songs of a Modern
• 1935 The nightingale . Lied (for a concert by the Jewish Cultural Association Karlsruhe)
• 1935 feast day . Song based on Ludwig Marx
• 1935 Das Kaddisch (composition for the funeral of his father Georg Fuchs)
• 1935 prayer of the blind man . Song based on Elly Gross
• 1936 spring evening . Song based on Hilde Marx
• 1936 Symphony in A minor (unfinished)
• 1936 On the Jewish Fate . Four songs. And yet from Karl Wolfskehl; Voice of the past after the Minnelied Toren Fahrt by Süsskind von Trimberg in the broadcast by Bertha Badt-Strauss; Departure, departure from Karl Wolfskehl; Before Karl Wolfskehl's exit . (The composition won the prize of the Reich Association of Jewish Cultural Associations, but could no longer be performed due to a ban by the Reich Chamber of Culture.)
• 1937 feast day . Song based on Ludwig Marx
• 1937 Three songs for alto voice and piano. Hearing (based on a text by [Marie] Van Biema); On the death of a child (after Ludwig Uhland); On the way (according to Mascha Kaleko)
• 1937 In a foreign country . Song based on Heinrich Heine
• 1938 A Song for Simeon . According to TS Eliot (with an unused German transmission by RF)
• 1940 onward . March for the Royal New Zealand Air Force
• 1940 I Vow to Thee My Country . For choir and orchestra. Words from Sir Cecil Spring-Rice
• 1940 A New Zealand Christmas . For a children's choir based on a poem by Eileen Duggan. (The song was the greeting by a Maori girls choir in Rotorua / New Zealand for Queen Elizabeth II during her visit in 1954)
• 1941 Piano Quintet in D Minor. Chamber music
• 1941 Swallows . Songs based on Mary Webb
• 1941 song , by Rupert Brooke
• 1941 Blue . Song based on Irene McIver
• 1941 At the Gate of the Years . Song based on M. Louse Haskins for mixed choir, organ and orchestra
• 1942 Dust . After Rupert Brooke
• 1943 Symphony in F minor. (Unfinished, supplemented and edited in 2008 by Kenneth Young)
• 1945 lament . After Wilfred Gibson
• 1945 String Quartet in E Major. Chamber music

Published works

• In a strange land . The songs of Richard Fuchs. Rollover Productions 2011. With Jenny Wollerman (soprano), Margaret Medlyn (mezzo-soprano), Richard Greager (tenor), Roger Wilson (bass). The recordings include: In Abroad, The Nightingale, Swallows, Festag, Song, Dream, Prayer of the Blind, Sonnets to Ead, Hymn for God, The Kaddish, On the Death of a Child, Blue, On the Way, Lament, Hearings, A New Zealand Christmas, In a Strange Land.

literature

• Heinz Schmitt (Ed.): Jews in Karlsruhe. Contributions to their history up to the Nazi seizure of power . Badenia-Verlag, Karlsruhe 1988 (2nd revised edition 1990), ISBN 3-7617-0268-X , p. 364ff.

documentary

• The Third Richard . Documentary about Richard Fuchs by Danny Mulheron and Sara Stretton, Wellington / New Zealand 2008

Web links

• The Richard Fuchs archive
• Richard Fuchs Collection at the LBI
• To the documentary of the grandson and filmmaker Danny Mulheron