Richard Stöhr

Richard Stöhr (11 June 1874 – 11 December 1967) was an Austrian composer, music author and teacher.

Born in Vienna, he studied composition with Robert Fuchs at the Vienna Conservatory.

After working there as a repetiteur and choral instructor from 1900, he taught music (theory of harmony, counterpoint, form) from 1903 to 1938, being professor from 1915. Among his students were Alois Hába and Hellmut Federhofer.

He emigrated to the US in 1938 and taught at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. His students there included Leonard Bernstein.

He died in Montpelier, Vermont in the United States.

Bibliography

Was born in Vienna in the same year as Arnold Schoenberg. His Jewish parents had come from Hungary. As a young man he changed his name from Stern to Stoehr, converted to Christianity, but eventually fled to America in 1938. Stoehr began composing at the age of six. He first obtained an M.D. degree (1898) but quickly turned away from medicine. After completing his studies with Robert Fuchs at the Vienna Academy of Music (now known as the University of Music and Performing Arts) where he earned a PhD in Music (1903). He first worked there as a music coach and choir director and became a professor of music theory there in 1915, fulfilling those duties from 1915-1938. During those 35 years Stoehr became a leading musical theorist publishing treatises and textbooks on harmony and musical form, some still in use today. He also maintained a career as a concert pianist and he assured that virtually all of his compositions were published. Before his exile there were hundreds of performances of his works annually in Europe. Following the Anschluss (German annexation of Austria) in 1938 Stohr emigrated to the United States where he gained the position first as librarian (1939) then as professor of composition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Among his many students were included the young Leonard Bernstein, Daigara Arima, Erich Leinsdorf, Herbert von Karajan, Erich Zeisl and Samuel Barber. The war effort put an abrupt end to that appointment. Eventually he found a job at a small Catholic men's college in Vermont where he remained until his death. Richard Stoehr was largely forgotten by the end of the 20th C., but students of musical theory continued to study his textbooks for decades. None of the numerous compositions from his Vermont years was ever published. Richard Stoehr's diary of more than six decades is stored in the Austrian National Library along with his published compositions. The manuscripts from the post-emigration years are available at the Saint Michael's College Archive in Vermont. His work encompasses choral music, chamber music, seven symphonies[1], symphonic poems, two operas, an oratoria and two cantatas. While Schoenberg and others of the Second Viennese School were busy with atonality, Stoehr seemed hardly influenced by them. Contemporary critics respected his music which maintained the tonal tradition of the 19th C. In 2003 the City of Vienna dedicated a plaque at the site of his former residence at Karolinengasse 14. In 2010 ORF (Austrian National Radio) released a Richard Stohr compact disc recording (CD 3093) of his String Quartet in D minor, Opus 22 from 1903 amongst other pieces. His flute sonata is available on an David Shostac CD entitled Masterpieces Remembered. In 2010 February his String Quartet was performed in Vancouver, Canada by the Vancouver Chamber Players for Rediscovered Treasures on the Out For Lunch concert series.

References

  1. ^ at least one, his opus 18 in A minor, was published in 1911 by Feuchtinger of Stuttgart, according to Hofmeisters Monatsberichte.

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