Richard Fuchs

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 September 2014 in Wellington at the "Recovering Forbidden Voices" conference. A recording of the Wellington performance is on the Forbidden Music blogsite. It was performed in his home town of 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)