Biography
Johann Fux channeled the apex of Austrian Baroque composition through his own writing. Across his output he produced operas, oratorios, masses, requiems, motets, sonatas, and keyboard pieces. In the treatise “Gradus ad Parnassum” he codified the principles of counterpoint, a volume that Mozart and Haydn both studied and that embodies the summit of polyphonic craftsmanship. After serving eight years as choirmaster at St. Stephen’s, he advanced to vice-Kappelmeister and soon afterward to full Kappelmeister at the court of Charles VI, thereby holding posts under three successive Habsburg monarchs. Fux himself identified Palestrina as his primary model. The opera “Costanza e Fortezza” stands as his most characteristic achievement, uniting contrapuntal rigor with fluent melodic writing so that the score remains buoyant even while sustaining strict note-for-note polyphony. Although he avoided any deliberate national accent, he preserved the inherited conventions of his era. His “Te Deum” deploys double choirs, sets a solo voice against the full ensemble, and interweaves arias and recitatives that convey profound yet sustained pathos alongside richly expressive solo and concerted passages.