Franz Xaver Richter

Franz (Czech: František) Xaver Richter, known as François Xavier Richter in France (December 1, 1709 – September 12, 1789) was an Austro-Moravian singer, violinist, composer, conductor and music theoretician who spent most of his life first in Austria and later in Mannheim and in Strasbourg, where he was music director of the cathedral. From 1783 on Haydn’s favourite pupil Ignaz Pleyel was his deputy at the cathedral.

The most traditional of the first generation composers of the so-called Mannheim school, he was highly regarded in his day as a contrapuntist. As a composer he was equally at home in the concerto and the strict church style. Mozart heard a mass by Richter on his journey back from Paris to Salzburg in 1778 and called it charmingly written. Richter, as a contemporary engraving clearly shows, must have been one of the first conductors to actually have conducted with a music sheet roll in his hand.

Richter wrote chiefly symphonies, concertos for woodwinds, trumpet, chamber and church music, his masses receiving special praise. He was a man of a transitional period, and his symphonies in a way constitute one of the missing links between the generation of Bach and Handel and the ‘1st Viennese school’ . Although sometimes contrapuntal in a learned way, Richter’s orchestral works nevertheless exhibit considerable drive and verve. Until a few years ago, Richter’s music “survived” with recordings of his trumpet concerto in D major, but recently a number of chamber orchestras and ensembles have taken on many of his pieces, particularly symphonies and concertos, into their repertoire. He was also on friendly terms with Haydn and Mozart.

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