Johann Joseph Fux

Johann Joseph Fux (; c. 1660 – 13 February 1741) was an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era. His most enduring work is not a musical composition but his treatise on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum, which has become the single most influential book on the Palestrinian style of Renaissance polyphony. Life Fux’s exact date of birth is unknown. He was born to a peasant family in Hirtenfeld, Styria, Austria. Relatively little is known about his early life, but likely he went to nearby Graz for music lessons. In 1680 he was accepted at the Jesuit Ferdinandeum University there, where his musical talent became apparent. Fux traveled again to Italy, studying in Rome in 1700; it may have been here that he acquired the veneration for Palestrina which was so consequential for music pedagogy. Fux became the Hofkapellmeister (head musician of the Wiener Hofmusikkapelle) in 1715, along with Antonio Caldara as his vice-Kapellmeister, and F.B. Conti as the court composer. Fux served Leopold I until the latter’s death, and two more Habsburg emperors after that: Joseph I, and Charles VI, both of whom continued to employ him in high positions in the court. Fux was