Richard Sahla

Richard Sahla (17 September 1855 in Graz – 30 April 1931 in Bückeburg) was a concert violinist, conductor and composer. Biography Richard Sahla grew up in his hometown Graz, where he quickly acquired a reputation as child prodigy. He excelled on the violin and the piano. Aged 13 he started studying the violin as a pupil of Ferdinand David at the Conservatory in Leipzig, University of Music and Theatre Leipzig, today the Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” Leipzig. He finished as one of the most outstanding students of this world-famous institution. He played his debut concert aged eighteen at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig to rapturous applause for his “technically mature and musically exhilarating play”. His friend Wilhelm Kienzl describes Sahla’s next steps in his autobiography. Both had studied composition under Wilhelm Mayer (also known as W. A. Rémy), whose students included the composers Ferruccio Busoni, Josef Gauby, Richard Heuberger, Emil von Reznicek and Felix Weingartner. Having received his diploma at the Conservatory in Leipzig, the Mecca of violinists, the eighteen-year-old Sahla embarked on an impressive career as violin virtuoso. He quickly gai