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 director.
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 as well as trumpet, and 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 "First Viennese school". Although sometimes contrapuntal in a learned way, Richter's orchestral works nevertheless exhibit considerable drive and verve. Until a few years ago, apparently the only available recordings of Richter's music were performances of his trumpet concerto in D major, but recently a number of chamber orchestras and ensembles have included many of his pieces, particularly symphonies and concertos, in their repertoires.
1709–1739 Origins and education
Franz Xaver Richter was probably born in Holleschau (now Holešov), Moravia (then part of the Habsburg monarchy, now the Czech Republic), although this is not entirely certain. There is no record of his birth in the Holleschau church register. In his employment contract with the Prince Abbot of Kempten it says that he hailed from Bohemia. The musicologist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg has Richter being from Hungarian descent, but on his Strasbourg death certificate it says: "ex Kratz oriundus".
Although his whereabouts until 1740 are nowhere documented, it is clear that Richter got a very thorough training in counterpoint and that this took place using the influential counterpoint treatise Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Josef Fux; Richter may even have been Fux's pupil in Vienna. Richter's lifelong mastery of the strict church style which is particularly evident in his liturgical works but also shines through in his symphonies and chamber music, is testimony to his roots in the Austrian and south German Baroque music.
1740–1747 Vize-Kapellmeister in Kempten
On April 2, 1740, Richter was appointed deputy Kapellmeister (Vize-Kapellmeister) to the Prince-Abbot Anselm von Reichlin-Meldeg of Kempten in Allgäu. Reichlin Meldeg as Prince Abbot presided over the Fürststift Kempten, a large Benedictine Monastery in what is now south-western Bavaria. The monastery certainly would have had a choir and probably a small orchestra (rather a band, as it was called then), as well, but this must have been a small affair. Richter stayed in Kempten for six years but it is hard to imagine that a man of his education and talents would have liked the idea of spending the rest of his life in this scenically beautiful but otherwise completely parochial town.
In February 1743 Richter married Maria Anna Josepha Moz, who was probably from Kempten. Twelve of Richter's symphonies for strings were published in Paris in the year 1744. It is assumed that Richter left Kempten already before the death of Reichlin-Meldeg in December 1747.
1747–1768 Singer and Cammercompositeur in Mannheim
Just how much Richter must have disliked Kempten can be deduced from the fact that in 1747 his name appears among the court musicians of the Prince elector Charles Theodore in Mannheim – but not as music director or in any other leading function but as a simple singer (bass). Obviously Richter preferred being one among many (singers and orchestra combine numbered more than 70 persons) in Mannheim to acting deputy Kapellmeister in a small town like Kempten.
Because of his old fashioned, even reactionary music style Richter was not popular in Mannheim. The title awarded to him in 1768 as Cammercompositeur (chamber composer) seems to have been merely an honorary one. He was slightly more successful as a composer of sacred music and as music theoretician. In 1748 the Elector commissioned him to compose an oratorio for Good Friday, La deposizione dalla croce. It is sometimes concluded that this oratorio was not a success as there was only one performance and Richter was never commissioned to write another one.
Richter was also a respected teacher of composition. Between 1761 and 1767 he wrote a treatise on composition (Harmonische Belehrungen oder gründliche Anweisung zu der musikalischen Ton-Kunst oder regulären Komposition), based on Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum – the only representative of the Mannheim School to do so. The lengthy work in three tomes is dedicated to Charles Theodore. Among his more notable pupils were Joseph Martin Kraus, probably Carl Stamitz and Ferdinand Fränzl.
After 1768 Richter's name disappears from the lists of court singers. During his Mannheim years Richter made tours to the Oettingen-Wallerstein court in 1754 and later to France, the Netherlands and England where his compositions found a ready market with publishers.
It seems clear from Richter's compositions that he did not really fit in at the Mannheim court. Whereas his colleagues in the orchestra were interested in lively, energetic, homophonic music that focused on drive, brilliancy and sparkling orchestral effects gained from stock devices, Richter, rooted in the Austrian Baroque tradition, wrote music that was in a way reminiscent of Handel and of his teacher Fux. Thus, when in 1769 an opening at Strasbourg's cathedral became known Richter seems to have applied right away.
1769–1789 Maitre de Chapelle de Notre-Dame de Strasbourg
In April 1769 he succeeded Joseph Garnier as Kapellmeister at Strasbourg Cathedral, where both his performing and composing activities turned increasingly to sacred music. He was by then recognized as a leading contrapuntist and church composer. Johann Sebastian Bach's first biographer, composer and musicologist Johann Nikolaus Forkel, wrote about Richter in 1782:
"Ist ein sehr guter Contrapunktist und Kirchenkomponist." ("Is a very good contrapuntist and church composer.")