Arthur Fickenscher

Arthur Fickenscher (March 91871 in Aurora, Illinois – April 151954 in San Francisco, California) was an American composer and academic. The first head of the music department of the University of Virginia, he is credited with being an early twentieth century pioneer of microtonal music.

Fickenscher studied music in Munich under Joseph Rheinberger and lived then as a teacher in Oakland, California, and Charlottesville, Virginia. From 1911 to 1914, he was a vocal teacher in Berlin. From 1920 until 1941cite book
url=http://repo.lib.virginia.edu:18080/fedora/get/uva-lib:415347/uva-lib-bdef:100/getFullView
title=Minutes of the Board of Visitors
pages=357
year=1941
publisher=University of Virginia
location=Charlottesville] he was the first head of the music department at the University of Virginia.cite web
url=http://www2.lib.virginia.edu/music/collections/special.html
title=Special Collections: Arthur Fickenscher Papers, Accession # 5121-a
accessdate=2008-03-24] From about 1924cite book
url=http://repo.lib.virginia.edu:18080/fedora/get/uva-lib:117671/uva-lib-bdef:105/getPageTurner?behav=getImageBrowse&pageNum=30
title=University of Virginia Record: Department of the College
pages=32
date=1924-1925
accessdate=2008-03-20] to 1933 he was the conductor of the Virginia Glee Club, a male choral ensemble at the University of Virginia.cite book
url=http://repo.lib.virginia.edu:18080/fedora/get/uva-lib:128350/uva-lib-bdef:105/getPageTurner?behav=getImageBrowse&snum=20&sblk=4&page=uva-lib:128422
title=The University of Virginia Record
volume=XX
year=1934
publisher=University of Virginia
location=Charlottesville
pages= ]

He composed a Mimodrama, orchestral variations in the medieval style, a Dies Irae, visions for voice and orchestra, church works, a piano quintet, and various songs (including the song cycle "Willowwood"). His first major work, "Visions" for dramatic soprano and orchestra, received its premiere at the Royal Conservatory in Berlin in 1913 to acclaim from the New York Times.cite news
url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F0CEEDE103FE633A25750C2A9679D946296D6CF
title=Our Musicians Score: German critics praise works of Fickenscher, White, and Gittelson
date=1913-11-23
work=New York Times
pages=C3] Recordings have been made of his song cycle "Willowwood" and his piano quintet "From the seventh Realm";cite web
url=http://www.kith.org/jimmosk/misc.html#Fickenscher
title=Arthur Fickenscher (in Miscellaneous recommendations of unfairly unknown composers)
accessdate=2008-03-24] of the latter, Percy Grainger wrote, "While I am a reverent admirer of the piano and string quintets by Bach, César Franck, Brahms, Cyril Scott and others, I must confess that this American work by Fickenscher out-soars them all, for my ears, in point of spiritual rapture and sensuous loveliness."cite book
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=RAnpj9zeXisC&pg=RA2-PA34&lpg=RA2-PA34&dq=arthur+fickenscher&source=web&ots=OJKp2UPnyB&sig=fb2oz3xotbx19tCfAhVInl20bEY&hl=en
title=Grainger on Music
last=Grainger
first=Percy
authorlink=Percy Grainger
pages=250
publisher=Oxford University Press
location=Oxford
year=1999
isbn=0198166636]

Fickenscher also invented the Polytone, a keyboard instrument that could produce sixty distinct tones within the scope of an octave.cite paper
url=http://eprints.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00002313/01/B_Nemec_PhD_Thesis.pdf
title=The Grainger Museum in its Museological and Historical Contexts
last=Nemec
first=Belinda Jane
date=2006
format=PDF
publisher=The Australian Centre of the University of Melbourne] Citation
inventor-last=Fickenscher
inventor-first=Arthur
publication-date=1941-02-18
country-code=US
title=Polytone keyboard
patent-number=2232600]

Works

* "Visions", symphonic seal for dramatic soprano and large orchestra, 1912
* "Willowwood and Well Away", 1925
* "Day of Judgement", 1927
* "Out of the Gay Nineties", 1934
* "From the seventh realm", Piano Quintet, 1939
* "Aucalete", symphonic poetry, 1945
* "Lament for organ", 1951
* "Improvisational Fantasy for organ", 1954
* "Aucassin and Nicolete", symphonic poetry for chorus and orchestra
* "The Chamber Blue", poetry for chorus and orchestra
* "The Land East of the Sun", symphonic poetry for chorus and orchestra
* "Old Irish Tune for chamber orchestra"
* "Evolutionary Quartet", String Quartet
* "Willowwood" for alto, viola and piano

References