Pupil of Heinrich Schenker's between May 1919 and May/June 1921.

Richard Figdor was the son of Jakob Carl Figdor (died 1902) and Ernestine Mendl (1857–1925). Ernestine was the sister of Heinrich Mendl and Fritz Mendl, and also of the long-term Schenker pupil Sofie Mendl (Deutsch), of all of whom therefore Richard was a nephew.

Between 1917 and at least late 1923, the Figdor family contested the will of Sofie Deutsch, opposing the substantial bequests that the latter made to Schenker.

Richard Figdor and Schenker

Schenker’s diary records that Richard first approached him for lessons on March 26, 1919, stating the next day that he had been a pupil of Franz Schreker, and was currently taking piano lessons with Malvine Brée. Schenker records that he brushed Figdor off until the following season; however, on April 22, he instead accepted him as a pupil for the final two months of the 1918/19 season, lessons beginning on May 1, 1919, Wednesdays and Saturdays, Fidgor working on the Chopin Nocturne in F-sharp major, Op. 15, No. 2.

For the 1919/20 season, Figdor took two lessons a week, on Mondays and Thursdays at 5.30 to 6.30 p.m., studying piano repertory (J. S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin), also strict counterpoint, and thoroughbass. In 1920/21, taking only one lesson a week, he played two Beethoven sonatas, but primarily made analyses of Brahms’s “Intermezzo in F-sharp minor” (perhaps F minor, Op. 118, No. 4 or C-sharp minor, Op. 117, No. 3, or the Capriccio in F-sharp minor, Op. 76, No. 1), the Beethoven Piano Sonata Op. 2, No. 1, and String Quartet Op. 59, No. 1. He withdrew at the end of the season.

Judging from a remark in the 1920/21 lesson notes, and Schenker’s diary for February 9, 1921, he was simultaneously a student in Guido Adler’s Musikhistoriches Seminar, in the University of Vienna.

Schenker records writing a letter to Figdor on January 24, 1925 to New York.

Correspondence

No correspondence is known to survive between Figdor and Schenker.

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