Richard Robert
born Vienna, March 25, 1861; died Kaltenleutgeben, Feb 1, 1924
Documents associated with this person:
One of Vienna's leading piano teachers around the turn of the century, also music critic and composer.
Career Summary
Robert's pupils including Clara Haskill, Rudolf Serkin, George Szell, Theo Buchwald, Vally Weigl (Pick), Hans Gál, Alfred Rosé, Wilhelm Groß, Rudolf Schwarz, and Victor Zuckerkandl.
Robert knew Brahms personally, and became President of the Vienna Tonkünstler-Verein. He had studied at the Vienna Conservatory, but did not teach there; he gave courses at the NeuesWiener Konservatorium, founded in 1909, of which he was briefly director. He edited the journal Musikalische Rundschau from 1885 to 1891, and was later music critic for the Wiener Sonn- u. Montags-Zeitung and the Illustriertes Wiener Extrablatt.
Robert and Schenker
After a recital by Paul de Conne that Robert and Schenker had both attended, Schenker's diary for December 17, 1906 (OJ 1/5, p. 30) records: "Professor Robert's flattering admission with the customary addendum: 'Of course, I am not in agreement with everything.' (?!)." On July 27, 1907, the diary records a Tyrolean café conversation with Robert: "I had the impression that all the trouble I had gone to, with the written and spoken word, was utterly in vain; misunderstanding of the book [Schenker's Harmonielehre] in all its principal points" (OJ 1/5, p. 30; 1/6, p. 45).
Correspondence with Schenker
Correspondence survives from Robert to Schenker as OJ 13/26 (1902, 1910, 1914: 3 postcards), and the diary records a letter dated May 25, 1909.
Sources:
- NGDM2 (2001 and online)
- OeML Online
- Federhofer, Hellmut, Heinrich Schenker nach Tagebüchern und Briefen ... (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1985)
- La Grange, Henri-Louis de, Gustav Mahler, vol.III: Vienna: Triumph and Disillusion (1904-1907) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 307, 486, 670