He was born in 1G60 at Marein in Styria, probably of poor parents. Of his youth and early training nothing is known. All we can ascertain is that in 1696 he was organist at one of the principal churches of Vienna, and in 1698 was appointed by the emperor Leopold I. as his “imperial courtcomposer,” with the by no means inconsiderable salary of about £6 a month. At the court of Leopold and of his successors Joseph I. and Charles VI., Fux remained for the rest of his life. To his various court diguities that of organist at St Stephen’s cathedral was added in 1704. As a proof of the high favour in which he was held by the artloving Charles VL, it is told that at the coronation of that emperor as king of Bohemia in 1723 an opera, La Constanza e la Fortezza, especially composed by Fux for the occasion, was given at Prague. The performance took place in an open-air theatre, and the mise-en-scène is said to have been of great splendour. Fux at the time was suffering from gout, but in order to enable him to be present at the performance, the emperor had him carried in a litter all the way from Vienna, and a seat in the imperial box was reserved for the composer. Fux died at Vienna in 1741. His life, although passed in the great world, was eventless, and his only troubles arose from the intrigues of his Italian rivals at court. Of the numerous operas which Fux wrote for the amusement of his imperial patrons it is unnecessary to speak. They do not essentially differ from the style of the Italian opera seria of the time. Of greater importance are his sacred compositions, psalms, motets, oratorios, and masses, the celebrated Missa Canonica amongst the latter. It is an all but unparalleled tour de force of learned musicianship, being written entirely in that most difficult of contrapuntal devices—the canon. As a contrapuntist and musical scholar generally, Fux was unsurpassed by any of his contemporaries, and it is owing to these qualities that his great theoretical work, the Gradus ad Parnassum, has preserved its importance to the present day. For a long time it remained by far the most thorough treatment of counterpoint and its various developments. The title of the original Latin edition may be given :— Gradus ad Parnassum sive manuductio ad compositionem musicae regularem, maethoda nova ac certa nondum ante tam exacta ordine in lucem edita, elaborata a Joanne Josepho Fux (Vienna, 1725). It was translated into most European languages during the 18th century, and is still studied by musicians interested in the history of their art. The expenses of the publication were defrayed by the emperor Charles VI., to whom the musical world most probably owes the survival of the important work. Fux’s biography, a book full of minutest original research, and trustworthy in every respect, has recently been published by Ludwig von Köchel (Vienna, 1871). It contains, amongst other valuable materials, a complete catalogue of the composer’s numerous works. (f. h.)