A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Führer, Robert

by Mary Catherine Hamilton

FÜHRER, Robert, born at Prague, 1807; in 1840 succeeded Wittasek as organist to the Cathedral there. His irregular life however lost him the post, and in 43 he left Prague. In 57 he was organist at Gmunden and Ischl for a short time, and then settled in Vienna, where he died Nov. 28, 1861, in great distress in a hospital. His compositions, published since 1830 in Prague and Vienna, are numerous and good. (For list see Fétis.) They comprise masses, graduates, offertories, preludes, fugues, a method for the pedal-organ, a handbook for choirmasters, a 'Praktische Anleitung zu Orgelcompositionen,' etc. Whatever his merits as a musician, however, he was a dishonest man, for he actually published Schubert's Mass in G under his own name (Marco Berra, Prague 1846), a fact which requires no comment.

[ M. C. C. ]