Arthur Fickenscher, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetArthur Fickenscher
American composer
Date of Birth: 09-Mar-1871
Place of Birth: Aurora, Illinois, United States
Date of Death: 15-Apr-1954
Profession: composer
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Pisces 
About Arthur Fickenscher
- Arthur Fickenscher (March 9, 1871 in Aurora, Illinois – April 15, 1954 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 20th-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 1941 he was the first head of the music department at the University of Virginia.
- From about 1923 to 1933 he was the conductor of the Virginia Glee Club, a male choral ensemble at the University of Virginia.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.
- Recordings have been made of his song cycle Willowwood and his piano quintet From the seventh Realm; 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."Fickenscher also invented the Polytone, a keyboard instrument that could produce sixty distinct tones within the scope of an octave.
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