Wilhelm Mayer

Wilhelm Mayer (10 June 183122 January 1898) was an Austro-Bohemian composer who published his works under the name W. A. Rémy. He was also a noted teacher, whose pupils included Ferruccio Busoni and Felix Weingartner. His name sometimes appears as Wilhelm Mayer-Rémy. His overture to Eugène Sue's drama Jean Cavalier was written when he was 17, but his parents required him to enter the legal profession. He graduated as a doctor of law in 1856, when he was 25. He then occupied various posts in the Austro-Hungarian civil service. Mayer focused on the music of Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach, but greatly disliked Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner.

Through his former pupil Wilhelm Kienzl's intercession with Ferruccio Busoni's father, Mayer taught Busoni that "the widest possible culture makes the artist", a motto Busoni wrote on his 430-page treatise on composition he had written out in longhand during his studies with Mayer and later transmitted to his own pupils. Richard Heuberger, Emil von Reznicek, Richard Sahla, Marie Baumayer Josef Gauby and Friedrich von Hausegger. Sardanapalus, overture Helena, symphonic poem Phantasiestuck, orchestra (given at the Vienna Philharmonic concerts under Felix Otto Dessoff Slawischer Liederspiel, solo voices, 2 pianos and chorus Östlicher Rosen, solo voices, 2 pianos and chorus chamber music