Simon Sechter

Simon Sechter (11 October 1788 – 10 September 1867) was an Austrian music theorist, composer, conductor, and organist. He is best known as a strict music teacher, whose many students included Anton Bruckner, Sigismond Thalberg, and Henri Vieuxtemps. In 1851, he was professor of composition at the Vienna Conservatory; after Sechter's death, his student Bruckner would succeed him and continue teaching his approach to harmony and counterpoint.

A highly prolific composer, his total output numbers more than 8000 compositions, particularly since he sought to write a fugue every day. However, his Sechter's best known works are his later (post-1825) masses and oratorios. Carl Christian Müller (1831–1914) compiled and adapted Sechter's Die richtige Folge der Grundharmonien as The Correct Order of Fundamental Harmonies: A Treatise on Fundamental Basses, and their Inversions and Substitutes (Wm. A. Pond, 1871; G. Schirmer, 1898).