FUTURE ESTATE, an estate of which possession is to commence at some future time. It includes remainders, reversions, and estates limited to commence in posses sion at a future day, without the intervention•of a precedent estate to support them, which last arc good in common law only in the case of a term of years. Such future estates are declared to be either vested, or contingent. They arc vested when there is a person in being who would have an immediate right to the possession of the land upon the ceasing of the intermediate or precedent estate. They are contingent while the per-, son to whom or the event upon which they are limited to take effect, remains uncertain.
FUT, JortANN JOSEPH, 1661-1741; b. Styria; tile composer of more than 400 works of various kinds and dimensions, but chiefly remembered as the author of a theoretical work on music. Of his youth and early training nothing is known. In 1696, he was the organist at one of the principal churches of Vienna, and in 1698 was appointed by the emperor Leopold I. as his " imperial court composer," with the considerable salary of 30 a month. At the court of Leopold and his successors Joseph I. and Charles F. remained for the rest of his life. To his various court dignities, that of organist of St. Stephen's cathedral was added in 1704. As a proof of the high favor in which he was held by the Charles VI., it is related that at the coronation of that empe
ror as king of Bohemia in 1723, an opera, La Constanza e la Fortezza, especially composed by F. for the occasion, was given at Prague. The performance took place in an open air theater. and the is said to have been of great splendor. 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 impe rial box was reserved for the compos4r. The numerous operas which F. wrote show no surpassing genius. Of greater importance are his sacred compositions, psalms, motets, oratorios, and masses. Among the latter, the celebrated .4311.va Canonica is an amazing tour de force of learned musicianship, being written entirely in that most difficult contrapuntal devices—the canon. Owing to his qualities as a contrapuntist and musical scholar generally, 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. It was translated into most European languages during the 18th c., and is still studied by musicians intereste0 in the history of their art. •