His father ran a railway construction company, and his grandfather had worked as a teacher and organist in Würzburg, Lower Franconia.
Due to his father's early death, Reuß had to wait until 1899, before he could finally start studying music with Ludwig Thuille in Munich[2] after a long period of self-taught activity.
His often austere, sensitive tonal language is similar to his contemporaries Max Reger and Hans Pfitzner, in clearly thought-out forms, idiosyncratic voice leading and pithy harmony.
Especially in pieces for smaller instrumentations he realised his tonal language, which differed greatly from his early expansive late romantic works, which were strongly based on altered harmonies.
Reuß broke away from the voluptuous, pathetic romanticism of the turn of the century and achieved an independent tonal language of subtle differentiation of means of expression, often overpowering by strong ideas.