Florian Fricke

Florian Fricke (born February 23, 1944 in Lindau ; † December 29, 2001 in Munich ) was a German electronic music pioneer from the very beginning and founder of the band Popol Vuh .

Life

Florian Fricke started playing the piano in childhood. He studied piano, composition and conducting at the music academies in Freiburg and Munich. He was already making short films at the age of 18. He wrote as a film and music critic for Spiegel and Neue Zürcher Zeitung .

Around 1967 he met the director Werner Herzog , in whose feature film debut " Lebenszeichen " he played a role. From 1971 onwards, Fricke wrote the music for several Werner Herzog films, a. a. for Aguirre, the Wrath of God , Heart of Glass , Fitzcarraldo and Nosferatu - Phantom of the Night (with Bruno Ganz and Klaus Kinski ).

Florian Fricke was one of the first musicians to use a Moog III synthesizer in 1969 . His publications using this significant instrument until 1972 were to shape electronic music in Germany. In 1970, Fricke said: "The music that can be made with a Moog simply encompasses the possibilities of human perception".

Together with Holger Truelzsch and Frank Fiedler , he founded the group Popol Vuh in 1970 , which is assigned to Krautrock . The name is borrowed from the Mayan culture and is reminiscent of the human creation story. The band often used Christian or mystical motifs in their music and continuously resisted categorization. Popol Vuh himself described his own style as "lyric rock", "magic music" or "cosmic space rock". Over 20 albums had been released by 1997.

In addition to working with Popol Vuh, Fricke worked with numerous musicians. He was heard in 1972 on the album "Zeit" by the group Tangerine Dream , and there was another collaboration with Renate Knaup from Amon Düül II . Together with Daniel Fichelscher (who also worked with Popol Vuh and Amon Düül II) Fricke was with the band Gila from 1973 to 1974 . In addition, he realized various solo projects, including a. In 1992 a recording of Mozart compositions.

Florian Fricke has also devoted himself intensively to music therapy and sound therapy since the late 1970s . Using set pieces from yoga and Tibetan chant, he developed his own form of therapy, which he called the alphabet of the body .

Together with his fellow Popol Vuh colleague Frank Fiedler, who was a capable cameraman , Fricke undertook spiritually inspired film productions in the Sinai desert , in Israel , in Lebanon , on the Euphrates and Tigris , in Morocco , Afghanistan , Nepal and Tibet . From the 1990s on, scenic audio-video installations were created in, among other places, Molfetta, Italy .

Florian Fricke died of a stroke on December 29, 2001 at the age of 57 in Munich .

Web links

• Miesbach, the Moog and the Mayas - The sound mystic Florian Fricke and his band Popol Vuh , Deutschlandfunk from December 25, 2011 - 10th anniversary of the death of Florian Secundus Fricke
• Literature by and about Florian Fricke in the catalog of the German National Library