Wolfgang Baumgratz

Wolfgang Baumgratz at the Sauer organ in Bremen Cathedral

Wolfgang Baumgratz (born October 10, 1948 in Meersburg , Lake Constance ) is a German organist and music teacher .

Life

Baumgratz received his musical training in Heidelberg and Freiburg im Breisgau , where he passed the A-exam for Protestant church music in 1976 and worked as a cantor at the Johanneskirche in Merzhausen from 1971 to 1976 . This was followed by a two-year organ study on a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with Albert de Klerk in Amsterdam . In 1978 he received the soloist exam in organ there.

In 1979 Baumgratz was appointed as the successor to Zsigmond Szathmáry as cathedral organist at St. Petri Cathedral in Bremen . A year later he received a teaching position for organ at the University of the Arts Bremen (HfK Bremen). Since 1982 he has been an organ expert for the Bremen Evangelical Church. In 1984 he was appointed professor for organ at the HfK Bremen. Five years later he was appointed head of the church music department there.

His concert activities as an organist have taken him to numerous European countries. In addition, he made numerous recordings on LP and CD.

In 1990 he took over the office of Vice President of the international Society of Organ Friends . V. (GdO), whose president he was elected in 1998.

With the beginning of his retirement in 2014, Wolfgang Baumgratz took over an organist position at the evangelical St. Remberti parish in Bremen, whose Fischer + Krämer organ (1993/94) and the like (in addition to a full-time church musician). a. had been designed by him.

Discography

• Works for organ and violin, guitar, flute, English horn by Claus Kühnl and others
• Works by Bach and Handel in romantic organ arrangements (The Sauer Organ in Bremen Cathedral)
• Organ landscape Schleswig / Sonderjylland
• Romantic organs in Holstein
• Schnitger organ Grasberg ; Works by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer
• The organ works by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
• Organ landscape Holstein / Lübeck
• Organ music by women composers (Wilhelm-Sauer-Organ in St. Petri-Dom Bremen; Schumann, Andree, Chaminade)
• Organ works by Georg Philipp Telemann
• Organ music of the Bach family
• Silbermann Organ Vol. 6 Works by Schneider, Bestel, Homilius
• Joseph Rheinberger Orgelwerke (Vol. 7), played on the Sauer organ in the St. Petri Cathedral in Bremen
• Inventions & Symphonies by Johann Sebastian Bach
• JS Bach, 6 trio sonatas
• Organ music by Albert De Klerk
• Organ concert in Bremen Cathedral - compositions on the "Te Deum"

Web links

• Works by and about Wolfgang Baumgratz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wolfgang Baumgratz on the website of the Bremen University of the Arts