Florian Fricke

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Florian Fricke (born February 23, 1944 in Lindau am Bodensee, Germany; died December 29, 2001 in Munich) was a German musician who started his professional career with electronic music within the Krautrock group Popol Vuh, although his music soon evolved in a very different direction.

Florian Fricke started playing piano as a child. He studied piano, composition and directing at the Conservatories in Freiburg and Munich. At 18 he filmed some short amateur films. He later became a movie and music critic for the German magazine Der Spiegel.

In 1967 he met German film director Werner Herzog and played a role in his first movie "Lebenszeichen". Fricke was later responsible for the soundtracks of several of Herzog's movies, among them Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (with Klaus Kinski and Bruno Ganz), Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Heart of Glass.

Fricke was one of the first musicians to own and use a Moog synthesizer, with which he recorded Popol Vuh's first two albums "Affenstunde" and "In den Gärten Pharaos". He later significantly gave the Moog to fellow German musician Klaus Schulze.

In 1970, together with Holger Truelsch and Frank Fiedler, he founded the group Popol Vuh. The name is taken from the Maya's Book of the Dead (see "Popol Vuh"). The German group should not be confused with the homonymous rock band from Norway (see: Popol Vuh (Norwegian band)). Fricke was the leader of the group until is death, always together with guitarist and drummer Daniel Fichelscher. Fricke also recorded an album of Mozart composition.

Together with former Popol Vuh member Frank Fiedler, who was a competent cameraman, Fricke produced a series of films set in the Sinai desert, in Israel, Lebanon, Mesopotamia, Morocco, Afghanistan, Tibet and Nepal. In the 1990 he organized audio/video installations, among them "Messa di Orfeo" in the Italian City of Molfetta.

Fricke died of a heart attack at the age of 57 in Munich.