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 and the Swiss paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

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 III synthesizer, with which he recorded Popol Vuh's first two albums "Affenstunde" and "In den Gärten Pharaos". His recordings with the instruments left an indelible mark on German electronic music. However, he later significantly gave his 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 a Mayan manuscript (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 his death, always together with guitarist and drummer Daniel Fichelscher. Fricke also recorded an album of Mozart compositions.

Besides working on his own music, Fricke collaborated with many German musicians. In 1972 he played in the Tangerine Dream's Zeit double album and collaborated with Renate Knaup of Amon Düül II. Together with Fichelscher, from 1973 to 1974 he was a member of former Popol Vuh guitarist Connie Veit's band Gila. In the 1990 he organized audio/video installations, among them "Messa di Orfeo" in the Italian City of Molfetta. In 1992 he recorder an album of Mozart compositions.

Beginning in the '70, Fricke dedicated himself to Musicotherapy. He also developed an original form of therapy called "Alphabet of the Body".

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. Fricke died of a stroke (original German: "Schlaganfall") in Munich in 2001, at the age of 57.

In October 2003 Klaus Schulze wrote:

"Florian was and remains an important forerunner of contemporary ethnic and religious music. He chose electronic music and his big Moog to free himself from the restraints of traditional music, but soon discovered that he didn't get a lot out of it and opted for the acoustic path instead. Here, he went on to create a new world, which Werner Herzog loves so much, transforming the thought patterns of electronic music into the language of acoustic ethno music."^[1]

[edit] Florian Fricke solo albums

• Die Erde und ich sind Eins (1983) - limited private pressing
• Florian Fricke Plays Mozart (1992) - featuring Fricke on piano playing Mozart compositions

For his albums with Popol Vuh, see Popol Vuh.

[edit] References

This article is, with a few minor omissions and additions, a translation of the article Florian Fricke of German Wikipedia retrieved on March 25, 2008.