Friedrich Wilhelm Franke (21 June 1862 – 3 April 1932) was a German

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

. Born in

Barmen Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land, Germany, which merged with four other towns in 1929 to form the city of Wuppertal. Barmen, together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded the first electric ...

(today a district of

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, with a population of 355,000. Wuppertal is the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and List of cities in Germany by population, 17th-largest in Germany. It ...

), Franke worked as a teacher for

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...

harmony In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...

and

counterpoint In music theory, counterpoint is the relationship of two or more simultaneous musical lines (also called voices) that are harmonically dependent on each other, yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. The term originates from the Latin ...

at the

Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln The Cologne University of Music () is a public university of music and dance located in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Established in 1850 as the Conservatorium der Musik in Coeln, it is one of the largest music academies in Europe, w ...

. Among other things, he was organist for the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne and numerous Rhenish music festivals. His life's work was dedicated to the efforts of renewal within the evangelical

church music Church music is a genre of Christian music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclesiastical liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. History Early Christian musi ...

. He has rendered outstanding services to the revival of old Protestant forms of church music. Among his students were the church musicians Father OSB and Alfred Sittard. Franke died in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

at the age of 69.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Franke, Friedrich Wilhelm German classical organists 1862 births 1932 deaths Musicians from Wuppertal Academic staff of the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln

Further reading

References