On the death of Günter Friedrichs

The content on this page was translated automatically.

As has only now become known, the Hamburg composer and music theorist and long-time professor at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama died on November 17, 2021 at the age of 85. Friedrichs studied school music in Hamburg in the 1950s and composition with Ernst Gernot Klussmann. From 1962-1963, he had the opportunity to take part in Olivier Messiaen's legendary analysis courses at the Conservatoire de Paris. He began his teaching career in 1963 at the Hamburg Musikhochschule, initially as a lecturer in composition, and from 1975 he taught composition and music theory as a professor. His students included the composers Detlef Müller-Siemens, Detlef Glanert and Erhan Sanri. Together with Heide Andreas, Friedrichs published a theory of harmony in 1986, which was geared towards the educational needs of universities and was widely used for many years.

The composer Friedrichs was - not a matter of course for his generation - open to music of very different kinds, including jazz and popular music. His ability to transcend boundaries is reflected not only in his works for younger audiences, such as The Little Mermaid after Hans Christian Andersen, performed by the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra in 1992, and the school musicals he composed for his youngest daughter, the soprano Nora Friedrichs, who is an excellent interpreter of his songs and a successful opera singer and graduate of our vocal department. Friedrichs also knows how to combine strict compositional economy with lightness and songfulness in his chamber music works and especially in his piano songs.

Günter Friedichs was highly esteemed as a teacher and colleague during his many years of work at the University of Music and Drama in Hamburg. In the university's Committees, which he helped to shape for decades, his calm human nature often acted as a balancing influence in heated debates.

The Hamburg University of Applied Sciences will honor the memory of Günter Friedrichs.