Wolfgang rubsam louis vierne biography

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A period of study at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where his organ teacher was Robert T. Anderson, culminated in 1971 in the degree of Master of Music. Currently, he is completing a recording of the 20 organ sonatas of Josef Rheinberger. After three years of this weekly exercise of learning one JSB work after another, I had covered almost the complete organ works of Bach at the entrance exam of the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt and was allowed to jump right into the third semester of church music study, organ under Prof.

Helmut Walcha.

Walcha was most concerned that the student would become more aware of the art of polyphony by having to sing the inner voices while playing for this blind teacher. The Masters Degree I earned there was surely the one “golden life key” that changed everything in my career and contributed tremendously to my winning the Grand Prix de Chartres, Interpretation, in 1973 - the first German to do so.

Upon returning from Dallas, Texas, I completed my degrees in Church Music and Organ Performance.

Additional study under Marie Claire Alain in Paris began in 1971.

At home, this was continued for Naxos at my own pace, and in my own studio with an outstanding Boesendorfer piano.

I have engineered, edited, and mastered almost all of the Naxos complete organ works of Bach as well as most of the CDs of the Naxos Organ Encyclopedia Series with large, complete recordings sets of Reger, Dupre, Scheidemann, Buxtehude, and much more, here mostly providing a chance for young organists to be heard.

After 23 years of teaching at Northwestern University, also serving as University Organist of the University of Chicago at Rockefeller Chapel, the Hochschule fuer Musik Saarbruecken, Germany, asked me to join their faculty, and I accepted.

My parents never interfered and let me have the piano as a toy.

My skills in improvisation all over the keys developed swiftly, stealing the style of Chopin, Bach, and many other composers, mostly playing in my favorite keys, f sharp major, g sharp, and never just in C major.

I had no knowledge then of any key grammar or scales until my first formal piano lesson at age 6, with outstanding instruction for 10 years; then formal organ lessons, although I had befriended that King of Instruments already by playing church services before age 16.

My organ teacher in Fulda, Germany, trained me in “boot camp” with the Franke Orgelschule, then the JSB 8 little Preludes and Fugues, then Orgelbüchlein.

He has published more than 130 recordings, including two recordings of the complete organ works by Johann Sebastian Bach, the complete organ works of Dietrich Buxtehude, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, César Franck, Louis Vierne, and Jehan Alain, as well as recordings of Franz Liszt, Johann Pachelbel, and Max Reger. I immediately worked on my private pilot license, followed by the instrument license, and I flew myself to most of my organ recitals across the USA.

But the appointment at Northwestern was also a golden key event for my private life in that I met my dear wife,  Jan.

We raised two marvelous daughters. In 1972 he won two third prizes in international competitions at Nuremberg and Avilain Spain. He then took up studies in church music at the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt am Main, which enabled him to join the organ class of Helmut Walcha. Many recordings then were produced via this friendship over the years to come, including the legendary complete organ works of Bach that were offered and sold to Phillips Records.

Walcha sent me overseas to prolong the graduation date in Frankfurt and I studied with one of his finest American Fulbright students, Dr. Robert T. Anderson, at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas.

Here I discovered organ repertoire the world over, from early music to Messiaen. It was a great fourteen years in a small school environment where the faculty felt like a family.

This offer came over the phone without any interview or sample teaching. Here my first commercial recordings were made by Da Camera, including works by Max Reger and Jehan Alain.

I became friends with the sound engineer, Teije van Geest, in part because we had a mutual interest in sound engineering and editing. What fun it was to travel once a month to Paris for a long lesson with Marie Claire, often having not practiced enough, which she excused by saying: "Wolfgang, oh, do not worry.  Just the music counts." I was also teaching music part time during that time in the German school system to earn my living expenses.

Marienstatt Abbey then was my weekend church job with a beautiful large Rieger Organ.

Furthermore, even after repeated listening to the same track, listeners should perceive yet more beauty in matters of elegance, individuality, rhythmic complexity, ornamentation and overall color of interpretation by virtue of total independence of voices interacting
In Bach’s music, polyphony creates the harmonic architecture and color, not the other way around.  This is clearly and often significantly misunderstood by even serious keyboard players worldwide.

When rewinding the film now at age seventy, I see it all started with growing up in a musical family; my dad was active in music education with music students also coming to our house for theory lessons in preparation for the entrance exams at music universities. Perhaps beyond that it may encourage further the art of elegant ornamentation especially, but not exclusively in pieces having repeat sections.