Welcome to the Institute for Histrorical Performance Practice

Since its foundation after the Second World War, the Freiburg University of Music can look back on a continuous tradition of early music. Well-known names such asGustav Scheck (with his circle of Scheck-Wenzingerkreis), Fritz Neumeyer, who left us a large and interesting collection of historical keyboard instruments in the castle of Bad Krozingen, Konrad Lechner and Edith Picht-Achsenfeld bear witness to this tradition. They belonged to the first generation of musicians for whom historically informed performance practice became a personal concern, both on the podium and in the educational field.

Early music understood anew

The preoccupation with old sources and treatises, the experimentation with historical instruments and historical playing practice, led to a completely new understanding of early music, thus making it modern again, and in the meantime it has also met with lively interest in "normal" concert life. The founding of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, which has since gained worldwide renown, by the violinists Thomas Hengelbrock, Petra Müllejans and Gottfried von der Goltz (all students in the class of Prof. Kussmaul) is an impressive result of this tradition. For many years it has been able to boast a sold-out subscription series.

Concerts, lectures, courses and reference library

The Institute for Historical Performance Practice (IHA) has been in existence at our university since 2004. It bundles the entire range of topics relating to historical performance practice and interpretation research, organises concerts, lectures and courses, and regularly supplements the reference library established since the founding of the IHA with a focus on facsimiles, critical editions and literature for interpretation research.