Organ – Improvisation à l’orgue

Teaching Staff

Prof. David Franke (Freiburg)
Prof. Daniel Maurer (Strasbourg)

Regulations, degree plans and module catalogues

Study content in the main subject module:

• Development of demanding prepared and unprepared improvisations (free or according to specifications), also in larger forms and different styles and in a concert setting, as well as differentiated song accompaniment, improvisation to texts, pictures, silent films or in interaction with vocal or instrumental soloists.
• German and French improvisation techniques, forms and styles are juxtaposed in this course, also in the practical and artistic teaching experience on important historical and contemporary organs of the unique German-French organ landscape of the Upper Rhine Rift Valley (e.g. organs by Andreas and Johann Andreas Silbermann, Eberhard Friedrich Walcker, Joseph Merklin, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and others) and with a view to their effect in sound spaces typical of both countries (e.g. cathedrals).

The main subject lessons take place with organ improvisation professors from Germany and France.

The intermediate examination takes place after the first year of study in Freiburg, the final examination after the second year of study in Strasbourg.

The studies in the main subject are accompanied by compulsory and compulsory elective modules in areas such as organ building, organ style, music theory, musicology and language skills.

Requirements in the entrance exam

Prepared improvisation as well as improvisation on given themes. One of the improvisations must be in a larger form (e.g. passacaglia, fugue, partita, suite, symphonic movement or similar). Duration: approx. 20 minutes.

(Excerpt from the Statutes on Enrollment; see there also the General examination requirements).