Krapf, Gerhard
Krapf, Gerhard
Krapf, Gerhard, German-American organist and composer; b. Meissenheim-bei-Lahr, Dec. 12, 1924. He studied piano and organ in Karlsruhe, then was church organist in Offenburg (1939-42). He was drafted into the German army and taken prisoner of war in Russia. Upon his release, he returned to Karlsruhe, where he studied organ, choral conducting, and composition (1950). In 1951 he went to the U.S., where he studied organ at the Univ. of Redlands in Calif., and took a course in composition with Paul Pisk. He then taught music at Albion, Mich. (1953-54), at the Northwest Mo. State Coll. in Maryville (1954-58), and at the univs. of Wyo. (1958-61) and Iowa (1961-77). He joined the faculty of the Univ. of Alberta in Edmonton (1977), where he became chairman of the division of keyboardstudies. He composed a great number of organ pieces and sacred choral works. He publ. Liturgical Organ Playing (Minneapolis, 1964), Organ Improvisation: A Practical Approach to Chorale Elaborations for the Service (Minneapolis, 1967), and Bach: Improvised Ornamentation and Keyboard Cadenzas: An Approach to Creative Performance (Dayton, Ohio, 1983). He also tr. H. Klotz’s The Organ Handbook (St. Louis, 1969) and Werckmeister’s 1698 Orgelprobe (Raleigh, N.C., 1976).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire