Florian Fricke

Florian Fricke (23 February 1944 – 29 December 2001) was a German musician who started his professional career with electronic music, using the Moog synthesizer, and was a founding member of the Krautrock band Popol Vuh. Early life Born on 23 February 1944, to an affluent Bavarian family, on the Lindau island of Lake Constance, Germany, situated where Germany, Switzerland, and Austria meet, Fricke started playing the piano as a child. He studied piano, composition, and conducting at Conservatories in Freiburg and Munich. While in Munich, at 18, he began exploring avant-garde music such as free jazz. Garry Scott related that the two young men “shared similar ideas and beliefs” and “dreamed of changing the world.” Fricke appeared in the small part of an unnamed pianist in the 1968 movie Signs of Life, Herzog’s first, which was shot in Greece. Fricke subsequently edited the soundtracks of several Herzog’s movies, among which were Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night, starring Klaus Kinski and Bruno Ganz; Aguirre, the Wrath of God; and, Heart of Glass. In Herzog’s 1974 film The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Fricke made a cameo appearance as a blind pianist named “Florian.” Popol Vuh One day, in