Walter Kraft

Kraft studied piano and organ in Hamburg with Hanneman, and studied composition in Berlin with Paul Hindemith. After his studies, his first professional organist position was Hamburg's Markuskirche in 1924, followed by Altona's Lutherkirche in 1927. In 1929, Kraft was unanimously selected (from among 45 applicants) for a life appointment as organist in Lübeck's Marienkirche. He held this position until his retirement in 1972. During this tenure, he revived the practice of evening concerts of sacred works. Such concerts, collectively called Abendmusik, had been regularly given by his predecessors at the church, notably Dietrich Buxtehude and Franz Tunder; but they had ceased in 1810, mainly due to the dislocation caused to northern Germany by the Napoleonic wars. Kraft pursued historically accurate performance practices. In 1934 he founded a boys' choir to perform Bach's Passions. In 1939 he formed the Lübeck Church Orchestra for the Cultivation of Original Instruments. Kraft also taught. From 1947-1950 he taught organ music at Freiburg's Academy of Music. From 1950-1955 he directed the Schleswig-Holstein Academy of Music and the North German Organ College. Kraft made numerous commercial recordings (primarily for the Vox label) during the LP era, most of which have been reissued on compact disc and as mp3s. As well as recording Handel's 12 organ concertos, he was among the first to commit to disc the entire solo organ music (or what was believed to be at the time) of Bach and Buxtehude. His discography also included pieces by more obscure German baroque musicians such as Nikolaus Bruhns. Like his younger contemporary Anton Heiller, Kraft also composed a fair amount (mostly organ music but also an oratorio called Christus), though as with Heiller, his fame as a performer completely upstaged his hopes of lasting renown as a creator. Once he retired in 1972 from the Marienkirche post, he apparently planned to write an opera, but never finished any such work. He married violinist Eva-Marie Kraft. Kraft died along with 32 others in the Hotel Polen fire in Amsterdam.