Gerd Zacher

Although outside Germany Gerd Zacher was primarily known as an organist, within Germany Zacher was highly regarded as both an organ player and a composer and elder statesman of the German avant-garde.

Born into a poor family, Zacher moved around a lot and as a result, he was not able to begin piano lessons until the age of 11; his first organ lesson was not until he reached the age of 16. Entering the Nordwestdeutschen Musikakademie in Detmold in 1948, Zacher studied composition with <a href="spotify:artist:0H6vVZb8qqsSyfYkPNDyha">Günter Bialas</a>. Beginning in 1953 Zacher studied piano with ex-<a href="spotify:artist:7xH3VOMwOjnqGu7NERNUx1">Ferruccio Busoni</a> student Theodor Kaufman before taking his degree in 1954. After working in a Lutheran church in Santiago de Chile for a few years, Zacher settled into a post at the Lutherkirche in Hamburg-Wellingsbütte, which he kept until 1970. During this time Zacher built up a reputation for interpreting works that had been suppressed during the period of National Socialism and for presenting avant-garde concerts of music by <a href="spotify:artist:1Z3fF5lZdCM0ZHugkGoH8s">John Cage</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1zb5zmIuX2lTbzcn7YeQlg">György Ligeti</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0IdJUMh8xVuehu7qlMcDth">Mauricio Kagel</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6CS9O2pE67oq44GZuBEBuD">Olivier Messiaen</a>, Juan Allende-Blin, and others. In 1970, Zacher relocated his base of operations to the Folkwang-Hochschüle in Essen, where he remained as Evangelical music director until his retirement in 1991. Zacher's recording career began with <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Wergo%22">Wergo</a> in 1962, and Zacher first became widely known on records through his interpretations of <a href="spotify:artist:1zb5zmIuX2lTbzcn7YeQlg">György Ligeti</a>'s organ music as used by director Stanley Kubrick in his film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Zacher was prominently featured on the two American 2001 soundtrack albums, and in their wake, practically all of Zacher's <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Wergo%22">Wergo</a> recordings were issued on the short-lived <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Heliodor%22">Heliodor</a> label in the United States. By 1970, Zacher was practically synonymous with avant-garde organ music worldwide.

In 1968, Zacher made a recording of <a href="spotify:artist:5aIqB5nVVvmFsvSdExz408">Johann Sebastian Bach</a>'s Die Kunst der Fuge that played a key role in finally establishing the organ as <a href="spotify:artist:5aIqB5nVVvmFsvSdExz408">Bach</a>'s intended instrument in this work. Zacher's scholarly work on behalf of <a href="spotify:artist:5aIqB5nVVvmFsvSdExz408">J.S. Bach</a> was widely praised, as was his advocacy for other composers of <a href="spotify:artist:5aIqB5nVVvmFsvSdExz408">Bach</a>'s time, such as <a href="spotify:artist:0YuQmKNAObna6VBbIpp1VY">Johann Mattheson</a>. Although Zacher was a composer since childhood, he counted as his official Opus 1 his first work utilizing the twelve-tone system, Kantate Prière pour aller au Paradis avec les ânes nach dem Gedicht von Francis Jammes (1951). Zacher was a pioneer in the use of graphic notation and developed techniques in pipe organ playing that involve pressing the keys only partly downward and/or temporarily altering the mechanism of the instrument.