- Wilhelm Valentin Volckmar (born 26. Dezember 1812 Hersfeld; died 27. August 1887 Homberg (Efze), was a German organ virtuoso, music teacher and composer.
He received his musical training from his father Adam Valentin Volckmar (1770 - 1851), who had been a pupil of Johann Gottfried Vierling (1750-1813), and received training with J. Ph. Kirnberger. In a sense, Volckmar belongs to the school of the Bach grandchildren. In 1835 he became a seminar music teacher in Homberg (Efze) where he was buried. He became famous as a celebrated organ virtuoso and in 1846 received a doctorate and in 1886 a professorship. Since 1861 he undertook expanded concert journeys.
Volckmar was famous during his lifetime as an organist, in particular his masterful pedal technique, in
addition to his skills as an improvisor and theoretician. He maintained friendly relations with Franz Liszt, whose symphonic organ style clearly affected his own compositions, as well as with the composer Louis Spohr. He was also very familiar with the well-known organ-building theoretician, J.G. Töpfer (1791-1870). As a composer Volckmar was
extremely productive and wrote 20 organ sonatas, 2 large organ symphonies, a harmony manual (1860), a manual of music (1885), a large organ method, a method for violin, and many church anthems. Volckmar also made for himself a very good name as a publisher of
numerous organ works of old and new masters, and was the first to publish Mendelssohn's complete organ works. His pedal technique is from today's point of view unusual, and he was the first organist to use four voices in the pedal part--Organ Symphonie 1 (2nd movement).
Freely translated from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Valentin_Volckmar
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