Be­ckerath or­gan in the Gre­at Hall

The or­gan in the Gre­at Hall of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mu­sic and Per­forming Arts is our "old lady". An unusu­al in­stru­ment that has out­las­ted many ge­nera­ti­ons of stu­dents and their tea­chers.

It was built in 1959 by Ru­dolf von Be­ckerath, one of the gre­at or­gan buil­ders of the 20th cen­tu­ry. With a sound and tech­no­lo­gy stron­gly in­flu­en­ced by the or­gan mo­ve­ment, to­day it also has a mo­dern set­ting sys­tem and is used in les­sons and many lec­tu­re evenings for the in­ter­pre­ta­ti­on of or­gan mu­sic from all eras, from Fres­co­bal­di to Franck, Lü­beck to Li­ge­ti and Muf­fat to Mes­sia­en.

The Gre­at Hall its­elf, with its spe­cial at­mo­s­phe­re, is an im­portant mo­nu­ment to Frank­fur­t's mu­si­cal histo­ry. It was built in 1929/30 as a broad­cas­ting hall for the ear­ly ra­dio sta­ti­on and is as­so­cia­ted with na­mes such as Paul Hin­de­mith, Ar­nold Schön­berg, Béla Bar­tók and Kurt Weill. One of the three so-cal­led "ra­dio or­gans" once stood here along­si­de Mu­nich and Ber­lin.