The outstanding musician and passionate piano teacher Erich Appel came to the University of Music Würzburg in 1991. After decades of successful teaching as head of the piano department at the Meistersingerkonservatorium in Nuremberg, he built up a remarkable piano class in Würzburg in the following years. Many of his students were prize-winners at national and international competitions and now hold the highest posts at a wide variety of musical institutions.

His teaching was characterized by a deep understanding of music, an enormous sense of sound, and a self-evident integrity toward the works. Those who were fortunate enough to have him as a teacher at their side had in him, beyond their studies, a loyal, reliable and companionable mentor.

Erich Appel certainly owed his success as a teacher to his own great and successful career as a concert pianist and chamber musician. Numerous radio recordings and recordings, whether in duo with the violinist Oliver Colbentson, in piano duo with Angelika Schemm, or the legendary recording of the Piano Concerto No. 1 op. 15 on the Graf grand piano by Ludwig van Beethoven, which has now been declared a cultural heritage, are testimony to his enormous skill.

With Erich Appel we lose a special, cosmopolitan, modest and warm-hearted pedagogue and person, who dedicated his life entirely to music and the people entrusted to his care.

We will honor Erich Appel's memory.

For the University of Music Würzburg