Franz Philipp

Franz Joseph Philipp (August 24, 1890 – June 2, 1972) was a German church musician and composer. He studied and later taught various instruments including organ, worked as a composer, directed a conservatory, and founded a school for organ, a chamber orchestra, an institute for church music, and a choir. In the 1930s he was highly valued by the Nazi regime as a composer, gaining a reputation he tried to undo after the war. Philipp was born and died in Freiburg im Breisgau, and worked in Basel and Karlsruhe as well.

Philipp was born in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. His musical education began in 1908 at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, where he studied violin, composition, and musical theory.

He took up a position as organist while he was still in school, at the Herz-Jesu-Kirche (Freiburg im Breisgau) () in Freiburg, the same church where his first composition for mass was to be performed. From 1911 to 1912 he studied philosophy and literature at the University of Freiburg, and from 1912 to 1913 he studied organ, counterpoint, and improvisation with Adolf Hamm (a former student of Max Reger and Karl Straube) at the Music Academy in Basel. In 1914 he recorded 23 piano rolls for the Welte Philharmonie Organ.

During World War I, Philipp was sent to the Vosges Mountains, where he suffered irreversible damage to his hearing. In 1916, his Deutschlands Stunde ("Germany's Hour"), a cantata full of enthusiasm for the war effort, was performed by the Berlin Philharmonic.

From 1919 to 1924 Philipp was active as a church musician in the St. Martin (Freiburg-Altstadt) () in Freiburg, and from 1923 he taught organ, song, theory, and music history at the teacher's college. He was married to Sophie Hummel in 1924 and received an appointment as director of what was then the Baden Conservatory of Music in Karlsruhe, which was raised to become the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe under his direction. He led the school until 1942.

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