Florian Schneider
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Florian Schneider-Esleben (7 April 194721 April 2020) was a German musician. He is best known as one of the founding members and leaders of the electronic band
Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize t ...
, performing his role with the band until his departure in 2008.


Early life

Schneider was born on 7 April 1947 in the
French occupation zone The French occupation zone in Germany (, ) was one of the Allied-occupied areas in Germany after World War II. Background In the aftermath of the Second World War, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met at the Yalta ...
in southern Germany, near the
Bodensee Lake Constance (german: Bodensee, ) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Lak ...
, in what would become the state of
Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...
in 1952. His parents were
Paul Schneider-Esleben Paul Maximilian Heinrich Schneider von Esleben (28 August 1915 – 19 May 2005), known as Paul Schneider-Esleben, was a German architect. Early life Paul Schneider-Esleben was born in 1915 in Düsseldorf to Elisabeth and Franz Schneider-Esleben, ...
, an architect, and his wife Evamaria (''
née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...
'' van Diemen-Meyerhof). Schneider was
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
on his mother's side; Paul married the half-Jewish Evamaria in 1946 against the will of his father, who remained a loyal Nazi. Schneider's family moved to
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
when he was three years old.


Career

Schneider founded
Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize t ...
with
Ralf Hütter Ralf Hütter (born 20 August 1946) is a German musician and composer best known as the lead singer and keyboardist of Kraftwerk, which he founded with Florian Schneider in 1969. On May 12, 2021, Kraftwerk was announced as one of the inductees of ...
in 1970. They met in 1968 while studying at the Academy of Arts in
Remscheid Remscheid () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is, after Wuppertal and Solingen, the third-largest municipality in Bergisches Land, being located on the northern edge of the region, on the south side of the Ruhr area. Remscheid h ...
, then at the
Robert Schumann Hochschule The Robert Schumann Hochschule (Robert Schumann University of Music and Media) is a school for music studies at the university level located in Düsseldorf. The University has a student body of some 850 coming from over 40 countries. Forty-seven f ...
in Düsseldorf, playing improvisational music together in the ensemble
Organisation An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...
. Before meeting Hütter, Schneider had played with
Eberhard Kranemann Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the ...
in the group Pissoff from 1967 to 1968. From 1968 to 1969, Schneider played flute, with Hütter on
Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...
, Kranemann on bass and
Paul Lovens Paul Lovens (born 6 June 1949) is a German musician. He plays drums, percussion, singing saw, and cymbals. He has performed with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra and Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra. He was born in Aachen, Germany. In the early ...
on drums. Originally, Schneider's main instrument was the flute, which he would treat using electronic effects, including tape echo,
ring modulation In electronics, ring modulation is a signal processing function, an implementation of frequency mixing, in which two signals are combined to yield an output signal. One signal, called the carrier, is typically a sine wave or another simple ...
, pitch-to-voltage converters, fuzz and wah-wah, allowing him to use his flute as a bass instrument. He also played violin (similarly treated), electric guitar (including slide guitar), and made use of
synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
s (both as a melodic instrument and as a sound processor). Later, he also created his own electronic flute instrument. After the release of Kraftwerk's 1974 album, ''
Autobahn The (; German plural ) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is (abbreviated ''BAB''), which translates as 'federal motorway'. The literal meaning of the word is 'Federal Auto(mobile) Track'. ...
'', his use of acoustic instruments diminished. Schneider, speaking in 1991, said: "I had studied seriously up to a certain level, then I found it boring; I looked for other things, I found that the flute was too limiting... Soon I bought a microphone, then loudspeakers, then an echo, then a synthesizer. Much later I threw the flute away; it was a sort of process." Although he had limited keyboard technique, he apparently preferred to trigger the synth sounds through a keyboard (later, developments in
sequencing In genetics and biochemistry, sequencing means to determine the primary structure (sometimes incorrectly called the primary sequence) of an unbranched biopolymer. Sequencing results in a symbolic linear depiction known as a sequence which succ ...
limited the need for hands-on playing). Schneider's approach was concentrated on sound design (in an interview in 2005, Hütter called him a "sound fetishist") and
vocoding A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was i ...
/speech-synthesis. One patented implementation of the latter was christened the Robovox, a distinctive feature of the Kraftwerk sound. Hütter said of Schneider's approach: Schneider was also known for his comical, enigmatic interviews, although he only seldom gave permission to be interviewed. In 2015, Schneider and
Dan Lacksman Dan or DAN may refer to: People * Dan (name), including a list of people with the name ** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark * Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa **Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoi ...
, with the help of
Uwe Schmidt Uwe H. Schmidt (born 27 August 1968), also known as Atom™, Atom Heart, or Señor Coconut, is a German composer, musician and producer of electronic music. He is often regarded as the father of electrolatino, electrogospel, and aciton musi ...
, released an electronic ode, "Stop
Plastic Pollution Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g. plastic bottles, bags and microbeads) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. Plastics that act as pollutants are catego ...
", for ocean environment conservation as part of the Parley for the Oceans campaign.


Departure from Kraftwerk

Schneider did not perform on any of the dates of the Kraftwerk 2008 world tour, with his last performance with the band being in November 2006 in Spain. His position onstage was subsequently filled by Stefan Pfaffe, an associate working for the band as a video technician. According to a close associate of the group, Schneider left Kraftwerk in November 2008. On 6 January 2009, ''
NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'' confirmed Schneider's departure. Reputedly, Schneider's departure followed a dispute with Hütter over a bicycle pump, a rumour which some sources describe as unfounded.


Death

Schneider died from cancer on 21 April 2020, fourteen days after his 73rd birthday, having suffered from the illness for a short time.


Legacy

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
titled his '' "Heroes"'' instrumental track "
V-2 Schneider "V-2 Schneider" is a largely instrumental song written by David Bowie in 1977 for the album '' "Heroes"''. It was a tribute to Florian Schneider, Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray (1981). ''Bowie: An Illustrated Record'': p.92 co-founder of the ba ...
" after Schneider, and was heavily influenced by Kraftwerk's sound during his "Berlin period" in the late 1970s. Shortly after Schneider's death, the bells of the
St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht, or Dom Church ( nl, Domkerk), is a Gothic church dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, which was the cathedral of the Diocese of Utrecht during the Middle Ages. It is the country's only pre-Reformation cathedral, ...
rang out with the tones of the song "
Das Model "Das Model" ("The Model" in English) is a song recorded by the German group Kraftwerk in 1978, written by musicians Ralf Hütter and Karl Bartos, with artist Emil Schult collaborating on the lyrics. It is featured on the album, ''Die Mensch- ...
". On 12 May 2021, Kraftwerk was announced as one of the inductees of the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and othe ...
.


Notes


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Schneider, Florian 1947 births 2020 deaths 20th-century German male musicians 21st-century German male musicians Deaths from cancer in Germany German electronic musicians German flautists German people of Jewish descent Kraftwerk members Musicians from Düsseldorf Robert Schumann Hochschule alumni 20th-century flautists 21st-century flautists