Richard Behrens was born in 1925 at Kroondal near Rustenburg. After obtaining a BMus degree at the University of Stellenbosch, he joined the teaching staff at that University and later furthered his studies at the Hochschule fur Musik in Frankfurt-am-Main under the guidance of Helmut Walcha and Kurt Hessenberg. He became organist for the Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Stellenbosch in 1948. In 1961 he was appointed Director of the Music Conservatory at Stellenbosch and became professor in 1965. After his retirement as Director of the Conservatory he was appointed cultural attaché to the South African embassy in Vienna in 1988. He later acted as Executive Director of the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. In 1979 and 1987 Professor Behrens received the Cape Tercentenary Foundation’s award for outstanding work in the Cape Province. An Honours Licentiate in Music was bestowed on him by Unisa in 1999 and in 2005 he received a Parnassus Award. He was the founder of the Stellenbosch Arts Festival and a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Performing Arts.

This collection consists of 106 Behrens compositions of religious organ music (pdf), 34 of which are accompanied by audio files (mp3) containing the music as performed by Richard Behrens himself. Two screens must be opened up in order to view both the pdf and mp3 files at the same time.
Letter of consent

Collection managed by Nikki Haw Tel: +27 12 420 4707