"If I have anything valuable at all to offer as a musician, if there is any quality in the way I read music, make music or teach music, I owe all of it--hundred percent to Walter Bricht." (Walter Taussig, former conductor of the New York Metropolitan Opera).

I count my lessons and classes with Mr. Bricht among the most important of my training at IU. He was an amazing coach and teacher! I will never forget the Romantic Song Literature classes. His connection via his mother back to Brahms was so significant in our study of German Romantic Song. His insights into the literature were brilliant. I loved working with him--he was a kind, warm, and sensitive mentor as well as a brilliant coach. (Daune Mahy).

"I arrive now at the most amazing fact that one student of the most famous, overwhelmingly great teacher [Franz Schmidt] should approach another student of that same teacher, hardly older than himself [Bricht], and humbly ask to be accepted as his private pupil, trembling in anticipation and hope for a positive answer." (Walter Robert).

I remember Walter Bricht as a frail little man, very knowledgeable about vocal music, who was a superb accompanist and taught a very interesting class in song literature that I feel fortunate to have been enrolled in. I remember that he often shared with us fascinating accounts of his experiences as an accompanist to some of the great singers of the early part of the last century, including the legendary Leo Slezak. Knowing him and working with him were high points of my studies at Indiana University. (Kenneth Mahy).

I was in awe of his virtually first-hand knowledge of the great traditions and some of the great Austrian and German composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I believe that some of the Hugo Wolf lieder were actually written with [Agnes Pyllemann, his mother] in mind. (Robert Larsen).

Walter Bricht was an amazing teacher and an amazing human being. He was always very warm towards his students, and he really worked hard to help them along the way. He had a mind that did not quit - he amazed everyone at the school by playing the Trout Quintet from memory with members of the Berkshire Quartet. He had a major impact on my playing and he really taught me how to appreciate my own students and what they could do. (Robin McNeil).

Here are a few more of Walter Bricht's many pupils that have achieved successful careers:

Zinaida Alvers - Mezzo-Soprano

Frederick Baldwin - Professor of Piano, formerly at Indiana University

Frederic Kurt - former Conductor, Albuquerque Symphony

Roy Johnson - Professor of Piano, University of Kansas

Beatrice Krebs - Mezzo-Contralto

Robert Larsen - Founder of the Des Moines Metro Opera

Paul Stewart - Chairman: Keyboard Division, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Ted Wylie - Professor of Music, and Coordinator of International Studies at Belmont University, Nashville, TN. Operatic performer with multiple organizations

Ludwig Zirner - Former professor of Piano and Theory, later director of School of Music opera program during the 1960s and early 1970s at the University of Illinois

Bricht, the Teacher