DISTLER

Hugo Distler centennial

Born in Nuremberg on 24 June 1908, Hugo Distler attended Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied piano, conducting, composition, and organ. He served as an organist in Lübeck, and taught in Spandau before his appointment as professor of church music in Stuttgart. A profoundly religious man, Distler found himself caught in the crossfire during the escalation of World War II; he was only 25 when Hitler came to power.

Driven by devotion that was far too progressive for the German traditionalism of his day, Distler composed, quite simply, the wrong music at the wrong time. Distler's music, replete with spiritual fervor that was not tolerated by the Nazis, was eventually labeled as "degenerate art." As a conscientious objector who was under the constant threat of conscription into the German army, Distler grew increasingly disillusioned and depressed.

On 1 November 1942, the pressure became too much for the composer to bear. While his wife and children were out for a walk, Hugo Distler put his head in a gas oven, committing suicide at age 34. Distler's tragic life ended with an ironic footnote: on the following day, the letter arrived that would have exempted him from military service.

Although his life was shorter than that of Mozart and he composed in a far more hostile climate, Hugo Distler was a prolific and pioneering choral composer. His virtuosic choral brilliance is exemplified in Geistliche Chormusik (Op 12), his collection of nine sacred motets composed between 1935 and 1941. These candidly quirky and delightfully demanding choral motets breathe new life into the four-square tunes of the German Reformation, and allow them to dance with spirited syncopation and pentatonic polyphony.

Please join The Esoterics to celebrate the life and work of this master choral composer.

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