Hugo Distler was a sensitive young man. He was a musician born in a time that would crush many a man. As a child born in Nurnberg in 1908, this youth flourished under the Weimar Republic and the rebirth of German culture that followed the first world war. He studied at Leipzig Conservatory and his life was all music, but soon Hitler came to power. This is a young man who managed to postpone being called up to the Wehrmacht (the united armed forces of Germany) five times. Five times! Can you imagine how that was done? The last time however, was his last time. He no longer could avoid it.
Many great minds escaped when Hitler came to power, but at 25, Distler was yet a little fish, and not yet grown in stature enough for persecution from the Nazis, nor encouragement, assistance to escape, from admirers. Perhaps not even the conscious choice or the understanding that somehow he would be a random nail in their wheels of destruction.
Distler was considered "the newest musical talent of his age" says John H. Lienhard. He was made head of the chamber music department at Lübeck Conservatory, and he was still running under the Facist radar. He was doing work that was unique in traditional church music, applying tonal qualities, changing the norm. While the church existed under the Third Reich, it was not a powerful entity and here as well as everywhere else in their society, nothing escaped the vision and parameters of the Reich. The work of Distler was "degenerate" and he was to be called up and to be sent away to the front, once and for all.
His work was stirring the German soul and the Nazis would have none of that. He was singled out and his music would no longer be tolerated. When all that happened, he viewed his life in the prism of his own loss. He was suffering from depression complicated by the loss of so many friends, aerial bombings, the pressure of working within a church system that was being forced to constrain all his creative efforts to adhere to unbearable missives for its own meager survival, and the constant fear of conscription to the army and then the final notice of it. Unable to delay his fate any longer and mired in the sludge of the political climate, he opened his own oven door and gassed himself in 1942.
Wandering around in St. Jakobi Church in Luebeck Germany during our recent visit there, I found a display of items with personal photographs and writings of Hugo Distler. I had no idea what I was really looking at but I felt called to it all in a way. I took several pictures, which are not very good, but helped me be further attracted to this man's story. He was well loved in Luebeck. He was both the organist and choir director, also a great teacher, composer and cantor, all as a young man. As many did, he became involved with the Nazis only to keep his position.
Born in Nuremberg, he is known mostly for his sacred choral music. He attended Leipzig Conservatory first as a conducting student with piano as his secondary subject, but changing later, on the advice of his teacher, to composition and organ. He became organist at St. Jacobi in Lübeck in 1931. In 1933 he married Waltraut Thienhaus. That same year he joined the NSDAP: reluctantly, but his continued employment depended on his doing so. Distler also taught at the School for Church Music in Spandau, and became a professor of church music in Berlin in 1940. (Wiki)
Distler was organist here at age 23, in 1931 and went to Berlin in 1940 to work at the Berlin Hochschule where he was also director of the Catherdral Choir. It was there in Berlin in 1942 that he ended his life at the age of 34. He died at a very young age, yet his work and his gift were really only partially realized. His work considered degenerate was only re-discoverd after the defeat of the Nazis and then its breath was really in the church sector, all other pieces out of date with current trends apparently. As recently as 1999 a puppet theater score was found, one imagines what a great range his work would have had if t had been allowed to flourish.
My thoughts are drawn to many young people of this era, I have taught classes about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his active work against the Nazis. He was a young Lutheran pastor who died for his resistance at the hand of them. Perhaps someday I will post on my thoughts of him too.
Hugo Distler's deep religious roots strongly influenced his compositional style. His pieces are very polyphonic, free, and frequently melismatic. Many are based on the pentatonic scale. These features are all characteristic of early scared music. His works, few in number, are also quite virtuosic. Unfortunately, Distler's works were stigmatized by the Nazi regime as "degenerate art".
2 partitas
30 Speilstücke
A Sonata
by Areyh Oron
The organ at St. Jacobi's Church Luebeck Germany which was played by Hugo Distler and suffered no damage in the 1942 bombing of the city by the RAF.
This is the main alter in the church.
Part of the display regarding Hugo Distler.
Hugo and his wife who he married in 1933.
"The German composer was born in Nuremberg in 1908 and is known mostly for his church choral music. His work is polyphonic and frequently melismatic, often based on the pentatonic scale. Distler enjoyed his first success in 1935 at the official Kassel Music Days (Kasseler Musiktage).
On Christmas Eve 1931 he send a valuable manuscript of his composition Kleine Adventsmusik to Waltraut Thienhaus. This was understood as a official proposal of marriage. More than a year later - in 1933 - Waltraut Thienhaus and Hugo Distler married."
From: Barbara Distler-Harth: Hugo Distler. Schott Music. ED 20399
Husband and wife.
Famous sketch of Hugo.
Famous photograph taken at the church organ.
Photo of the pipes and also sheet music, original composition.
Candid photo.
Choir picture and grave marker.
Hugo Distler prematurely ended his life on All Saints Day, Sunday, November 1, 1942. Hugo Distler was laid to rest in the forest cemetery in Stahnsdorf. A favorite New Testament quote of Distler, one he used in a motet and that likewise stands as the motto for his life and death, was engraved upon the wooden cross: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
http://www.thediapason.com/Celebrating-Hugo-Distler-100-Year-Anniversary-of-the-Birth-of-a-Genius-article9653
The link which tells the story of his most "degenerate" piece and it's aftermath.
Copyright 2011 by Sheila TGTG55 unless otherwise noted.
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Comments
Frankly I was surprised to see anything here about any composer....
rated with hugs
such a brilliant mind
a casualty of madness
next time i hear church music
his name will sing
GeeBee: Thanks for stopping and sharing being degenerate with me today!
Cranky: Artists in all forms suffer in those regimes because the very essence of them is not to conform but to create and re shape our world with that ability. You are right.
Mime: Thanks Mime. To remember, and talk about those who are gone is the connection between this world and the next, they are crossed over in our consciousness and their wisdom is not lost. We are crossed over to them in our remembrance and grounded in what knowledge they have shared. Together we build the tomorrows and our own eternities. No one is really alone as long as they have remembrance.
Jon: Thanks Jon, that is very kind of you to say so!
the beauty he created
the beauty and sensitivity
thank you for helping us discover him
rated with love
I am catching up and am glad that I found this wonderful post!
r
Susie: That is amazing. Thank you for stopping by!