Hugo Distler:

As German as Ever

Alexander Pattavina

Arts in the Third Reich | Research Paper

 Alexander Pattavina
Arts in the Third Reich
Research Paper

Hugo Distler:
As German as Ever

Several artists who lived during the terrors of the Third Reich were

required to alter their output to adhere to Nazi ideals. Painters could only

draw what Nazis approved. Writers had to pen material that promoted the

Nazi way. Musicians were not allowed to compose anything that did not

sound fit to the Nazis. During the Third Reich, artists in Germany responded

to the Nazi rules in different ways: many adhered to the rules for their

survival, some fled the country to live in freer areas, and a number of artists

took stances against the restrictions. Hugo Distler was one of those artists.

Despite the arbitrary regulations that the Nazi Party set for newly composed

music, Distler remained resolute in creating music that was unique, wholly

German, and daringly eclectic.

Distlers music is not widely heard in the United States. Being

primarily NeoBaroque in nature, his compositions can often be described as

angular, rigid, and edgy. Because many of Distlers works are unattractive to

the American ear, they are not performed in the concert hall. For this

reason, there is a small output of English language source material

discussing Hugo Distler. While there are plenty of German texts that explain

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all aspects of his life and compositions, so few are translated into let alone,

written in English. Therefore, what is available in English specifically and

exclusively on Distler includes a single book, the occasional article, and a

handful of dissertations (Pierson, 1). To further complicate this, many of

these sources overlap the same information. Having lived a life as short as

he did, Distlers story is not very welldocumented. While scores of his music

are, perhaps, easily available, recordings are not as easy to come across.

The bulk of his presence on YouTube consists of videos of his choral music

taken with cell phones. In fact, there seem to be only two high quality

images of Distler on the internet.

It turns out that the greatest story of Hugo Distlers life is in his

persistence to advance and contribute to the NeoBaroque school of

composition. His works consisted of two Harpsichord Concertos, a plethora

of works for organ, an overwhelming majority of choral works, and some

other miscellaneous works. Like many organistcomposers, his works

bridged the gap between the sacred and the secular. His choral and organ

works are generally sacred; his others being considered secular.

It is important to be aware of two essential background elements in

order to understand Hugo Distlers story. First, several of Distlers

compositions were considered degenerate (German: entartete) because of

the way they sounded to Nazis. Second, many of Distlers works were

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informed by the beginning of the Organ Reform Movement (German:

Orgelbewegung). One can decipher influences in not only his organ music,

but also his instrumental and choral music.

It is no secret that the Nazis had specific tastes when it came to art.

Music was no exception. For a piece to be Naziapproved, it had to fulfill

certain guidelines. First of all, a piece had to be German that is to say,

written by a German composer who Nazis would not already persecute.

Second, a composition had to sound grand in some way. Rallylike marches

were the favorite of many Nazis. Third, a work had to be consonant and

comfortably tonal. Hitler and Goebbels considered the music of Beethoven,

Wagner, and Bruckner to be the best. Any work with intense chromaticism

let alone atonal was not Nazi approved: degenerate.

The pipe organ, notoriously hailed by Mozart as The King of

Instruments, was Distlers primary instrument. Having studied organ

playing in college, he profoundly understood its intricacies. While Distler was

a student, the pipe organ was entering a period of drastic, awkward

development. While instigated by Germans at the 1926 Freiburg Conference

of Organ Building, American organ builders took the philosophies to an

extreme. The organs of J.S. Bachs time in Germany were warm, bright, and

rich. German Baroque organs lend themselves beautifully and successfully

to Bachs organ repertoire. As generations passed, German organs evolved

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into lush, dark Romantic monsters that composers Liszt, Reger, and Reubke

would have known. Similar progressions happened in the United States and

France. In the early twentieth century, German organ building went through

a revival, The Organ Reform Movement (Orgelbewegung). Builders returned

back to the Baroquestyle instruments of their ancestors, this time, using the

most uptodate technology available. In response to the intense Romantic

instruments, pipe organs in 1920s Germany became much brighter than any

instruments that came before. In the 1920s and 1930s, organ builders in the

United States saw this trend and amplified the ideology. American organs in

the NeoBaroque style became extremely brilliant to a fault by the late

1930s. Brilliance of the sound, historic chif (percussive pipe speech), and

bizarre reedy voices became priorities over cohesion in sound, quality of

voicing, and careful selection of organ stops. This phase in organ building

was heard around the world as the default organ sound for composers such

as Hugo Distler, Paul Hindemith, and Ernst Pepping.

Distler was a great contributor to the world of sacred music:

specifically, to the Lutheran church. While much of Distlers early life is not

terribly pertinent to his story, one can follow his career and life

circumstances to gain a greater understanding of his musical output.

Born to nonmusicians on June 24 of 1908, he was said to be, small,

thin, tender, lean a small, little boy, very, very nervous (Pierson, 8).

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Having begun music studies at an early age, one of his first mentors,

Ingeborg Heinsen, described a great sense of musicality and sensitivity. His

first composition was dedicated to Heinsen. Several years later, Hugo asked

her to destroy the piece, as it did not live up to his standards at the time. He

would prove to be quite the selfcritical perfectionist throughout his career.

By 1927, young Hugo had begun studies at the Conservatory in

Leipzig. Initially, he was a major in conducting and a minor in piano

performance. His teachers unanimously agreed that he would be better off

to switch his studies to a major in composition and a minor in organ

performance. During this time, Distler published his first two works: a

Concert Sonata for Two Pianos and a choral motet. His early publications

certainly gave him confidence that studying composition was the right thing

to do; although he would later care less for these works. His two primary

mentors Hermann Grabner (composition) and Gnther Ramin (organ)

were major figures in his life and education. Both teachers were

instrumental in the Organ Reform Movement. For this reason, each teacher

influenced Distlers education to fall in the lines of the NeoBaroque organ

school.

In August of 1930, Distler would have one of the first major hardships

in his life. The death of his stepgrandfather, who had been covering the

costs of Hugos conservatory education, required him to end his studies

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prematurely. No longer a student, stillyoung Distler had to step into the real

world and find a job. He immediately had his eyes on the organistmusic

director position at St. Jacobs Church in Lbeck. His conservatory teachers,

Grabner, Ramin, and Martienssen (piano), recommended Hugo highly for the

position. Their praise especially that of Ramin enabled him to have the

job of his dreams. He began working on January 31, 1931.

One could say that Distlers time in Lbeck was analogous to J.S.

Bachs time in Leipzig. In Leipzig, Bach wrote a large number of his most

significant works for organ and for choir. The same is, perhaps, true of

Distler. His position at St. Jacobs Church was a dream job: he had two

significant pipe organs at his disposal, he was the successor to the great

composer Dieterich Buxtehude, and he had such a freedom with the music

program that he could write all the music he wanted for the services. At St.

Jacobs he was a prolific as he ever would be. He composed his first major

piece for organ, a Partita on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (Op. 8), based

on the Lutheran chorale of the same name. Distler performed this for the

renowned composer, Paul Hindemth, who reacted rather positively. On top of

this encouragement, during his time in Lbeck, Distler met the woman who

would become his wife: Waltraut Thienhaus. They married in October 1933

and eventually had two children.

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 As a musician working in Germany in the 1930s, Distler was required to

join the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (or NSDAP, which, of

course, is known as the Nazi party). In the wake of the First World War, the

Nazi party had promised stability in such a rocky time. To musicians, the

Nazis promised a greater prominence for music for Distler, choral music,

specifically if the party would rise. They also offered an easy method of

copyright protection for musical scores that a fractured German government

was not prepared to provide.

Despite success after success, life was not without difficulty for

Distler (Pierson, 21). His life was punctuated with minor patches of trauma.

In January of 1934, Distler underwent a nervous breakdown. Between

serving at St. Jacobs Church, teaching organ lessons, becoming newly

appointed chair of chamber music at Lbeck Conservatory, stress and

exhaustion of multiple jobs must have weighed him down mentally. Pierson

also claims that Distlers specific stresses were not enough: he was, perhaps,

after a higher level of achievement. After a recovery that spanned several

months, signs of depression remained. To further complicate his state,

Distler found the body of one of his organ students who had jumped from the

organ loft of St. Jacobs Church. Additionally, his motherinlaw committed

suicide at the young age of fortynine.

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 Composed while in Lbeck, one of Distlers sweeter works is excerpted

from his Die Weihnachtsgeschichte (The Christmas Story, Op. 10). Distlers

Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (A Rose has Sprung) variations are based upon a

tune attributed to Michael Praetorius. Although it serves as a theme in a

theme and variations set, it serves well as a standalone, and is often

performed as such. The writing style is contrapuntal, polyphonic, and florid.

Dr. Timothy Cambpell writes Distlers style, Music of the Renaissance and

Baroque provided a strong foundation for Distlers compositions (Cambpell,

14). The melody is presented unaltered in the Soprano voice. The Alto and

Tenor voices enter together a beat behind and harmonize using the contour

of the melody until the Bass part enters, in syncopated rhythms. The voices

seem rather independent at the start of each phrase, but unify by the end. A

curious triplet in the Alto part (measure 12) evokes the turning ornaments of

the Baroque; the polyphonic texture echoes the music of the Renaissance.

Fortunately for Distler, the Nazis did not consider this piece to be

degenerate.

During his final years in Lbeck, Distler oversaw the major overhaul

and restoration of the two historic and famous organs at St. Jacobs Church.

While his time in Lbeck was quite successful and fruitful, the churchs Pastor

and several of his close friends in Lbeck had to leave for various reasons. A

tempting fulltime offer in Berlin was trumped by an offer from the

Wrttemberg Hochschule fr Musik (Wrttemberg Music College) in Stuttgart

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as choir director. Pierson suggests that Distler took this position so he would

have a strong choir to conduct (23). Perhaps he could use this choir as a

compositional laboratory in the same way as he used St. Jacobs Church.

Controversially, Distler was appointed to the Reichmusikkammer

(Reich Chamber of Music) in 1937. At this point, several of his compositions

were published by Brenreiter, over which the Nazis held a tight grip.

Essentially, the Nazis were able to veto any music they determined to be

degenerate. In accepting his appointment, he seemed to contradict his

values at least to the public eye by joining a committee with whom he

disagreed. However, this was a post he accepted likely because working for

the Nazis would provide some sort of safety from the Nazis.

At the Hochschule, he was promoted to Professor (in this case, a state

title) in 1940. This freed him from war service and provided some financial

stability. However, due to his demanding hours, he did not have much

compositional output. With the Second World War brewing, the threat of the

draft was increasing. His new professorship would only be able to keep him

away from the war for so long.

Distler seemed to do well with changes of scenery at least for a short

period. In 1940, he began a position in Berlin at the Conservatory as an

instructor of organ, conducting, and composition. While working in Lbeck at

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St. Jacobs Church was a milestone a dream job his next appointment

would be his life goal. Hugo Distler became the conductor of the Berlin State

& Cathedral Choir in 1942.

Regardless of how much success Distler could see, he still had issues

with depression and political turmoil. Distler had previously avoided no less

than three drafts. As the name suggests, the Berlin State & Cathedral Choir

was subject to orders from state authorities Nazis. They required Distler to

eliminate all sacred music, as the thought of a divine power greater than

Hitler himself was threatening to the Nazi party. To further cause chaos in his

life, he visited Lbeck, a place he treasured, discovering that it had been

destroyed in a bombing. Tormented, himself, he ended his life in 1942. Larry

Palmer writes:

On the evening of Oct. 31 he went for a long walk,

came home and played his beloved house organ for

the last time, selecting a Bach A Major trio on Allein

Gott in der Hh sei Ehr from the Leipzig Great

Eighteen chorale preludes as his farewell. The

following day, Nov. 1, was All Saints Day. The

tormented young man ended the living horror of his

life. He moved a bed into the kitchen, placed a

photograph of his dear family so he could see it, took

a Bible in one hand and a brass cross in the other,

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 turn on the gas, and lay down to sleep forever. His

farewell letter to his wife was almost childlike in its

simplicity, I have yet only one plea in the word: that

you not be angry with me. Who knows more than you

what a Lebensangst [cause of angst] has been

with me all my life? All that I created remained

beneath this sign.

Palmer, 71

Inspired by two seventeenthcentury German greats Heinrich Schtz and

Leonhard Lechner (considered by Nazis to be degenerate) he chose a

powerful, joyful organ chorale of J.S. Bach to be the last music for his ears: a

hymn of praise for a fractured soul.

Nazis found Distlers music to be too modern and too dissonant. The

fact that he wrote music for the Lutheran Church was suspicious to them.

How could any deity be greater than Hitler? Christianity felt like a challenge

to their beliefs. Being steeped in the NeoBaroque school of composition,

Distler revived old forms and incorporated them into his music. Many of his

choral works are polyphonic and melismatic. Those two qualities common

of the (nonGerman) motets and Mass ordinaries of Palestrina and da

Victoria, for example were not consistent with the intense Wagnerlike or

Beethovenlike sound that they sought. Martin Anderson effectively

describes Distlers compositions as, generally, liberally dissonant within a

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strongly tonal framework, the asperity resulting from the play of contrapuntal

lines rather than from wilful [sic, witful?] experiment.

Distlers Second Harpsichord Concerto was considered degenerate by

Nazis. After its premiere, it received mixed reviews. Dr. Peter Raabe of the

Reichsmusikkammer (of which Distler was a member) wrote of the

performance:

[There] was the general aggravation of Hugo Distlers

Concerto for Harpsichord, an inyourface example

of degenerate art. The delicate domestic

harpsichord was utilized in an unnatural waylike a

piano. At the Finale the young composer seemed to

be driven by the devil! This motoric noisy music

chattered endlessly on ... Listeners could only laugh.

Palmer (Diapason), 1

That is a classic example of a Nazi take on nonNaziapproved music. Their

shallow view of music and culture is apparent here. What is impressive is

Distlers persistence. Despite countless drawbacks in his life between family

issues, political issues, and career issues, he still found a way to create music

like no other. Drawing on the styles of several other composers across all

eras, he created eclectic music that was as German as ever, regardless of

what the Nazis called it.

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 Of all the artists who were born into the mess of the Third Reich,

many of them found a way to live their lives and make things work. Hugo

Distler did not. Seeing the evils of the Third Reich take the lives of his

friends and family, he ended his own life at the young age of thirty-four.

Distler, a pioneer of NeoBaroque music, blended strict counterpoint and

form with modern harmony. Distler was also a leader in the world of sacred

music primarily the choral and organ genres. Hugo Distler can serve as an

example of a figure who took clear stances and made careful decisions on

how he and he alone would attempt to live his life. Every job he held

improved his life in a certain way, and allowed him to create music that he

believed the world needed.

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Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
Die Weihnachtsgeschichte, Op. 10
Hugo Distler

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 Bibliography

Pierson, Brad. Hugo Distler (1908-1942): Recontextualizing Distler's Music for

Performance in the Twenty-First Century. 2014. U of Washington, PhD dissertation.

Klaus L. Neumann. "Distler, Hugo." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford
University Press. Web. 24 Apr. 2017. <http://0-
www.oxfordmusiconline.com.library.juilliard.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/0785
4>.

Phelps, Lawrence I. "A Short History of the Organ Revival." Lawrence Phelps &
Associates, n/a,
www.lawrencephelps.com/Documents/Articles/Phelps/ashorthistory.shtml. Accessed
24 Apr. 2017. Editorial.

Palmer, Larry. Hugo Distler and His Church Music. Concordia, 1967.

Campbell, Timothy James. Championing Distlers Gebrauchsmusik: A New Edition of

the Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen Variations from Die Weihnachtsgeschichte, Op.
10 (1933). 2015. U of Arizona, PhD dissertation.

Palmer, Larry. "'Entartete' Music - Hugo Distler and the Harpsichord." The Diapason,
Aug. 2008, pp. 22-23. The Diapason,
www.thediapason.com/sites/thediapason.com/files/webDiapAug08p22-23.pdf.

"Nazi Approved Music." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust, U of South Florida,

2013, fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/arts/musreich.htm. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017.

Anderson, Martin. "Distler, Hugo." The Oxford Companion to Music. Ed. Alison
Latham. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 5 May. 2017. <http://0-
www.oxfordmusiconline.com.library.juilliard.edu/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e1983>.

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