Hugo Distler - 30 Spielstücke op. 18/1 (1938)

Hugo Distler (24 June 1908 – 1 November 1942) was a German organist, choral conductor, teacher and composer.

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30 Spielstücke für die Kleinorgel, Op.18/1

The pieces have no titles, only tempo indications. However, in his afterword, Distler indicates some forms:
1-4. Sonatine
1. Intonation (00:00)​
2. Concertino (00:23)
3. Chaconne (1:48)
4. Kanon (5:23)
5. Langsam (6:44)
6. Toccata (8:33)
7. Fugato (9:25)
8. Nicht zu langsam (9:58)
9. Ruhig gehend (12:55)​
10. Pastorale (14:22)
11. Ruhig (15:16)​
12-17. Variationen “Frisch auf, gut Gsell, lass rummer gahn” (16:14)
18-24. Variationen “Elselein, liebstes Elselein” (19:13)
25-30. Variationen “Wo Gott zu Haus nit gibt sein Gunst” (24:35)

Laurens de Man at the van Andel organ, St.-Gertrudiskerk, Utrecht
Recorded September 20th, 2015, November 11th, 2017

Instrument built by Koen van Andel
http://www.koenvanandel.nl

Distler composed chamber pieces, works for solo piano and two concertos (one for harpsichord in 1935 and 1936 and one for piano in 1937), but he is known mostly for his sacred choral music and as a champion of Neo-Baroque music. His works are a re-invention of old forms and genres, rich with word painting, based on the music of Heinrich Schütz and other early composers.

His music is polyphonic and frequently melismatic, often based on the pentatonic scale. His works remain "tonally anchored", while at the same time they "reveal an innovative harmonic sense". Because of these characteristics, his music was stigmatized by some Nazis as "degenerate art".

He became the organist at St. Jacobi in Lübeck in 1931. In 1933 he married Waltraut Thienhaus. That same year he joined the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party), reluctantly, as his continued employment depended on his doing so. In October 1933 Distler was appointed head of the chamber music department at the Lübeck Conservatory, and at about the same time he began teaching at the Spandauer Kirchenmusikschule (Spandau school of church music).

In 1937 Distler was appointed as a lecturer at the Württemberg Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart, where he also directed its two choirs. In 1940 he moved to Berlin to teach and conduct at the Hochschule für Musik there, and in 1942 he was named the conductor of the State and Cathedral Choir.

He became increasingly depressed owing to the deaths of friends, aerial attacks, restrictions placed upon his teaching, a sense of isolation, and the constant threat of conscription into the German Army, all of it culminating in his suicide in Berlin at the age of 34. However, his suicide was probably not a direct result of antagonistic government pressure; "rather, it appears that he saw the futility of attempting to serve both God and Nazis, and came to terms with his own conscience unequivocally." He is buried in the Stahnsdorf cemetery.