Hugo Distler and His Church Music

187 pp. This book is the first biography in any language of this outstanding contemporary German Lutheran composer. Hugo Distler, who died in 1942, stands as a leader in the renewal of German church music which has profoundly influenced all church music, also in America. The movement for the renewal of music in the Evangelical Church of Germany began during the late 1920s and the 1930s. It resulted partly from the new understanding of the church which was developing at that time and partly from musicological studies in early Lutheran church music, organ construction, and other related areas. The two composers who came to the fore at this time in German church music were Hugo Distler and Ernst Pepping.