Karl Höller

Karl Höller (25 July 1907 – 14 April 1987) was a German composer of the late Romantic tradition.

Karl Höller was born in Bamberg, Bavaria. He came from a musical family on both sides: his father Valentin Höller was the Bamberg Cathedral organist for 40 years, and his grandfather and great-grandfather were organists at Würzburg Cathedral. His aunt Gretchen was the first female organist at Würzburg. His mother was a singer, whose father had been a choir director and musician. He showed aptitude for the organ at an early age. He was a choirboy from age six, and he studied piano, organ and cello in Bamberg. He went to the Würzburg Conservatory where he studied composition under Hermann Zilcher; and to the Munich Academy of Music, where he studied composition with Joseph Haas and Waltershausen, organ with Gatscher, and conducting with Siegfried von Hausegger. After taking his composition and organ examinations in 1929, he became a master-class student of Haas. He taught at the Munich Academy (1933–37), from 1937 in Frankfurt at the Hoch Conservatory and Hochschule für Musik (1938–46), and the Munich Conservatory (Hochschule für Musik) (1949–72; taking over the composition class of his teacher Joseph Haas). In 1942 Höller joined the NSDAP.

He was also president of the Munich Hochschule für Musik from 1954 to 1972.

Höller became a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin in 1952, and an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in 1958.

His compositions are characterized by polyphony and colourful, impressionistic harmony and orchestration. They are redolent of Paul Hindemith, Hans Pfitzner, Max Reger and the French 20th century school. He wrote in a tonal idiom regardless of the prevailing fashions, which meant that he was initially criticised as modernist, and later as a reactionary. His music has been recorded by such artists as Eugen Jochum (Symphonic Fantasy and Sweelinck Variations), Wilhelm Furtwängler (Cello Concerto No. 2, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra) and others.

Karl Höller died on 14 April 1987 in Hausham, Miesbach, Bavaria.