Hugo Distler studied organ with Günther Ramin and composition with Hermann Grabner in Leipzig .
He then worked as cantor and organist at St. Jacobi in Lübeck and taught composition and organ at the Stuttgart Musikhochschule from 1937 onwards.
In 1940 he took up the same position at the Berlin Musikhochschule and also became director of the Berlin Cathedral Choir in 1941.
Considerably influenced by the Lübeck Stellwagen organ at St. Jacobi, he championed the characteristic pre-Baroque and Baroque sound of the organ and the forms which best suited it. His stylistic preference was for a specifically neo-Baroque, functional-objective type of sound.
This critical edition with previously unpublished works includes the forewords of the first editions, facsimiles, a critical commentary for each volume as well as a list of sources.
