I do seem to post a lot about obscure composers!
I think that I mentioned Holler before in a thread about German composers of the 1930s. Holler was born in Bamberg in 1907 and studied organ, piano, cello, and conducting as well as composition. He taught in Munich from 1933-1937, Frankfurt 1937-1946 and Munich again 1949-1972. He was President of the Munich Hochschule fur Musik from 1954 until 1972.
I chanced upon a CD which DGG issued some time ago of historic recordings by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Eugen Jochum of Holler's Symphonic Phantasie for Orchestra on a theme of Girolamo Frescobaldi and his Sweelinck Variations for Orchestra. These works seemed to me to be the work of a highly proficient composer working in the tradition of Paul Hindemith but influenced-to a certain degree-by French music as well.
Holler intrigued me as a German composer who had continued the traditions of Romanticism both before the war and beyond in a country where such traditions had become very unfashionable. Holler wrote two violin concertos, two cello concertos, a piano concerto, an organ concerto, a good deal of chamber music, music for the organ and choral works. He also wrote two big symphonies(1942-46 and 1973) which-to my great surprise-have actually recently been recorded by a German label with which I was totally unfamiliar-Ambitus.
I have(of course) ordered them directly from the company itself.
I wonder if anyone out there has any other knowledge of Holler?
