Biography Hermann Heiß

29.12.1897

born in Darmstadt.

First exposure to music at home.

1916

Military draft.

1919

Return from American captivity. There first encounters with jazz. In the following years autodidactic studies.

1921

Composition lessons with Bernhard Sekles, piano with Willy Renner Frankfurt/Main.

1922

First performances, Heiß joins the Freie Gesellschaft für Musik.

1923–1925

Herman Heiß is increasingly occupied with twelve-tone music. Acquaintance with Josef Matthias Hauer. Studied with Hauer in Vienna.

1925/1926

Composition E-F-minor-D for piano, for Heiß a defining and fundamental work.

1926/27

Piano lessons with Alfred Hoehn in Frankfurt/Main

1928–1933

Music teacher on Spiekeroog

1933–1941

Freelance composer in Berlin, propaganda music. Commissioned work for the 1936 Olympics "Das Jahresrad", performance stopped, 1937 the fairy tale opera "Prinzessin Filigran".

1942

Return to Darmstadt

1944

Air raid on Darmstadt, many plants burn. Hermann Heiß goes to Vienna and teaches at the Music School, City of Vienna.

1946

Darmstadt. Musical and cultural commitment at Ottenheimer. Lecturer for composition at the Darmstadt Summer Courses.

1948

Georg Büchner Prize. Teacher for composition and composition at the Städtische Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt.

1951

First interest in electronic sound generation.

1952–1954

Experiments at the (N)WDR Studio in Cologne. First electronic works: 1953 "Electronic Studies", 1954 "Electronic Discontinuum."

1955

Head of the "Studio for Electronic Composition" at the Kranichsteiner Music Institute.

1956/57

Development of the Heiß-Vollmer tape recorder for more rational processing of the tape.

12.07.57

Foundation of the "Studio für elektronische Komposition Hermann Heiß Darmstadt" in the adjoining building of the Städtische Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt. In the following years, until his death, this studio produced numerous electronic compositions and commissioned music for stage, radio, film and television.

from 1957

National and international lectures on electronic music.

1958

Goethe Medal of the State of Hesse, Johann Heinrich Merck Award of the City of Darmstadt.

06.12.66

Hermann Heiß dies in Darmstadt.