1 - Very Early, Very Fast, Very Steep

Summary

When Anton Heiller dived headlong into the musical life of Vienna, he landed in several pools at once. At the age of seventeen he already had a number of appearances as an organist behind him; at age eighteen he appeared playing harpsichord and piano in concerts at the Reichsmusikhochschule, and even sang baritone solos; at nineteen he became assistant choir director with both the Vienna Singverein and also at the Vienna Volksoper; at twenty he composed his first works, which cannot just be called youthful efforts; at twentythree he joined the teaching faculty of the Vienna Musikademie; at twenty-five he conducted Franz Schmidt's Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln at the Musikverein, and at twenty-six he was appointed a panel member with full voting rights for the organ restoration project at Heiligenkreuz Abbey.

His ascent was remarkably swift. There were no “preliminary rounds” to deal with. Heiller rarely had to wait his turn. One day, it seems, he was considered “very promising,” a “young hopeful,” and the next, he was performing in the fabled concert venues of Vienna and teaching at the Musikakademie.

Anton Heiller's childhood and youth do not offer any clues or signs that foreshadow his amazing entry into Vienna's musical life in 1945—nothing spectacular, in any case. There is however a very firm grounding in music and a persistent leaning toward music. This is why a closer look at Heiller's early years is necessary, because the surroundings in which he grew up are so essential to the formation of his artistic personality and, as will be discussed later, his spiritual development.

Anton Heiller was born on September 15, 1923, in the family home at no. 26 Heuberggasse. The house had belonged to the Heiller family since 1898. The suburb Dornbach, in the seventeenth district of Vienna, was a “good” area, not quite at the peak of Vienna's most desirable suburbs, but nevertheless quite close to the top. His father, Anton Maximilian (1897–1962) was, like his own father, a bank clerk; his mother Karoline, née Senfelder, lived from 1899 to 1982. Erna Hladik, later to be his wife, and her parents lived in the neighboring suburb of Währing.