Education
In 1945, he both graduated from the Academy and was appointed organ teacher there.
In 1945, he both graduated from the Academy and was appointed organ teacher there.
Born in Vienna, he was first trained in church music by Wilhelm Mück, organist of Vienna"s Stephansdom (Street Stephen"s Cathedral). He then combined work as répétiteur and choirmaster at the Vienna Volksoper with further study at the Vienna Academy of Music under Bruno Seidlhofer (piano, organ, harpsichord) and Friedrich Reidinger (music theory and composition) while serving in the military service, mostly as a medical aide. He was promoted to professor in 1957.
Heiller"s career after World World War II is an uninterrupted list of concerts, lectures, records, jury service at contests, and professional honors.
A few years before the first of them, he had released a set of recordings for Vanguard of many of Bach"s larger organ works on a majestic Marcussen instrument in Sweden. His two Haydn Society LPs, from the early 1950s, of Joseph Haydn"s Symphonies 26 ("Lamentation") and 36.
And Symphonies 52 and 56, are distinguished for their forthright conciseness and straightforwardness, without gratuitous ritardandi or other tempo changes not requested by Haydn in the score. Offered the conductorship of the Vienna State Opera he declined in order to concentrate on keyboard playing, although near the end of his life he said he was looking forward to conducting more.
In whatever works he performed he displayed formidable technique, immense rhythmic strength and, in particular, a rare talent for clarifying and maintaining the momentum of the most complex polyphonic passages with what sounded like effortless ease.
He also composed from his teens onward. He died unexpectedly and prematurely in Vienna at 55, collapsing after choking on food, from what was thought to be a cardiac event. His notable pupils include Monique Gendron, Judy Glass, Yuko Hayashi, Grant Hellmers, Monika Henking, Wolfgang Karius, January Kleinbussink, Bernard Lagacé, Brett Leighton, Peter Planyavsky, Michael Radulescu, Christa Rakich, Paula Pugh Romanaux, Christa Rumsey, David Rumsey, David Sanger, Bruce Stevens, Sibyl Urbancic, and Jean-Claude Zehnder.