Stanislav Heller

Stanislav Heller
Born(1924-09-15)15 September 1924
Brno, Czechoslovakia
Died23 January 2000(2000-01-23) (aged 75)
Jihlava, Czech Republic
OccupationHarpsichordist

Stanislav Heller (15 September 1924 – 23 January 2000) was a Czech harpsichordist and musicologist. After World War II, he lived and worked in the United Kingdom and Germany, and obtained British citizenship. After 1989, he returned to Czechoslovakia.

Life and career

Heller was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia on 15 September 1924,[1] to Stanislav Heller Sr., who was a lawyer in Brno, and Marie Hellerová.[2] He studied piano with Vilém Kurz and organ with Bedřich Antonín Wiedermann at the Prague Conservatory.[3] His family emigrated to Argentina after World War II. Stanislav Heller also spent a lot of time in South America and learned to speak Spanish fluently.[1]

In 1947, he moved to London and later obtained British citizenship.[3] He started a career as a concert harpsichordist there (one of the first concert harpsichordists in the 20th century) and also toured with Rafael Kubelík.

In the second half of the 1970s, Heller moved to Freiburg and worked as teacher of harpsichord at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg.[1] After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, he returned to Czechoslovakia and taught at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts.[4] He died on 23 January 2000 in Jihlava.[3][5]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Stanislav Heller (Harpsichord)". bach-cantatas.com. Retrieved 31 October 2025.
  2. ^ "Stanislav Heller". Encyklopedie dějin Brna (in Czech). Retrieved 31 October 2025.
  3. ^ a b c "Heller, Stanislav (1924 - 2000), harpsichordist". Grove Music Online. Archived from the original on 22 October 2018.
  4. ^ Willi, Barbara Maria (2024). "Vratislav Bělský – tajný cestovatel časem i prostorem". Vratislav Bělský – Musicus doctus et humanus (PDF) (in Czech). Brno: Moravská zemská knihovna v Brně. p. 200. ISBN 978-80-7051-353-8.
  5. ^ "Heller, Stanislav, 1924-2000" (in Czech). National Library of the Czech Republic. Retrieved 31 October 2025.