In addition, he studied musicology, art history, philosophy and physics at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in 1942 on the use of dissonance in Bruckner's symphonies.
He received his training as a pianist with Roderich Bass and Julius Varga at the Neues Wiener Konservatorium and with Hans Weber at the Vienna Academy of Music.
After the end of the war he lived as a freelance composer in Vienna with longer stays in Upper Austria, Styria, Salzburg and Orth on the Danube.
In the same year he was awarded the professional title Professor and the Austrian State Prize (for the oratorio Vom Tode) by the Federal President of Austria.
Among his students were Erich Urbanner, Iván Erőd, Gösta Neuwirth, Kurt Schwertsik, Otto M. Zykan, Charles Boone, Norma Wendelburg, Ramon Zupko, and Luca Lombardi.