Hindemith

Hindemith’s Harp Sonata: Songs and Images

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German composer Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) had a deep fascination for the colors and technical capabilities of musical instruments. Principally a violinist and violist, Hindemith was proficient on numerous other instruments, including the piano, bassoon, clarinet, and cello. He composed more than forty sonatas which encompassed nearly every standard orchestral instrument. His orchestral music unfolds with a sonorous majesty. The composer considered many of the sonatas to be technical exercises, written concurrently with …

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Hindemith’s Six Chansons: An Ode to Nature, Harmony, and Community

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Composed in 1939, Paul Hindemith’s Six Chansons for a cappella choir are an ode to nature, harmony, and community. Set to French-language poems by the Austrian writer, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), they offer a dreamy remembrance of the music of the Renaissance and the French chanson. Brief, simple, and serene, this is music of escape. Having fled the Nazis, Hindemith was living amid the Alpine splendor of Valais, Switzerland. Months later, he …

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Hindemith’s “Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber”: Music of Transformation

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The word “metamorphosis” signifies a transformation from an embryonic state to maturity. Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber by Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) employs this process. The four-movement orchestral work, completed in 1943, is based on obscure music by Weber, an innovative opera composer who is credited with expanding the size and dramatic scope of the orchestra at the dawn of the Romantic period. The themes, almost completely preserved, are drawn …

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Hindemith’s “Mathis der Maler” Symphony: An Artist in Society

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In 1934, as the Nazis rose to power in his native Germany, Paul Hindemith worked concurrently on an opera and a symphony, both of which emerged from the same musical source. The opera, Mathis der Maler (“Mathias the Painter”), is a fictional account of the life of the German Renaissance painter, Mathias Grunewald (c. 1475-1528). It is set during Central Europe’s Peasants’ War of 1524, a brief, but tumultuous, rebellion which was …

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Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Poulenc: Three Twentieth Century Pastorales

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With roots in the Baroque period, the musical pastorale evokes a serene, bucolic landscape. Often, it rolls along in a gentle 6/8 time and suggests the simple, free-floating melodies and drones of a shepherd’s bagpipes. J.S. Bach’s Pastorella In F Major, BWV 590 for organ, the final movement of Corelli’s “Christmas” Concerto, and the Pastoral Symphony from Handel’s Messiah are famous examples. The sound world of the twentieth century was dominated by …

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1963 Telecast: Hindemith Leads the CSO in Music of Hindemith, Bruckner, Brahms

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In 1963, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was in transition. The French conductor, Jean Martinon, was beginning his five-year tenure as music director following the death of the legendary Fritz Reiner. Over the preceding ten years, the fierce and autocratic Reiner had turned the CSO into what Igor Stravinsky called, “the most precise and flexible orchestra in the world.” We hear the ensemble Reiner built in all of its glory in this April 7, …

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