Paul Hindemith During the 1920s,

¶ … Paul Hindemith

During the 1920s, Paul Hindemith emerged as one of the talented composers of his era, and would usher in what would become known as the "New Music" movement during the 1930s and he would even survive the Nazi regime with this career largely intact. This paper provides a series of responses to various biographical questions concerning Hindemith's life and music, followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning this composer in the conclusion.

When and where was the musician born?

According to the official Web site for this composer, "Paul Hindemith was born on 16 November 1895, the son of an artisan and a maid in Hanau [Germany]" (Hindemith early childhood and initial education 1).

What are the names of the musician's parents, their occupations and any additional facts regarding their role in developing the musician's musical talent?

Paul's father was Robert Rudolf Emil Hindemith (1835-1901), a struggling middle-class merchant (Hindemith early childhood and initial education 2). It is noteworthy that Paul's father was an aspiring but unsuccessful musician and even left home when his father argued against the career (Hindemith early childhood and initial education 2). Paul's father was killed in hand-to-hand combat in World War I in September 1915 (Hindemith early childhood and initial education 3).

Paul's mother was Marie Sophie Warnecke (1868-1949), with whom he was close and dedicated his "Unterweisung im Tonsata Theoretischer Teil" to her as a mark of his esteem in 1937 (Hindemith early childhood and initial education 4).

3. What are the facts regarding the musician's general education and musical training?

When he was a child, Hindemith studied a number of stringed and percussion instruments and enrolled in a music conservatory as an adolescent where he became interested in composing and conducting, and well as further studies in the violin (Hindemith and the Holocaust 3). Following a series of odd jobs after his father's death in 1915, Hindemith became the Frankfurt Opera orchestra concert master where he performed until 1923 except for a 2-year period when he was drafted for service in World War I (Hindemith and the Holocaust 4).

4. What instrument, or instruments, (include voice) did the musician play?

Although focused on composing, Hindemith also played the violin, viola and piano during the 1920s (Hindemuth and the Holocaust 4) and was regarded as a talented violist all his life (Concert Music for Brass and Strings 5).

5. Based on the range of years of the musician's life and work, to what traditional period of music history does he (or she) belong?

While his career spanned several decades, his compositions are best characterized as belonging to the New Music period in music history. For instance, according to one biographer, "Paul Hindemith was outstanding in the generation of German composers which came to maturity during the late 1920s and whose works display the diverse facets of all that is implied in the term 'New Music'" (Cooper 327). Indeed, Cooper describes Hindemith as the widely recognized leaders of this movement due to two main reasons: (1) because the various modern tendencies in post-war German music crystallized in his personality with extraordinary clarity and force; and (2) because of his superior musical gifts, his tremendous fertility and vitality, his truly extraordinary technical resourcefulness and industry (Cooper 327).

6. What influences (i.e., family members, teachers, or established musicians of the day) helped to shape the musician's musical work?

According to Cooper, Hindemith was a "musical natural" whose influences included Brahms and Reger, as well as other early composers. For instance, Cooper notes that Hindemith's "seemingly inexhaustible fund of creative energy and a technical command that recalls the supreme craftsmanship of the great masters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries" (328). It is interesting to note, though, that Hindemith's early work was characterized by what Cooper describes as "an irrepressible buoyancy and masculine vigor, a sense of irreverent fun and a good-natured cynicism" that transformed into a more serious approach by the 1930s (328).

7. What kind(s) of music (e.g., chant, opera, oratorio, art song, symphony, etc.) did the musician create over the span of his (or her) career?

Over the course of his long career, Hindemith composed operas and music intended for various stringed quartets and percussionists (Bowles and Mangan 100). According to one biographer, "His expressionist operas showed the influences of atonal harmonies and especially jazz, but his compositions ran the gamut in terms of genre: he wrote children's songs, chamber music, experimental theatre music and Lieder" (Hindemith and the Holocaust 6).

8. After listening to one of the musician's compositions, how would you characterize the music? Include the title of the piece of music that you are discussing and the details that illustrate the musical elements present in the piece (i.e., melody, harmony, rhythm).

In his "Concert Music for Brass and Strings" (December 1930), Hindemith composed a piece that is heavy on brass instruments, including four trumpets, four horns, three trombones, a tuba as well as various stringed instruments (Concert Music for Brass and Strings 2). This composition was commissioned for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was first performed in April 1931 and is roughly divided into two parts (Concert Music for Brass and Strings 3). While melodious and carefully crafted, the work moves slowly through the first part before gaining momentum and spirit during the second part.

9. What is the most significant contribution that the musician has made to the history of music?

Perhaps the most significant contribution made by Hindemuth to the history of music relates to his commitment to a vision of New Music while still taking the changing tastes of his audiences into account using his broad range of talents (Neumeyer 378). As Berz and Yozviak point out, "If there were ever a complete musician, Paul Hindemith was surely that man. Composer, theorist, scholar, conductor, violinist, and teacher, Hindemith excelled in whatever role he chose to perform" (27).