This is the Hindemith so many listeners and commentators love to hate—earnest, workaday neo-classicism based on cardboard harmonic progressions and squared-off rhythms, conveyorbelted via an apparently inexhaustible supply of wrong-note marches, sicilianos and pastorales. And yet these sonatas can be great fun to play, and when the players are masters of their instruments they are fun to listen to as well. Moreover, when the accompaniments are in the hands of a recreative personality as strong as Glenn Gould's they assume an entirely new and unexpected range of character.

Gould's fundamental insight into Hindemith's world was his identification of its "true amalgam of ecstasy and reason". These were the very qualities which fused in Gould's own artistic make-up, and it should not be surprising that his empathy with Hindemith is strong. Only in a rare eccentricity of tempo (such as the dead slow opening to •the finale of the Trumpet Sonata) or in a tendency to peck at lines marked with slurs (in the finale of the Tuba Sonata at a point actually marked molto legato) does the perverse side of his nature assert itself; and even here the sensation of intense commitment overrides all. The added vocals are of course something that every Gould-listener has to learn to take in their stride.

The soloists were members of the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble and all thoroughly distinguished musicians. Hornists could no doubt fault Mason Jones's steadiness of tone and intonation, particularly in the Alto Horn Sonata. Otherwise the playing is consistently well-focused and alert (Hindemith gives the tubist an especially severe examination in rhythmical awareness).

As with other issues in this series, the recordings (from 1976) are clear and forward, though instrumental perspectives do appear to vary slightly from sonata to sonata. It does seem a pity, though, that Sony Classical did not include Gould's accounts of the three piano sonatas in this set, rather than issuing them separately (they would still have fitted onto the two discs).

-- Gramophone [3/1993]

Complete Works For Solo Viola

PAUL HINDEMITH FRANK P. ZIMMERMANN, VIOLIN;*FRANKFURT RADIO SYM. ORCH./P.JARVIENRICO PACE, PIANO ** CTO. FOR VIOLIN & ORCH.(1939*)SONATA FOR SOLO VLN, OP.31 NO.2,"ES IST SO SCHONES WETTER DRAUBEN';SONATA IN E FLAT FOR VIOLIN& PIANO, OP.11 NO.1; SONATA IN E FOR VIOLIN & PNO. (1935)SONATA IN C FOR VIOLIN & PN. (1939)**

Hindemith's seven string quartets were produced in different phases of his compositional development, all reflecting the experience of being a distinguished and experienced string player. Influenced both by Brahmsian late-Romanticism and by the catastrophic events of the First World War, the imaginative String Quartet No. 1 reflects his concern to extend but honor traditional forms. Cast in the form of a suite, the by turns tempestuous and beautiful String Quartet No. 4 remains Hindemith's most popular and performed quartet. This is the third and final volume of a highly acclaimed cycle. 'As with the previous release in this series, the performances are all outstanding.

Hindemith: Chamber Music, Composer Paul Hindemith, Artist Valerius Ensemble, Format 1 CD, Paul Hindemith, considered the foremost German composer of his generation, believed in a strong link between music and social needs, and regarded the composer as a craftsman; someone who could provide for those needs. His chamber music is renowned for being unconventional and eclectic; the composer often experimented with a variety of styles and combinations of instruments. The Trio Op.47 uses the heckelphone, a baritone oboe used in several of the works of Richard Strauss. Op.47 is particularly notable for the atmospheric Arioso for this rare instrument. Unusual instrumentation is also found in the Clarinet Quintet, thanks to the appearance of the E flat clarinet in the central movement, leading the ensemble through a series of waltzes and a fugue of considerable length. The Kleinerkammermusik Op.24 No.2 is one of the composer's best-loved works, showcasing his humorous side through the use of playful dissonance. Our collection ends with the lyrical beauty of his famous Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. The Valerius Ensemble enjoys a successful calendar of performances in concert halls and for radio and television, having toured throughout the Netherlands, Spain and Brazil. With a special interest in contemporary music, the ensemble has had several works written especially for it, by composers such as Carlos M�chans and Leo Samama. In celebration of the Hindemith-year 2013 (50 years after his death in 1963) this recording presents a generous selection of his chamber music output. Written for a wide variety of instruments (heckelphone, flute, horn, clarinet, oboe, trumpet, violin, viola, piano) it represents Hindemith's eclectic, witty and vibrant style, in which neo-classical, expressionistic and jazzy elements fuse together in a very personal way. High caliber performances by Netherland's best instrumentalists, evidently enjoying this fascinating and intriguing music.

Paul Hindemith's compositions for a cappella choir are distinguished by a richness of expression and mood manifested in various compositional techniques and artistic forms. Again and again in his writings and textbooks, Hindemith emphasized the important role of the singing voice as a natural instrument for the composer-in-the-making to test his compositional sketches as well as for the layperson and music lover for spontaneous singing and music making. The CD presents choral compositions on texts by Bertolt Brecht, Gottfried Benn, Walt Whitman, Fitz-James O'Brien, medieval and self-composed texts. Both dramatic and humorous, light tones in these choral works show the breadth of Hindemith's skillfulness. The CD was awarded the Quarterly German Record Critics' Award and the "Echo Klassik 2001" (best choral-work recording)!

This is a rather rare and special disc. Rare, because as far as I can tell this is the first recording in the original English language of this late Hindemith opera and special because it is very good.

Hindemith conducted the first English performance of the opera at the Juilliard School in New York just nine months before his death in December 1963. For the libretto he persuaded Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) to collaborate with him in adapting his own one-act play of the same name that he had written thirty years previously. Wilder remains a cornerstone of the American literary and theatrical establishment but was notoriously unwilling to allow his works to be used for alternative theatrical or musical use. Hence although The Matchmaker did make it to the stage as Jerry Herman's Hello Dolly, he refused permission for his most famous works; Our Town and The Skin of our Teeth. The latter was mooted as a musical by Bernstein - which the author accepted - but when that venture collapsed he rejected Bernstein's further approach to make it an opera. According to the liner written by Tappan Wilder - Wilder's nephew and literary executor - he was extremely well versed in music in general and opera in particular as well as many languages. Skills, one imagines, that must help the collaborative process between composer and librettist a lot.

The dramatic conceit behind this highly compressed work is essentially a simple one. The drama is presented in a single fluid sequence of Christmas dinners in one household over a period of ninety years. There is no significance with it being Christmas except that it is a day that brings families together so the audience witnesses the succeeding generations in the same setting. Apparently Orson Welles credited the original play as the inspiration behind the famous 'breakfast-montage' sequence in Citizen Kane where the audience witnesses the changing/decaying relationship between Kane and his first wife. Hindemith writes in a similarly fluid style - there is little division between scenes. He uses recurring motifs to signify the passing years. Wilder's libretto revisits moments of perfunctory conversation that will be familiar to every family; "how many years have we lived here?", "you were missed at church today", "I remember when ..." With such conversational text it comes as no surprise that Hindemith writes in an arioso/recitative style - this reminded me in technique if not style of that used by Vaughan Williams in his equally compact and dramatically potent Riders to the Sea. There are few if any arias or indeed ensembles. That being said a highlight of the score is a dramatically moving and technically brilliant sextet where Sam, one of the central family's sons is on leave from the army. He tells his family to act exactly as normal so he has memories to treasure and over their prattling inconsequential small talk he sings a touching counter-melody chorale-like song; "I will hold this tight! I shall remember you!"

To give some sense of the dramatic compression at work: Sam exits; "and so good-bye", the next line of the text laments his death in the war "He was only a boy, a mere boy ... What can we do ... only time can help " and the line following that has moved the plot forward by some years and introduces another character on another Christmas day. Memory, memorial and how we live through the actions and memories of our relatives past and future lie at the heart of this work. The house is the unchanging focal point - although the closing line of the work is "And they're building a new house" but it is the lives of the inhabitants of the house that count.

Not because the text is convoluted or opaque this is an opera that requires considerable concentration if you are not quite literally to lose the plot. Fortunately the entire libretto - in English and Hindemith's own German translation - is included. Layers of potential confusion are added by the fact that - as with many families - certain names are passed down hence we have two Lucias and two Rodericks. Even more confusion comes from the fact that the same singer sings both Lucias and another sings two different roles. Seen live, this might be clear through transitions of costume or setting - with only the ear to guide — blink (in an auditory sense) and you will have dropped a decade. My sole observation with this as a piece of theatre is, I wonder if the compression prevents the audience becoming engaged with any individual character - they simply do not inhabit the stage long enough. That being said, Wilder's drawing of character is so searching and well-observed that I think most of us would recognise personality types and scenarios from our own experience that give weight and resonance to these precisely-drawn sketches.

Hindemith makes no attempt to place the music in time or place. Just the opposite in fact - his chamber orchestra includes a rather anachronistic harpsichord. This was surely the right decision - with such an express journey over the best part of a century it would end up a patch-work of pastiche. Neither does he make any particular significance of it being Christmas except for the work's brief Prelude//Introduction which is a rather curdled and harmonically dense take on "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" - which is about as un-merry as it is possible to imagine. In the essay accompanying the disc by Joel Haney he describes the work as one "which ponders the experience of time as a condition of human possibility and limitation -'the bright and the dark' - through the rise and decline of an American bourgeois family". The brilliance of both authors lies in the way they tie this sense of continuity across time - Hindemith's is a slightly subtler skill because he uses fragments of melody and motif which burrow into the subconscious so by the second or third listen the ear begins to pick up on the connections the music is making with recurring characters situations or text. Hence, this is the work of a master-craftsman. As so often, I find the accusation of Hindemith being a dry or dusty composer wholly without justification. No, he does not write big arching overtly emotional melodies. Rather he points to subtler, more 'real' scenarios which have resonance and truth for the engaged audience member.

So to this performance; Leon Botstein and his American Symphony Orchestra clearly thrive on the discovery and performance of little-known and under-appreciated works. In the past with some of the grander-scale and overtly Romantic works I have found Botstein's approach to be a degree clinical and unwilling to unbutton. Here the precision and measured emotion of Hindemith's score seems to chime perfectly with his aesthetic. This is a recording of a single live performance which given the ensemble complexities and unfamiliarity of the piece is remarkably good. There is no audible audience noise - my only sorrow is that the hall ambience is cut off very quickly at the end of the work - to preclude applause one supposes. The orchestra play very well - the engineering places the instruments quite closely behind the voices which occasionally obscures the text. All of the singers are of a very high standard and fortunately most of the text is sung with commendable clarity. Of particular brilliance is the beautifully light and clear singing of Kathryn Guthrie as Leonora. Indeed the entire cast are excellent both in ensemble and individually. None make any attempt to 'age' their voices with their characters - something perhaps an actor in the original theatrical version might.

Bridge present this single CD in a double CD case - presumably to allow for the thicker than usual liner/libretto. As well as the text the liner includes the usual performer biographies as well as two useful essays about the work. The disc runs for less than fifty minutes but so concentrated and complete in itself is the work that a filler would seem inappropriate and unnecessary. A fascinating and rather moving work. It reveals Hindemith and Wilder as masters of the slow-burn potent theatrical experience which lingers in the memory for the power of its insight into the human condition.

-- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

It was not until the 20th century that the viola became the object of truly serious attention as a solo instrument. Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) – himself an excellent violist – was largely responsible for rescuing the instrument from relative oblivion. This CD features a selection of his viola sonatas composed during Europe’s interwar decades. Violist Luca Sanzò and pianist Maurizio Paciariello are both in-demand contemporary music interpreters as well as conservatoire professors in their native Italy.

The German soprano Juliane Banse has sung the Lieder of Brahms, Schubert, Wolf, Ullmann, Strauss, Schumann, Loewe and Berg, earning a reputation for both the quality of her interpretations and the warmth of her timbre. She and her regular partner Martin Helmchen, who has just joined Alpha, have chosen to record Paul Hindemith’s song cycle Das Marienleben, composed in 1923 and revised by the composer in 1948. The piece is a bewitching, sometimes disturbing cycle whose texts, taken from the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke, retrace the life of the Virgin Mary. Fifteen poems, fifteen episodes tinged with mysticism and lyricism. They proved to be the ideal inspiration for Hindemith, whose compositional style here draws on both the power of Wagner’s operas and the subtle nuances of Debussy.

Born in Hanau near Frankfurt-am-Main in 1895, where he was something of a musical prodigy, Hindemith entered Hoch’sche Konservatorium where he studied violin, composition and conducting. He supported himself by playing in local dance bands and theatre groups. He soon made his mark as a performer and became deputy leader of the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra at the age of nineteen, becoming its leader three years later.

His early compositional style earned him the reputation of something of an enfant térrible. Whilst his music is modernist in outlook, he rejected some of the modern trends in music, including the teachings of Schoenberg, who he admired, in favour of a more individualistic outlook. In 1921 he had his String Quartet Op. 16 and his Kammermusik No. 1 performed at the Donaueschingen festival of contemporary music. This was followed by further performances of his music the following year at the International Society of Contemporary Music festival which served to bring Hindemith and his music to the attention of a wider audience.

The music presented on these two CDs seems to have been performed as part of the centenary celebrations of Hindemith’s birth during the 1995 Schwetzingen Festival. This is a well planned and executed concert which brings together two of his better known pieces with two of his less well known theatrical works.

Der Dämon or "The Demon" is described as "A Dance-Pantomime" and is set in two scenes, revolving around the said Demon's seduction of two sisters. In the first scene he seduces the first sister, leading the second sister into a Dance of Grief and Longing. The second scene deals with the second sister's advances towards the Demon and his rejection of her. I really enjoyed this performance. This is a work known for its more jazzy elements, and the Ensemble Varianti highlight this aspect far more than the Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt under Werner Andreas Albert on CPO (999 220-2) whose performance is more symphonic.

The Kammermusik No. 2 is in reality a mini piano concerto and marks the first in a six-part series of solo concertos which Hindemith completed in 1927. It has a highly virtuosic obbligato piano part and is in itself quite dramatic; it is believed that Hindemith composed his The Four Temperaments in order to stop George Balanchine re-working the Kammermusik No. 2 as a ballet presentation.

Herodiade which is a Ballet – Orchestral Recitation after Mallarmé, is the latest work presented here and displays greater maturity. It is available in two versions, one with recitation, and one purely orchestral. The one presented here has the wonderful Gisela Zach-Westphal whose declamation is far more dramatic than Ann Gicquel for Albert on CPO (999 220-2), although I do prefer his more orchestral sound and he does present both versions.

The final work on the disc is a spirited performance of the Kammermusik No. 1 with its famous finale entitled 1921 and siren-call ending. This was the piece that really announced Hindemith on the world-stage. Both of the Kammermusiks are given performances here that bring out the chamber music aspect more than in the other versions I have, Albert on CPO (999 301-2, 999 138-2) and Chailly on Decca (473 722-2). Even so, each version has a lot to offer.

These four works all have a significant role for the piano and here Florian Henschel is on top form, especially when you take into account that he was a late replacement for Sviatoslav Richter. His playing is strong and impassioned and he seems to make light of some fiendish sounding piano writing. As mentioned above, the Ensemble Varianti are excellent and really bring out the different colours in the music. As for Gisela Zach-Westphal she makes this disc worth buying just for her part in Herodiade. Whilst I knew that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau also liked to dabble in conducting, especially towards the end of his singing career, this is the first disc I have of him in this role. He manages to keep a tight control on his forces whilst not losing any excitement from the music. First rate performances.

The sound is clearly from a live event; you get the applause and one or two coughs. There is also a slight string twang that I am sure is not in the score. Despites this, these are performances that are full of thrilling and energetic playing. I would have loved to have attended this concert. The booklet essay is exemplary; it is detailed and informative and fills in a couple of blanks in my knowledge of this composer.

– MusicWeb International (Stuart Sillitoe)

Recorded for the first time on one album, this release features Hindemith’s complete works for violin and piano and the rarely recorded Kleine Sonata for Viola D’amore and piano. Hindemith’s reputation as a master composer, viola virtuoso and dominant pedagogue- who, being able to play practically every standard instrument (and a few non-standard ones), expected the same from his students- has tended to obscure the fact that he first came to attention not as a composer or violist but as a violinist. Roman Mints has had a lifelong love of the works of Paul Hindemith, which began when he was a young violinist, studying in Moscow in the 1980s. He says “This music, written not just before I was born but closer to the time of my grandparents’ birth, felt completely contemporary, and daringly advanced in its sound- and not just to me, as it turns out: 30 years on, Hindemith is still regarded by concert programmers as too difficult for the wider public. I put Sonata in D on the stand. I was gripped by the first subject, constructed from seconds and sevenths, marked to be played ‘with stony defiance.’ I was never the same again and he became my window into contemporary music.”

Recording information: Siemens Villa, Berlin, Germany (03/10/2009-03/11/2009).

Hindemith Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, John Neschling Orchestral Works

This release features nearly all of the compositions by Paul Hindemith, performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Philharmonia Orchestra with the composer conducting. The recordings presented here were made between 1955-1956. Since Hindemith could play nearly all the orchestral instruments, had perfect pitch and had the richest possible experience as an orchestral musician, he was an ideal conductor. With his European tours after the Second World War, Hindemith increasingly developed his conducting activities; these took up all his time after 1953 after he had given up his work at Yale University. He had indeed conducted in public for the first time in 1915 and repeatedly guest conducted exclusively his own music in the United States, but after 1947 he also included music of other composers - at first Bach, Haydn and Mozart - on his programmes.

This Jitka Hosprová homage honors Paul Hindemith (1895-1963); a composer and virtuoso violist who wrote all his viola works within twenty years or so and then abandoned composing for the instrument for good. The pieces featured here also bear witness to Hindemith’s journey from reverberations of Romanticism and Impressionism to attaining his own singular musical language, already evident in Sonata Op. 25. This music remains profound and colorful, as is the viola itself.

Featuring Midori, the NDR Symphony Orchestra and Christoph Eschenbach, this release commemorates the anniversary of Hindemith's death 50 years ago. Midori is an extraordinary artist, a devoted and gifted educator and a community engagement activist. Her enthusiasm for playing music of different times is seen on her CDs and concert repertoire. This recording is her first for Ondine.

Classical Music

The final volume of Paul Hindemith’s(1895–1963) youthful and fresh Kammermusik series from the 1920s includes Kammermusik Nos. 4–7 performed by Kronberg Academy Soloists and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra under a true Hindemith specialist, Christoph Eschenbach, who has won a Grammy for a previous Hindemith album on Ondine.

These four works by Hindemith can be considered as full-bodied concertos for violin, viola, viola d’amore and organ. These work feature four young talented soloists, Stephen Waarts, Rimothy Ridout, Ziyu Shenand Christian Schmitt. Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 4 (‘Violin Concerto’) is scored for a larger orchestra than its three predecessors and includes 24 instrumentalists. Kammermusik No. 5 (‘Viola Concerto’) the composer premiered himself by playing the solo part. In total, Hindemith performed this work for 85 times during the next 11 years! In a letter, Hindemith described the viola d’amore as “the most beautiful thing that you can imagine in sound”. The composer fell in love with the instrument and wrote his Kammermusik No. 6 with this instrument in mind. Hindemith’s final Kammermusik (No. 7) was written to a commission by the Southwest German Radio: the premiere of this Organ Concerto was transmitted live in 1928. The radio broadcast had a decisive role in the composer’s choice of instrumentation.

REVIEWS:

As in Vol 1, Eschenbach relishes the music’s wild iconoclasm. Tempos are again lively and throughout he draws marvellous playing from the Kronberg Academy strings and Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra’s winds (the trumpet not least!) and percussion.

– Gramophone

Have I mentioned that these are some of Hindemith’s most wonderful pieces? They combine the brash gestures of his early, avant-garde period with the serious, neo-Baroque elements of his later music—one can hear him changing from 1922 to 1927 in these seven pieces—several of the slow movements approach the meditative depths of his “Mathis der Maler” Symphony. I still recommend the Chailly set as a first choice, but Hindemith fanciers will want this one too.

– Fanfare

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) is without a doubt, one of the most revolutionary composers of the 20th Century. Among his achievements, completing a sonata for each of the orchestral instruments shows how versatile this composer was. As an acclaimed violist himself, he dedicated to the viola an extended part of his complex and unique composing literature. These four monumental sonatas for viola solo represent the backbone of the viola repertoire, which also demonstrates a synergy of compositional language rooted in the Baroque, representing the technical, structural and philosophical evolution of this German composer. Thirty-year-old Spanish violist Jesus Rodolfo Rodriguez is widely recognized for his performances, which combine the spontaneity and fearless imagination of youth with the discipline and precision of a mature artist. He has been praised by the New York Times, Digest, as "... Jesus Rodolfo is a start whose light transcends the stage...”, his authority over the most complex technical demands of the repertoire as well as for the depth of his musical insight made his stand among the top young musicians in the world.

“First recording of complete ballet” this CD tray card proudly proclaims. Sorry guys, that honor goes (at a minimum) to Karl Anton Rickenbacher with the Bamberg Symphony on Koch, released way back in 1995. Statements such as this are all the more annoying when they can be disproved in about two seconds simply by looking at the listings on Amazon.com. Anyway, the lapse is forgivable, in this case, because that earlier recording is long out of print and the present release features a much better performance. Still, it’s always good to double-check these things, if only to maintain one’s credibility with hard-core collectors, who are the people most likely to be interested in this repertoire.

In its suite form Nobilissima Visione, Hindemith’s ballet about St. Francis of Assisi, consists of five numbers out of a total of eleven. The Introduction and Rondo actually takes two sections from the ballet’s later stages: Meditation and The Wedding with Poverty. The March and Pastoral comes from the middle: the same march, and the Appearance of the Three Women, while the passacaglia concludes both the suite and the complete ballet, in the latter as The Songs of Praise of the Creatures Begin. The entire work plays for about forty five minutes (in this performance), and it deserves to be heard whole–it is very beautiful, sort of an apotheosis of the mature Hindemith’s individual lyricism.

Whether it works as a ballet is another matter, and one which need not concern us. As a concert piece, it is totally viable in terms of length, thematic content, and scheme of contrasts. Schwarz’s performance is markedly superior to Rickenbacher’s. Just compare Schwarz’s “Wedding with Poverty” to Rickenbacher’s comparatively droopy, bland version, and you’ll get the picture. I suppose you could say that Schwarz’s is the more “balletic” interpretation, but its characteristic emphasis on lively tempos, transparent textures, and strong rhythms serves the music best in any context, and the Seattle Symphony plays very well.

The Five Pieces for String Orchestra make an interesting coupling. Arranged from Hindemith’s teaching works, they are designed to acquaint students with modern harmony while remaining easy to play, and they accomplish this goal admirably (meaning Hindemith does not pull any punches). They are not major works, but like all of his music they are well-crafted, and in any event more substantial that Rickenbacher’s coupling, the brief but charming Suite of French Dances. Fine sonics make this a valuable addition to the Hindemith discography, restoring a major and unjustly neglected work to the catalog.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The present release is the first volume in a series dedicated to Paul Hindemith’s (1895–1963) chamber works includes the first three works in his Kammermusik series together with Kleine Kammermusik written for a wind quintet. This album continues a successful series of recordings of Hindemith’s music together with conductor Christoph Eschenbach. This series has earned him, among others, a Grammy award. These recordings of chamber music have been recorded with a group of young promising artists, including pianist Christopher Park and cellist Bruno Philippe who are playing the solo parts in the ‘Concertos’, Op. 36.

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REVIEWS:

Eschenbach clearly loves this music, and he wants to convey that love to you, the listener. The result is a series of almost infectious readings in which a good time is had by all.

– The Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)

This is certainly not easy music to play, and often calls for solo virtuosity, the Second and Third Kammermusik becoming concertos for piano and cello respectively. Throughout you can feel in these performances the fresh and enthusiastic approach of these young people under the direction of the veteran conductor Christoph Eschenbach. This disc certainly deserves an unqualified recommendation.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Sharon Kam discovers Hindemith on her third album on Orfeo label. Even if some people still consider him “too modern” today, Hanau-born Hesse Paul Hindemith is undoubtedly one of the most influential German composers of the generation after Richard Strauss. Few of his immediate colleagues have found their way into the international repertoire to the same extent that he has, or influenced subsequent generations through comparably extensive educational work. All three works for clarinet featured on this recording date from years of extensive travel: the Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano was written in 1938 around the time of his emigration to Switzerland, the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano in 1939 during the course of the tours of the USA that immediately followed the emigration, and finally, the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in 1947 (written for and premiered by Benny Goodman) when Hindemith left his American exile to visit Europe again for the first time after the Second World War. Sharon Kam has teamed up with her long-standing musical partners Enrico Pace , Antje Weithaas , and Julian Steckel for the chamber music part of the album, and with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under the musical direction of Daniel Cohen for the clarinet concerto.

The saxophone is a synonym for rich timbre and a wide range of expressive possibilities, but despite its highly attractive features, the instrument was a late addition to the classical orchestra. Seen in this light, the work by the saxophone quartet clair-obscur which devotes itself intensively to classical works for saxophone takes on a particular significance. The ensemble's repertoire is seemingly inexhaustible. From adventurous arrangements of piano music to string quartet, there is nothing the musicians leave untried. They employ their instruments to bring to life a myriad of different tonal colours and musical genres. Paul Hindemith is the focus of this album: :during the 1920's, he became enchanted by the tone of the saxophone, integrating it on a number of occasions into the scores of his stage works. The ensemble clair-obscur has a special interest in his chamber music, for example the Sonata for four horns and the composition ''Frankenstein's Monstre Repertoire'' for string quartet. These works alongside the other compositions featured on this album have been specially arranged for this saxophone ensemble production by Christoph Enzel.