Paul Hindemith wrote seven String Quartets, all of which reflect the experience and practical assurance of a distinguished violinist and, later, violist. No. 2 was written in 1918 whilst he was a soldier on active duty. It's a bracing, dynamic and pithy work with a clever series of variations which parody romantic excess, and a virtuosic finale. No. 3 followed early in 1920 and was an instant success, a thrilling example of Hindemith's concise imagination at work. This passionate quartet, with it's richly varied material, is one of his supreme chamber masterpieces. In 1922 Paul Hindemith founded a quartet named after it's principal violinist Licco Amar. On the occasion of Hindemith's 100th birthday in 1995, the Hindemith Institute awarded the Zurich-based ensemble the historic name of the Amar Quartet, the members of which are Anna Brunner and Igor Keller (violins), Hannes B�rtschi (viola), and P�ter Somodari (cello).

Hindemith's music for cello closely follows his evolution as a composer. With elements that look back to Schumann, Three Pieces, Op. 8 is among his earliest published works, while the solo Sonata, Op. 25 is indebted to Bach's Cello Suites and is one of the most intense and demanding of his chamber works. The ingenious variations on a frog he went a-courting are lighter in nature, contrasting with the weighty depths of the Sonata for Cello and Piano. Sebastien Hurtaud was first prize winner at the Adam International Cello Competition in 2009.

Trumpet Music (Contemporary) - Hindemith, P. / Sauget, H. /

This set is offered at a special price: 6 discs for the price of 5.

The recording of Paul Hindemith's string quartets by the world-famous Juilliard String Quartet - with founder-member Robert Mann (who left the ensemble after the 1996/97 season) as first violinist - has been completed. The third CD is now available. The CD contains a real "jewel": Hindemith's first quartet op. 2 which remained totally unknown unless it was published in 1994; whereas his fourth quartet op. 22 - performed 127 times just by Hindemith's ensemble in the 1920s, the Amar Quartet - is by far the most popular piece in it's repertoire! German Record Critics' Award for the complete recording of Hindemith's string quartets by the Juilliard String Quartet! The CD was awarded the Quarterly German Record Critics' Award!

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)

This new album by flutist Stathis Karapanos represents Paul Hindemith’s (1895–1963) complete works for flute, featuring an impressive roster of accompanying artists. This selection, which also includes one world premiere recording, showcases the unexpected versatility of Hindemith, one of the major names in 20th-century music, as a composer.

Within the extensive repertoire of the German composer Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), music for cello and piano occupies a considerable position in terms of both quantity and quality. Hindemith was primarily a violist and conductor, but his wide-ranging interests led him to experiment with a great variety of instruments both as a composer and a player, making him a de facto multi-instrumentalist. Among his favorite instruments, the cello always occupied a special place in his activities, partly due to his collaboration with his brother Rudolf, an excellent cellist.

His original compositions for the specific duo of cello and piano are varied and numerous, offering a synthetic vision of the different stylistic instances of an author who never tired of rethinking and redefining his language. This recording brings together and offers the listener this entire wonderful portion of Hindemith’s catalogue.

The Drei Stücke Op. 8 (1917) are undoubtedly among the most important pieces of the composer’s youthful phase. The later Sonata Op. 11 No. 3, a composition of considerable constructive commitment and complex genesis, is recorded here for the first time in both versions: one from 1919 (lost piano parts reconstructed by Fazil Say), the other from 1921. The delicate and expressive Drei leichte Stücke ‘Cello in first position’, composed in April 1938, are intended for the didactic sphere, without renouncing the peculiarities of the harmonic language of the composer. The same can be said of the brief and melancholic Meditation, a transcription of a movement from Hindemith’s orchestral ballet Nobilissima Visione. More complex is A Frog he went a-courting. Despite its brevity, it is one of the finest pieces on this program. A dozen concise variations, framed by the initial exposition and the concluding return of the traditional English theme, present a wealth of instrumental, timbral, expressive, and dynamic solutions in a small, dense, brilliant display of Hindemith’s compositional mastery. Do not be deceived by the title Kleine Sonate (1942), which is small in size but not in terms of compositional complexity. The imposing Cello Sonata (1948) was written for Gregor Piatigorsky and premiered by him in New York in the year it was composed. Comparing this Sonata to the Sonata Op. 11 No. 3 conveys a sense of the stylistic evolution across some 30 years.

Classical Music

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.

Classical Music

Hindemith was not only a composer but also a hugely talented viola player who wrote a number of remarkable, innovative works for his instrument. The piano-accompanied sonatas are relatively well-known, so too the Trauermusik composed in a single evening to mark the death of King George V. The solo viola works have had less attention: Hindemith referred to them as Gebrauchsmusik, by which he meant compositions with simple, linear structures, often intended for amateur players: music that responded to a particular need or use. Their language owes something to the solo viola music by Max Reger, with which Hindemith was certainly familiar. However, Hindemith could draw on both greater individuality as a melodist as well as his own considerable skills as a violist to inform his idiomatic writing for the instrument. Op.11 No.5 (1919) has a Classical structure in four movements, concluding with a noble passacaglia: the work of a gifted 24-year-old who is still establishing his own path within the wider context of musical tradition. Op.25 No.1 belongs to Hindemith's Neoclassical period: spiky and witty with a whirlwind finale. Composed in 1923, the Sonata Op.31 No.4 evolves in more traditional fashion, from a perpetuum mobile opening movement to a grave but not melancholy song, followed by a theme-and-variation finale. The 1937 Sonata is much more searching and chromatic, doubtless reflecting it's troubled times, and notably exploiting contrasts of sound and silence. Luca Ranieri is among Italy's most distinguished violists, having been conducted as a soloist by the likes of Mehta, Giulini and Sinopoli. His many recordings include the Cello Suites of Bach arranged for viola: "Ranieri plays with elegance and clean articulation, and his tone is clear." (All Music Review)

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

HINDEMITH Das Marienleben (1948 revision) • Maya Boog (sop); Michael Lakner (pn) • CPO 777 817-2 (65:12)


I have always been convinced that Hindemith’s late-life revisions of some of his (successful) early works were misguided; in attempting to make some avant-garde works more palatable—more musical, if you will—he often sacrificed much of their original spontaneity. This was clearly the case with the opera Cardillac , and to a lesser extent with the clarinet quintet. There were many versions of Das Marienleben to confuse the issue, three of which were published; I have been particularly taken with the (shortened) orchestral version, which may have distracted my attention from this 1948 revision of the 1922–23 original song cycle.


Wilhelm Sinkovics’s booklet notes make a strong case for this revision, although he goes too far in damning the original: “its aggressive harmonic tonal idiom full of shrill dissonances” pretty much defines Sinkovics’s musical tastes. “A female vocalist who is not blessed with perfect pitch and fully developed self-assertive capabilities [OK, this is another person’s translation] can hardly hold her own in a part maintaining a fiercely dissonant stance toward the polyphonic lines of the piano accompaniment.” Well, many have done so. “The blasphemy of a work like Sancta Susanna was thus a marginal phenomenon in Hindemith’s career and owed to the spirit of the times.” In truth, it contributed to the spirit of the times. “The Mother of God could not be served with bold expressionistic gestures committed to paper without an organizing system.” Of course Hindemith’s 1922–23 music had an organizing system; it was just one that doesn’t suit Sinkovics. He does have the grace to note that the premiere of the “more spontaneous first version” was a great success.


But Sinkovics is convincing in his analysis of the changes that Hindemith made. One song was left as is, another was rewritten from scratch, and the other 13 represent a wide spectrum of revisions. Hindemith’s late mastery of structural tonal elements has made the cycle of songs more consistent: “Structural plans of this sort do indeed convey themselves to completely impartial listeners [have there ever been any?], who perhaps are not at all aware of a blueprint of this nature.” In other words, even we unenlightened peasants should appreciate this music.


The proof is in the performance, and this is a compelling one, from a vocal standpoint as well as a musical one. Maya Boog’s voice is not particularly beautiful, but she uses it expressively, conserving resources as needed. No. 9 “The Wedding at Cana,” may be the unchanged song (no scores were available to me). Sparkling dissonances energize the music, and huge leaps dot the vocal line, providing color and excitement not heard elsewhere. Boog more than holds her own, seeming to revel in the difficulties (she has a bit of trouble sustaining extended pitches in the slower songs). Hindemith was wise to leave everything be, perhaps wiser still to make it a singular occurrence. Michel Lakner is with Boog at all times, in an accompaniment which supports and shadows the vocal line, whereas in the original it emphasized contrast, contributing more of its own. The recorded sound is quite reverberant, even suggesting an echo at one point, yet it is also intimate—a paradox that suits the music well.


Hindemith was not a religious person, much less a Catholic (he wrote a Mass late in life just to try out yet another musical form). He claimed to be “a Protestant, perhaps not a good one but a loyal one.” The Life of Mary may have appealed to him primarily for Rainer Maria Rilke’s sensitive, lyrical poetry—which retains its power in translation—rather than for its theological values. Yet his work moved (and moves) audiences on many levels, as do religious works by true believers such as Haydn or Bruckner. While I can’t speak to its religious effect, I have always found the songs mesmerizing, in all three versions. This 1948 revision is more beautiful but less colorful than the original. It certainly pays to know both, and this CD is recommended toward that end.


FANFARE: James H. North