Classical Music

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.

Carl Seemann – The ORFEO recordings – Carl Seemann was the kind of pianist who didn’t try to impress audiences with brilliant virtuosity. Instead, he understood the piano as his ideal medium for revealing a polyphonic structure on a single instrument. After his death on November 26th, 1983, at the age of 73, in Freiburg, it took some 25 years before the recordings of his studio and concert performances began to be re(dis)covered and today he is once again regarded as one of the leading German pianists of the post-war era. On the occasion of his 40th year of death, ORFEO releases this 7 CD anniversary box with all his recordings on the label and an additional booklet that highlights Carl Seemann’s artistic background and his pianistic environment.

REVIEW:

Pianist Carl Seemann (1910-1983) largely specialized in the Viennese classics, and tended to shine more in collaborations than when under the solo spotlight.

His 1965 Bach Partitas, for example, range from workaday (Nos. 2 and 6) to sensitive and cultivated (No. 3 and No. 5’s outer movements). By contrast, his 1964 recital with frequent partner violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan features congenial and inspired readings of the Bach E major, Beethoven E-flat Op. 12 No. 3, Mozart B-flat K. 454, and Schubert A major D. 574 sonatas.

The 1979 Mozart C major concerto K. 503 with the NDR Symphony Orchestra under Wilfried Boettcher is sluggish and heavy in the outer movements compared alongside Seemann’s 1950 DG studio recording, which wasn’t all that great to begin with. However, the 1972 E-flat K. 449 captures Seemann on fine form in a work he otherwise did not record. Here his energized and poetic solo work is complemented by Leopold Hager’s shapely orchestral framework.

Seemann’s boring and heavy-handed Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 precedes a stylishly flexible 1962 performance of that composer’s Sonata No. 9 in E major Op. 14 No. 1. The 1952 broadcast of Beethoven’s Bagatelles Op. 126 is basically a sonically drab replica of Seemann’s engaging, vibrant, and better engineered 1951 DG studio version. As I listened to cellist Enrico Mainardi’s 1956 Bach Viola da gamba Sonata in D major BWV 1028, I was struck by how the pianist’s tone seemed unusually mellifluous and nuanced. Then I looked at the booklet, and it turned out that the pianist was Carlo Zecchi, not Seemann! No wonder! Yet the real Carl Seemann holds more interest throughout a 1973 Reger Sonata No. 4 than Mainardi, who was way past his prime by that date.

The collection’s final disc focuses on Paul Hindemith conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. They are not so polished as The Philharmonia Orchestra in Hindemith’s EMI recording of the Symphony for Concert Band, yet they bring more urgency and surface excitement to the fugal finale. The Bavarian musicians rise to the occasion in The Four Temperaments, where I prefer Clara Haskil’s limpid and sparkling fingerwork to pianist Hans Otte in Hindemith’s DG Berlin Philharmonic recording.

Considering that Berg’s Chamber Concerto was hardly a repertoire staple in 1955, Hindemith obtains impressive ensemble cohesion and discipline. Seemann handles the difficult piano part cleanly and securely, capably complementing violinist Wolfgang Marschner’s expressive agility. That said, Marschner comes more alive partnered alongside Paul Jacobs’ fleeter, more incisive pianism in a 1959 Köln Radio broadcast featuring Hermann Scherchen’s volatile podium presence.

At the very least I’m happy to have Seemann’s recital with Schneiderhan, his Mozart K. 449, and his more successful Bach Partita movements in my permanent collection, together with the Zecchi and Haskil selections. Christoph Schlüren’s annotations provide useful biographical information about Seemann and his career.

-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)

BR-KLASSIK presents the live recording of a concert performance of Hindemith's opera "Cardillac" from the Prinzregententheater in Munich on October 13, 2013, in memory of the great conductor Stefan Soltész. Soltész died unexpectedly on July 22, 2022 - exactly one year ago - after collapsing while conducting Richard Strauss' "Die schweigsame Frau" at the Munich National Theatre. The Hungarian-born Austrian conductor was General Music Director of the Essen Philharmonic and Artistic Director of the Essen Aalto Music Theatre from 1997 to 2013. Both institutions were decisively shaped by him and received several awards during his era. He was a welcome guest conductor with the orchestras in Munich. In addition to the standard works from Mozart to Strauss, an important focus of his opera repertoire was Classical modernism.

Paul Hindemith's three-act opera "Cardillac", composed in 1925/26, was the composer's long-awaited first full-length stage work, and was based on E. T. A. Hoffmann's novella "Das Fräulein von Scuderi". Hindemith’s librettist Ferdinand Lion created a large-scale opera that focused primarily on the goldsmith Cardillac and on the madness that leads him to murder. Any logically structured plot was replaced by individual, self-contained scenes, resembling isolated snapshots. The premiere took place on November 9, 1926 at the Dresden State Opera under the baton of Fritz Busch, who thus spectacularly continued his series of important world premieres. Although the opera's radical style was perceived as highly unusual, it was nevertheless well received. After 1933, the work disappeared from German-language repertoires, but it promptly returned in 1946. Hindemith undertook a fundamental revision, and it was premiered in Zurich in 1952 - combined with a performance ban on the first version. As early as 1960, however, the release of the 1926 version was achieved – and it went on to supplant its revised version almost completely. This recording also features the original, first version of the opera.

The classical spirit hovers over the compositions for solo violin presented by the internationally sought-after violinist Marketa Janouskova on her new GENUIN CD. These are works spanning a century and whose common feature is a neoclassical return to ancient forms, expressed in their creators' very distinctive tonal languages. Paul Hindemith and Sergei Prokofiev combine past and present in their solo sonatas, as does Ernst-Lothar von Knorr, whose works are rarely performed, and the Belgian composer Jacques-Alphonse de Zeegant. The latter wrote his poetic "Sonata l'Astre Bleu" for Marketa Janouskova, presented in a world premiere recording.

Is the greatest song cycle ever written. - at least Glenn Gould is very clear in his judgement of Paul Hindemith's Marienleben. This superlative does not necessarily have to be shared, but it is certainly worth hearing and marvelling at what the 27-year-old, who was already one of Germany's best-known musicians in 1923, achieved. Celebrated as an instrumentalist, Hindemith was considered a bourgeois terror as a composer, provoking with sayings such as "Tonschönheit ist Nebensache" (beauty of tone is a secondary matter) or "Nimm nehmen keine Rücksicht auf, was Du in der Klavierstunde gelernt hast" (have no regard for what you learned in piano lessons). In Mary's Life, based on a collection of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, he shows a completely different, internalised side. "There is something in these songs that forces and fascinates the listener beyond all habits of conventional song manner" wrote a contemporary reviewer, and to this day there is nothing to add. Yvonne Friedli and Constantin Alex make it palpable in their sensitive interpretation.

Charles Koechlin had a very personal style and was inspired by a wide variety of motifs, as nature, the mysterious Orient, French folk songs ... Sometimes, he came close to musical Impressionism, as in Au Loin. Hindemith’s composed the Sonata for the english horn in 1941, by which time he had moved to the United States, where he was teaching at Yale University. The Sonata for cor anglais and piano of Dirk Michael Kirsch is a very intimate homage to the composer’s homeland (Westerland/Sylt, Germany), in which he musically evokes colourful images of landscapes and souls. The work of Ander Perrino combines several ideas that I wanted to try out and that has a very strong connection to popular music. Following the initial idea, each movement is independent as if it were a story, hence the name of Five short stories. Maria Lindo collaborated with symphony and opera orchestras such as the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Budapest Festival Orchestra. María is the artistic director of the company Linien Soundkraft, which realises projects fusing music with other art forms.

This record contains the complete works for piano duo (piano 4-hands and 2 pianos) by Paul Hindemith (1895–1963). While Hindemith was foremost a violist, not a pianist, he knew his way around the piano, and this familiarity is reflected in his compositions for the instrument, all of a decent technical level and featuring great originality of expression. Even if he doesn’t immediately spring to pianists’ minds, he deserves to be included in the small group of innovators who significantly enhanced the piano repertoire in the early 20th century, in particular with his Suite 1922, three solo piano sonatas and Ludus Tonalis. Hindemith’s compositions for piano duo, while few in number, are significant and spread across the span of his career, providing snapshots of his various compositional phases. While the Walzer of 1916 are an output of Hindemith’s early training in composition, by 1921 his Ragtime already reflects an early-mature period during which he sought to define a personal style of his own that could be openly abrasive and irreverent. The final three works, on the other hand, present a fully mature composer with a gift for balanced construction.

HINDEMITH Plöner Musiktag • Jobst Liebrecht, cond; Dietrich Henschel (bar); David Reibel (speaker); RSO Berlin; Marzahn-Hellersdorf Youth SO; Ens of the Hans Werner Henze Music School; Berlin R Children’s Ch and other children’s and youth ch • WERGO WER 6728 2 (71:36 Text and Translation)


Morgenmusik. Tafelmusik. Kantate . Abendkonzert.


On June 20, 1932, Hindemith spent the day at a school in Plön, a small town between Hamburg and Kiel. The school specialized in music, and he had written a series of pieces for the students to learn and play. Thus: A Day of Music at Plön . The day opened with Morning Music , a complex set for brass instruments. Much of the day was spent rehearsing individuals and ensembles. For a boy who could play only the xylophone, Hindemith wrote a part, on the spot; for three boys who couldn’t play any instrument, he wrote recorder trios and had them trained to play the instrument. During breaks between courses of midday dinner, the orchestral Table Music was played. In the afternoon, a cantata (“Admonition to Youth to Apply Themselves to Music”) for two soloists, three choruses, and orchestra which urges children to learn music was sung, spoken (a melodrama), and played. Hindemith was renowned for his sense of humor; the cantata is supposedly mostly tongue in cheek, but any wit therein doesn’t translate—the texts seem deadly serious, almost boarding-school punitive in attitude. The Evening Concert , a 35-minute series of orchestral, ensemble, and instrumental works, closed the day.


The point of it all was performing, not creating music for the ages to be heard by the general public or even the Serious Record Collector. So there seems little point in evaluating the music (by what standards?) or the performances (measured against whom?). While parts of Table Music have a light touch, most of the Plön music is in Hindemith’s heavy, neobaroque style of the early 1930s. Morgenmusik and sections of Abendkonzert have been recorded before, but I have not previously encountered the cantata. This seems to be the first recording of the complete Plöner Musiktag.


A similar day took place at Montepulciano, Italy, in August of 1980, with local school children premiering Hans Werner Henze’s opera Pollicino. Jobst Liebrecht led another performance and a recording in December 1980, sung and played by Berlin school children ( Fanfare 28:1). Liebrecht founded the Marzahn-Hellersdorf Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2005 and performed Plöner Musiktag in 2008, at which time the music school was named after Henze. The booklet lists every performer—258 of them, by my count—but does not tell us who (or which ensemble) performs what. One must assume that all mix into most of the works; for example, there are not enough brass players in any one of the ensembles to fill out Morning Music . This studio recording documents that day in 1932 and a slice of Hindemith’s oeuvre, which Wergo is slowly producing in toto —at least the majority of it that is owned by Schott Music & Media, the label’s parent company.


FANFARE: James H. North

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.

Paul Hindemith intended to return to his actual instrument, the violin, “only in cases of dire need.” Why? Because the viola appealed to him so very much more.

Christian Euler’s new recording of two solo sonatas and two duo sonatas with the pianist Paul Rivinius now present these works for the first time in 3-D quality on Super Audio CD.

Christian Euler naturally masters the extreme technical difficulties of Hindemith’s sonatas with bravura – and what this experienced virtuoso and educator gets out of these so very different works is absolutely a listening must! Op. 11 No. 4, a work composed in response to the death of Claude Debussy, contains impressionistic reminiscences and forges sophisticated thematic links between the three movements.

Paul Rivinius is Euler’s perfect chamber partner in the duo sonatas and knows how to get the best of opulent and intelligent sound out of the Steinway concert grand piano “Manfred Bürki”, owned by MDG.

Ondine's successful Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) recordings with the NDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Christoph Eschenbach continue with another release featuring two major symphonic works by the composer: Symphonie ‘Mathis der Maler' and Symphonie in E-flat.

The orchestra's and Christoph Eschenbach's previous Hindemith release together with Midori won a Grammy Award in 2014.

The ‘Mathis der Maler' Symphony is based on an opera that treats the life of the Renaissance painter Mathias Grünewald. Hindemith started to work on the symphony already prior to the completion of the opera. The symphony was premiered with great success by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler on 12 March 1934. This performance was the last premiere of an orchestral work by Hindemith in Germany before the National Socialist regime issued a general performance prohibition applying to his works in 1936.

Hindemith wrote his Symphonie in E-flat during his exile in the United States in 1940. The Symphony is absolute music in the tradition of the four-movement symphony of Beethoven and the romantic period.

REVIEW:

Eschenbach’s trademark fondness for textural warmth and clarity is much to the fore in Mathis, where strings and woodwind are admirably numinous, the complex counterpoint in both the ‘Engelkonzert’ and the ‘Temptation’ beautifully detailed. The central ‘Grablegung’ is slow, rich-sounding and very introverted. The state-of-the-art recording, pristine and wide-ranging but with no sense of dynamic exaggeration, helps him at the big climaxes, which are imposing, at times even monumental, and there’s a beguiling elegance to the instrumental solos that thread their way through the textures. Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic on DG have more dramatic bite but this is superbly done nevertheless.

Eschenbach’s approach to the underrated Symphony in E flat, meanwhile, is epic, thoughtful and at times startlingly measured. He is wonderfully attuned to the complex trajectory of a work that looks back from a newly acquired place of safety on an old world irrevocably damaged. The opening Sehr lebhaft has terrific élan, the scherzo a supple, gracious wit. The orchestral clarity is again breathtaking. But placed beside the almost reckless energy of Bernstein (Sony—nla) or Hindemith himself (DG), you notice a grander manner and slower speeds. Eschenbach’s longbreathed way with the crucial Sehr langsam steers it closer to ritual mourning than private grief, though his treatment of the work’s closing pages, in which sadness briefly threatens to intrude upon gathering joy, is moving in the extreme.

-- Gramophone

This second volume in Naxos’ series of the complete Hindemith quartets contains two of the composer’s largest and best works in the medium. The Fifth Quartet (1923) represents an apotheosis of the composer’s early, experimental phase. The music is chromatic and relentlessly contrapuntal, but also brilliant and even fun (in its third movement). It culminates in an imposing passacaglia that, like the opening double fugue, is remarkably easy to follow while at the same time sounding amazingly modern.

The Sixth Quartet dates from 20 years later, but like its predecessor it can be said to summarize the more lyrical, tonal, mature idiom of the composer’s American period. Sample the gorgeous theme of the work’s third-movement variations (sound clip), one of Hindemith’s most captivating inspirations. The brief Seventh Quartet is altogether lighter, a diverting work written for the composer to play with his wife and students. Surely its premiere performance wasn’t as fine as this one.

As with the previous releases in this series, the performances are all outstanding. The Amar Quartet, named after Hindemith’s own ensemble of the early 20th century, plays this music with a proprietary gusto worthy of the name. All of these pieces are, as already noted, highly contrapuntal—even the genial Seventh Quartet ends with a canon; but the playing here never sounds dry or mechanical, and the sonics are first rate. Connoisseurs of chamber music will find this disc an endless source of pleasure.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

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.

Although Hindemith was not an organ music specialist, his three Sonatas, with their mastery of counterpoint, clarity of form, bold harmonic language and deeply expressive treatment of melody, are recognized as among the great works of modern organ literature. The Two Organ Pieces are Hindemith’s earliest works for the instrument, and the Interludien from his piano cycle Ludus Tonalis, here arranged for organ, form a sequence of beautiful and colorful fantasia-like character pieces.