a reflection on paul hindemith
Paul Hindemith was revolutionary and a musical genius. Many people who lived around the same time saw him as nothing more than an untalented noisemaker. Granted, these people didn't have all of the various forms of music that we have today, but untalented would not be a word I would use to describe Paul Hindemith. He helped begin the last great change in classical music from the Romantic Era, which was very tonal and diatonic, to 20th Century Modern Music, which is extremely atonal. Diatonic means within in the key. In other words, everything sounds nice and pretty. There are no weird noises, no funny pitches. Atonal itself is defined as the avoidance of the traditional musical tonality, or in layman's terms, it sounds very weird. Paul Hindemith was born in the German State of Hesse in 1885, and grew up in Germany. After he completed his studies at the Conservatory of Frankfurt-am-Main, he was appointed conductor of the opera orchestra (1915-1923). In 1921, he also helped organize the famous Amar-Hindemith Quartet, in which he played viola. In 1927, he became the composition teacher at the Musikhochschuk in Berlin (Germany). In 1934, Hitler banned his work in Germany because of its "extreme modernism". Around the same time, Hi
A real turning point came in his music in the 1930's, around the time Hitler came to power in Germany. In his early works, he experimented with expressionism, jazz, atonality, parody and satire. From the 1930's on, he was more of a serious composer, and used forms including the canon (which is a round - the same melody, with 3 or more sections starting at different times), variation, suite, fugue, and the sonata. These styles were all popular forms during the Baroque and Classical Eras. The earliest known works of Hindemith were written in the year 1913. There were four main pieces, which were all written in a composition class taught under Arnold Mendelssohn at the Hoch Conservatory, which is located in Frankfurt, Germany. They're all considered student works. That creates a problem for historians, because normally only one copy was written. All of his early music was lost, unpublished, or only bits and pieces. The first masterpiece he wrote that is still very popular today is the Concerto in Eb for Violoncello and Orchestra, Opus 3. Later on when asked about it, Hindemith stated, "I like this piece very much, particularly the first movement; the other two do not seem to me to have come off so well. I soon found out that I would have to try something else (The Larousse Encyclopedia of Music)." 1. Arnold, C. Paul Hindemith. Web Page found at http://www.emory.edu/Music/Arnold/hindemith_content.html.
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Approximate Word count = 1232
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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