Paul
Hindemith (1895-1963)
Sonate
No. 1
Sonate
No. 2
Sonate
No. 3
Variationen
(1963) (Ursprünglicher 2. Satz aus der 1. Sonate für Klavier)
(Originally
the second movernent of Sonata No. 1 for piano)
Sonate
No. 1
Paul
Hindemith was born at Hanau, near Frankfurt, in 1895, the son of a
house-painter. He had violin lessons as a child, from 1908 as a pupil of Adolf
Rebner, whose quartet he later joined as second violin, and after the war as a
viola-player. His other musical studies were at the Hoch Conservatory in
Frankfurt, followed in 1915 by appointment as leader of the Frankfurt Opera
Orchestra. He made a name for hirnself as a composer in the years immediately
after the war, particularly through the Donaueschingen Festival. He established
with the violinist Licco Amar the Amar-Hindemith Quartet, which won a
reputation for its performances of conternporary music, later forming a string
trio with colleagues at the Berlin Musikhochschule, where, in 1927, he was
appointed professor of composition.
After
1933 Hindemith found himself increasingly out of sympathy with the newly
established National Socialist régime in Germany and in 1934 his work was
banned, leading to a strong protest frorn Furtwängler, who had conducted the
symphony Mathis der Maler in the same year, and was now, for his temerity,
deprived of his position at the Berlin Opera. Hindemith moved in 1936 to
Turkey, where he was invited to establish a national system of musical
education, in accordance with the cultural policy initiated by Kemal Atatürk.
After a brief stay in Switzerland, he moved in 1937 to the United States, with
a teaching appointment at Yale, which he held until 1953. He spent his final
years in Switzerland.
As
a composer Hindemith was enormously prolific and versatile. His name is
associated particularly with Gebrauchsmusik, music of immediate practical use,
whether for professional or amateur performer. This was in contrast to the
notion of music as essentially the self-expression of a composer, a
self-indulgence he abjured. As a performer he was above all a string-player. He
was an excellent violinist, but also one of the most outstanding viola-players
of his time.
Hindemith
wrote his three piano sonatas in 1936. In the years preceding he had
established his own mature style (the symphony on Mathis der Maler was written
in 1934). Furthermore his position in the world was now clear, the position of
the artist in relation to society and politics, through the impression made on
him by current political events. This is documented in the libretto of the
opera Mathis der Maler in 1934. Nevertheless Hindemith's personal circumstances
were in these years more and more uncertain. He began the first Piano Sonata
during his stay in Turkey in 1936, its inspiration a poem by Hölderlin. This
poem, Der Main, tells first of the longing of the poet, the exiled singer, for
Greece. It goes on:
Then wander he must
From strangers to strangers, and
The earth, free, must, alas,
Serve him as his fatherland, as long as
he lives.
And when he dies - yet never shall I
forget you,
However far I wander, fair River Main!,
and
Your banks, so delightful.
In hospitality, proud one, you accepted
me
And brightened a stranger's eye,
And quietly gliding songs
You taught me and how to live in silence.
Without
being overt programme music the sonata expresses the feeling of its
inspiration. The "Still hingleitende Gesänge" (quietly gliding songs)
of the poem are songs of introversion and melancholy, a direct reaction to the
depressing political circumstances of the time, reflected in the first and
fourth movements. The second movement was originally a set of variations. The
pianist Walter Gieseking , after a brief inspection of the sonata, with the
second of the group, played it through to the publisher, who was delighted by
both works, of which Gieseking intended to give the first performance in
Germany, if political circumstances had not intervened. He was unable, however,
to conceal his doubts about the meditative and complex variation movement. In
its place Hindemith wrote a stirring slow march. The following movement is
quick, a kind of scherzo, leading to a final fourth movement that recalls the
first,
a
framework in arch-form.
Sonata
No. 2
On
8th July 1936 Hindemith wrote to his publisher as follows: "Oear Willy,
Here you have the sonata you know about (i.e. the first) and so that you do not
think that senility is approaching, I have also added a little brother to it
...it is a lighter counterpart to the weightier first..."
In
three movements (sonata-form, scherzo and rondo), concise and cheerful in
conception, it has the character of a sonatina. This is in contrast with the
serious earlier sonata, but does not exclude, in the long slow introduction to
the third movement, the underlying melancholy of that threatening period of
history. The melody of this slow introduction returns in the second episode of
the rondo in a more buoyant mood.
Sonata
No. 3
The
third of Hindemith's piano sonatas was written between 18th July and 20th
August in the same year as the two earlier works. It is, after the sonatina
form of the second sonata, a work of wider dimensions. The first movement, in
sonata-form, is informed by a spirit of gentle lyricism, with great musical and
technical contrast in the development. The scherzo-like second movement calls
for pianistic brilliance and rhythmic precision, followed by a third movement
in the style of a march. In this third movement appears a second theme that
forms the subject of the double fugue of the finale, a movement that follows
the grand tradition exemplified by the work in this form of Brahms and Reger.
Variationen
(1936)
Instead
of the variation-movement of the first Piano Sonata, Hindemith composed a slow
march. This replacement became definitive, and the reinstatement of the
original movement seems undesirable. This does not mean that the
variation-movement was without value. Hindemith himself seems to have set
considerable store by it and wanted to publish it as a separate piece,
something that he never did. It seems a matter of chance, as so often in the
history of music, as with Beethoven's Grosse Fuge as final movement of the
String Quartet Op. 130 or Schumann's original finale for his G minor Sonata,
that an original and important movement may be parted from the work of which it
was once a part to enjoy a life of its own. We should not reproach Gieseking
for his judgement based on a brief reading of the sonata. This is very
introverted music, meditative in character, the beauty and inwardness of which
makes a gradual but lasting impression on the sensitive listener. The theme of
the variations is in a tranquil triple rhythm, marked very slow and expressive.
Its structure (2+2 + 5 + 2+4 bars) underlies each variation, as do the motivic
components, which appear in ornamented form and sometimes treated imitatively.
The first and second variations bring an increase of movement. The third
variation, marked very slow, employs rich, almost Baroque ornamentation in a
meditative mood that informs also the final, fourth variation.
(English
version by Keith Anderson)
Hans
Petermandl
The
pianist Hans Petermandl was born in Linz in 1933 and studied under Bruno
Seidlhofer at the Vienna Musikhochschule, where he was awarded the Bösendorfer
Prize. His career has involved him in a par!icular concentration on the work of
Bach, with two performances of the complete 48 Preludes and Fugues for Austrian
Radio, and performances of Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Hindemith and
contemporary composers. He was soloist in Hindemith's Piano Concerto under the
composer's direction. He has won considerable success in Vienna and elsewhere
with his performances of the complete cycle of Schubert Piano Sonatas and
concert-tours have included not only Europe but also Japan and the United
States of America. He has appeared as a soloist under conductors of the
greatest distinction and in chamber music recitals.