Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist, and conductor. Born in Hanau near Frankfurt, he was the eldest child of a painter and decorator. He learned the violin as a child and studied at Dr. Hoch’s Konservatorium in Frankfurt, where his teachers included Adolf Rebner, Arnold Mendelssohn, and Bernhard Sekles. He initially earned a living playing in dance bands and musical-comedy groups, became deputy leader of the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra in 1914, and was promoted to concertmaster in 1916. He also played second violin in the Rebner String Quartet. After his father died in World War I, Hindemith was conscripted into the Imperial German Army in 1917, playing bass drum in a regimental band and forming a string quartet. He served as a sentry on the front in Flanders, surviving grenade attacks only by good luck, according to his diary. After the armistice, he returned to Frankfurt and the Rebner Quartet.
In 1921, Hindemith founded the Amar Quartet, playing viola, and toured Europe extensively, focusing on contemporary music. His compositions from the 1920s made him a major advocate of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) style. Works like *Kammermusik*, reminiscent of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, featured the viola and viola d’amore as solo instruments in a neo-Bachian spirit. His other notable works include the song cycle *Das Marienleben*, the viola concerto *Der Schwanendreher*, the opera and symphony *Mathis der Maler*, the *Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber*, and the oratorio *When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d*, a requiem based on Walt Whitman. Hindemith’s music is anchored by a foundational tone, using Baroque and Classical forms, counterpoint, and cadences, while his harmonic language freely uses all twelve notes of the chromatic scale within a tonal framework, as detailed in his treatise *The Craft of Musical Composition*.
The Nazis had a complicated relationship with his music, initially denouncing it as degenerate and banning it in 1936, though some officials saw him as a potential model modern German composer. Hindemith and his wife emigrated to Switzerland and the United States ahead of World War II. In his later years, he conducted and recorded much of his own music.
- field
- Composer, music theorist, teacher, violist, conductor
- nationality
- German and American
- known_for
- Neue Sachlichkeit style, The Craft of Musical Composition, Mathis der Maler
Lore & Background
Paul Hindemith was a German-born composer, violist, conductor, and theorist who later became an American citizen. He was a leading figure in the *Neue Sachlichkeit* (New Objectivity) movement of the 1920s, a style that rejected Romantic excess in favor of clear, direct expression. His music is typically anchored by a foundational tone and draws on Baroque and Classical forms, counterpoint, and cadences, yet it freely employs all twelve notes of the chromatic scale within this tonal framework, a system he codified in his treatise *The Craft of Musical Composition*. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring Europe as its violist. His early works, such as the *Kammermusik* series, feature solo viola and viola d’amore in a neo-Bachian spirit. Other significant compositions include the song cycle *Das Marienleben*, the viola concerto *Der Schwanendreher*, the opera and symphony *Mathis der Maler*, the *Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber*, and the oratorio *When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d*. Hindemith’s relationship with the Nazi regime was fraught; his early operas were condemned as degenerate, and his music was banned in 1936, though some officials saw potential in his later tonal works. He and his wife emigrated to Switzerland and then the United States ahead of World War II, later conducting and recording much of his own music.
Reader's Guide
Hindemith’s music is grounded in a foundational tone, employing forms, counterpoint, and cadences drawn from Baroque and Classical traditions, while his harmonic language freely uses all twelve chromatic notes within a tonal framework, a system he codified in his treatise *The Craft of Musical Composition*. As a leading figure of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement in the 1920s, he composed works like *Kammermusik*, which feature viola and viola d’amore as solo instruments in a neo-Bachian style. His output includes the song cycle *Das Marienleben*, the viola concerto *Der Schwanendreher*, the opera and symphony *Mathis der Maler*, the *Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber*, and the oratorio *When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d*, a requiem setting of Walt Whitman’s poem. Hindemith founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring Europe extensively as a violist. His relationship with the Nazi regime was fraught: some officials condemned his early, sexually charged operas as degenerate, and Joseph Goebbels publicly denounced him as an “atonal noisemaker,” leading to a ban on his music in 1936 and inclusion in the 1938 *Entartete Musik* exhibition. Yet others saw him as a potential model modern German composer due to his turn toward tonality and folk references. Hindemith emigrated to Switzerland and the United States ahead of World War II. In his later years, he conducted and recorded much of his own music.
Did You Know?
- He became a U.S. citizen in 1946 after emigrating to the United States in 1940.
- Hindemith founded the Yale Collegium Musicum while teaching at Yale University.
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