Hindemith: Concert Music for Strings and Brass, Op. 50

Concert Music for Strings and Brass, Op. 50 (1930)

Paul Hindemith
(1895-1963)

As the 20^th century draws to a close lists are being drawn up assessing every possible aspect of these hundred years in terms of the greatest, the most historic, the most momentous, the best, the worst. If anyone is reckless enough to propose the most significant creative figures in 20^th century music the most likely names would be those of Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok, Webern and Berg. It is interesting to consider that at the century’s mid-point Webern’s name probably would not be cited: little of his work had yet entered the general repertoire. At that time another name probably would be included in this group, although not the case today: Paul Hindemith. Like Bartok and Schoenberg, Hindemith had taken refuge in the United States with the onset of World War II, becoming an influential presence as professor of composition at Yale University. His reputation had reached its highpoint through his teaching, his writings, and (since the early 1930s) a stream of orchestral and chamber works. That his central position in contemporary music gradually faded, even before his death in 1963, was neither unexpected, nor without precedent. Musical reputations often fluctuate, especially soon after the death of a composer, as can be seen in the case of Sibelius, Strauss, Barber and Vaughan Williams. On the other hand, only after their deaths did the music of Bartok, and Webern gain a firm place in the concert repertoire.

Paul Hindemith occupied an unusual position from the start, coming of age in a drastically transformed Germany following the First World War, where overnight Richard Strauss seemed to be a somewhat irrelevant (if revered) figure, while Arnold Schoenberg (then resident in Berlin) was regarded as the embodiment of all that was new and challenging. Paul Hindemith, however, burst onto the scene with a brisk practicality and youthful energy that led to his being labelled with the ugly word,

“Gebrauchsmusik” = “Music for Use.”

HINDEMITH ON HIMSELF:

He described himself (as early as 1921) as follows:

“Born in Hanau in 1895. Music study from the age of twelve. As violinist, violist, pianist or percussionist I have made a thorough survey of the following musical territories: cinema, café, dance music, operetta, jazz band, military music… As composer, I have chiefly written pieces I don’t like any more: chamber music for the most diverse ensembles, songs and piano pieces. Also three one-act operas, which will probably remain the only ones since as a result of the rising price of manuscript paper only small scores can now be written. I cannot give analyses of my works because I don’t know how to explain a piece of music in a few words (I would rather write a new one in the time). Besides, I think that for people with ears my things are perfectly easy to understand, so analysis is superfluous. For people without ears such cribs can’t help.” The mind boggles at the thought of Richard Strauss writing such a comment!

The young Hindemith became known equally as performer and composer----he was the soloist in the premiere of William Walton’s Viola Concerto in 1929. As a composer Hindemith was notable for a turning away from the sumptuous late Romantic style of many of his contemporaries, developing a style which was as bluff, no-nonsense and emotionally detached as the man himself. (Curiously, even today, while Hindemith’s work has yet to fully regain its place, some of those contemporaries are achieving a belated revival, as witness the popularity of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s music.)

Hindemith’s determination to break away from the luscious tone of his immediate predecessors was reflected in his reluctance to compose for the traditional symphony orchestra. Instead, as he himself said, he preferred to write works for “diverse”chamber ensembles, including seven concerto-like “Kammermusiken,” which seem to be the contemporary equivalent to the Bach Brandenburg Concerti----allowing for the presence of such exotic instruments as an air-raid siren! Only at the age of 30 would Hindemith finally write for full orchestra, going on to compose a number of mellow symphonic works which remain his most familiar music. Those who know a work such as the “Mathis der Maler” Symphony (or the legion of sonatas written at Yale for just about every instrument short of comb and waxed paper) can be startled by the bristling energy and high spirits of Hindemith’s earlier “athletic style,” as Donald Francis Tovey put it. While performers on the tuba or viola d’amore may feel grateful for such efforts, Hindemith opened himself to the charge of dry academicism---perhaps he should have followed his own advice [spelled out in his delight book, A Composer’s World], and avoided a teaching career! Still, much of his best work remains little-known, and the final verdict on Paul Hindemith is yet to come.

The Concert Music for Strings and Brass was written in 1930 as a commission celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony. (That celebration resulted in a rich harvest of commissions, including Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, symphonies by Prokofiev, Roussel and Hanson and works by Copand, Honegger and Respighi.) A substantial work in two movements, the Concert Music belongs neither to the tradition of the symphony nor the concerto. Foreswearing winds and percussion, it is music of hard edges (almost more “iron” than “brass,”) set in blunt contrast with the flowing contours of the strings---in which, incidentally, the violins are not divided into the traditional “Firsts” and “Seconds,” rather treated as a single body of instruments. The sharp juxtaposition of instrumental masses results in music of Germanic muscle-power, but with little direct link with German orchestra tradition. There is, to be sure, a less obvious connection with the sheer heft of earlier German music; as with many of his contemporaries, Hindemith found deep artistic renewal in looking back to his roots in Baroque music, especially his beloved Johann Sebastian Bach.)

Opening with a long sustained C-sharp in the brass, the strings sweep up in scales to set in motion a sharply articulated “dotted rhythm” against which a long-breathed, sustained melody is unfolded in the brass, with Hindemith’s trademark interval of the perfect fourth much in evidence. Pressing steadily forward, the dotted rhythm switches to the brass, now taking on a new melodic shape with eighth-note figuration giving even greater urgency to the music. Quieting for a moment in volume, the forward momentum never slackens, the music coming heavily to rest on heavy, sustained thirds. The brass fall silent, the strings occupying the spotlight. The sweeping scales and jogging dotted rhythms from the first page return, with sustained melodic lines in the lower strings derived from the long melodic lines originally heard in the brass. Soon rejoined by the brass, the strings take up the “new melodic shape” heard earlier in the brass alone, the rhythmic and thematic elements now interwoven between both instrumental bodies. The long melodic figures return high in the strings, followed by the scale-wise figures set against the tirelessly hammering rhythmic patterns. This all stamps downward to an extended concluding section, marked “sehr breit” (“very broad”), and considerably slower than the main body of the movement. The music shifts from a lively triple metre to one of a stately four beats per bar----and what seems to be an entirely new lyrical melody played by the strings in sonorous unison has actually been heard been heard already in the first pages of the work: the flowing melody formerly played by the brass is now recapitulated in a rhythmic transformation, becoming a warm and passionate cantilena. The First Part concludes with a solid C-sharp major cadence.

The Second Part begins with a bang, laying out an extended, free fugal exposition, the subject marked by a clearly punctuated three-note pattern which breaks into racing, repeated sixteenths, heard against a flowing counter-subject. A bluesy syncopated figure in the brass is added, soon leading to a secondary element: a lilting, off-center waltz over a loping oompah accompaniment in the brass. Breaking into a gallop, the fugal element reappears to join the proceedings, sprinting onward, then suddenly coming to rest of a sustained A in the violas. A central episode, marked “Langsam” (“slowly”) is leads off with the horns intoning a procession-like rhythmic figure similar to one which will be heard in the slow movement of the “Mathis der Maler” Symphony. Set in a free A-flat Major tonality, long arching melodic phrases akin to those of the first movement are heard in the violas and trombone, then the violins. A moment of utter stillness marked by a pillar-like string chord soon ushers in the energetic music of the opening section. All of the major components return, compressed and superimposed, the “bluesy” touches much in evidence, the waltz-like melody eventually heard in a subdued trombone solo. With renewed boisterousness the galloping rhythms and scampering fugal elements fly onward, the music coming to a grandiose conclusion, crowned by the bluesy figure. Hindemith”s “athletic style, indeed!”

A distinguished musician of a quite different artistic temperament had this to say about Paul Hindemith:

“Hindemith’s limitations are to a certain extent those of his goal, that of the artist who aims first of all at perfect and expert workmanship, accepting his ideas as they come to him, and leaving the rest to Providence, Destiny or God. At the best such an attitude produces supreme
works of art; at the worst it is certain to produce good ones. And if Hindemith’s work never achieves the force of ultimate revelation, it always rests firmly on the ground of musical
reality, never giving less than it aims and pretends to give. And occasionally what it gives is of a very high order indeed.” [Roger Sessions.]