Paul Hindemith: Trauermusik (1936) - His Music and His Life

The German Paul Hindemith was born in Hanau nearby Frankfurt/Main on November 16, 1895 and studied with Arnold Mendelsohn (1855-1933) and Bernhard Sekles (1872-1934).

Hindemith became the first important composer coming from a string instrument since Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859). In 1915, Hindemith became concert master at the Frankfurt Opera.

Since 1922, Paul Hindemith started his incredible career as the founder of the New German Classical Music. His operas "Murders - Women Hope" (1921) and "Sancta Susanna" (also 1921) have been witnesses of Hindemith's assault on classical music. The radicalizing "Piano Suite 1922" has been denied categorically. Hindemith's compositions have been remained as a matter of taste. His book "A Composer's World - Horizons and Limitations", published in 1952, seems like a stylish report or even justification.

Paul Hindemith passed away on December 28, 1963 in Frankfurt/Main. 

Karl Amadeus Hartmann- His Music and His Life

 

The German Karl Amadeus Hartmann was born in Munich on August 2, 1905 and came from a Silesian painter family. Hartmann studied with Hermann Scherchen (1891-1969) and Anton von Webern (1883-1945).

Hartmann is a figure unique in German music - the only composer to stay put and defy Adolf Hitler for the duration of the Third Reich.

"Unending was the stream, unedning the misery', unending the sorrow, "wrote Hartmann at the head of a fresh sheet of paper, on which, over the following tense days, he composed a piano sonata titled "27th April 1945"; its opening rhythm dictated by the shuffling feet of the final victims of Nazi tyranny.

Hartmann's First Symphony (1940) "composed in spirit and adoration to Zoltan Kodaly" came into being from a symphonic fragment with the lyric of the North American poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892).

The "Concerto Funebre" (funebre=funeral) for solo violin strings was composed during the first four days of World War II in 1939. Hartmann's Fourth Symphony required only the celli and basses.

His Seventh Symphony became one of the Highlights during the 34th World Music Festival 1960 in Cologne/Germany.

Hartmann's last composition has been the "Chant Scene" for baritone and orchestra with words from "Sodom and Gomorrah" by Jean Giraudoux, the French poet, who lived from 1882-1944.

Karl-Amadeus Hartmann, who impressed through musical picture imagination and colors, passed away on December 5, 1963, also in Munich.

 

Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Concerto Funebre