Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, conductor, teacher, and music theorist, born in Hanau on November 16, 1895. He began violin lessons at the age of nine and graduated from the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt in 1913, where he studied violin with Adolf Rebner and composition with Bernhard Sekles, having earlier studied with Arnold Mendelssohn.
In 1915 Hindemith became concertmaster of the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra, a post he held until 1923. He also played violin in Rebner’s string quartet, moving to viola in 1919. In 1921 he joined the newly formed Amar Quartet, with which he toured widely in Europe. His compositions attracted public attention after several were performed at the International Society for Contemporary Music festival in Salzburg in 1922. The following year, he began organizing the contemporary music festival in Donaueschingen, where he championed new works and performed viola repertoire.
Hindemith was appointed to teach composition at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik in 1927. During the 1930s he traveled to Cairo and Ankara and toured the United States as a violist. In 1935, following a request made during his visit to Ankara, he prepared plans for reorganizing music education in Turkey and materials for a national program of polyphonic music education. His work contributed to the development of musical life in the country and to the establishment of the Ankara Conservatory.
In 1940 Hindemith moved to the United States, where he developed his own musical language and teaching system. He taught at Yale University and Harvard University; lectures at Harvard later formed the basis of his book A Composer’s World. He became a U.S. citizen in 1946. In 1953 he returned to Europe and settled in Zurich, teaching at the university and making numerous recordings as a conductor, mainly of his own works.
Hindemith’s early music was late Romantic in style, followed by works with expressionist elements and, in the 1920s, a complex contrapuntal language. The series Chamber Music, written between 1922 and 1927 for varied small ensembles, exemplifies this approach. He also wrote for unusual instrumental combinations, including a 1949 sonata for double bass and piano. His later output included operas, ballets, orchestral works, concertos, chamber music, and music for solo instruments.
Among his best-known works are the opera Mathis the Painter (1933–35) and the symphony based on its music, as well as Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943). Other notable works include Mourning Music for viola and strings (1936), the viola concerto Der Schwanendreher (1935), and the Symphony in B-flat Major for concert band (1951). His theoretical books include The Craft of Musical Composition and Elementary Training for Musicians.
Hindemith received the Goethe Medal of Frankfurt in 1955, the Sibelius Prize in 1955, the Hamburg Bach Prize in 1951, the Berlin Art Prize in 1963, and the Balzan Prize in 1962. He also received honorary doctorates from the University of Frankfurt, the Free University of Berlin, and the University of Oxford. He died in Frankfurt am Main on December 28, 1963.