Hindemith, Paul

(1895-1963)

   composer, music* theorist, and conduc-tor; perhaps the foremost German composer of his generation. He was born in Hanau. His father was a house painter who moved his family to nearby Frankfurt in 1902. Although financial worries and religious friction (his grandparents were Protestant* and Catholic*) strained family relations, his father ensured that Paul received music instruction. He began violin lessons in 1904 and became Adolf Rebner s pupil in 1908. Rebner, the leading violin teacher at Frankfurt s Hoch Conservatory, arranged a gratis position for Hindemith in 1909; he remained until 1917. His exceptional gifts (he was accomplished on clarinet, piano, violin, and viola) brought appointment in 1915 as second violinist in Rebner s string quartet and as concertmaster with Frankfurt s Operahouse Orchestra. He was drafted in 1917, but was released to organize a quartet that gave concerts at the front.

   Hindemith returned to both the quartet and the Operahouse Orchestra after the war. After composing for some time, his work was first performed in 1919 by Frankfurt's Verein fur Theater- und Musikkultur. The premiere of Kammer-musik no. 1 at the 1922 Donaueschingen Festival settled his reputation as Ger-many s principal young composer. He was deemed the enfant terrible of modern German music; his compositions aimed to provoke listeners through dissonance and uncontrolled tones. He was, however, invited in 1923 to join the board of the Donaueschingen Festival. Because of his imagination and energy, the festival acquired an unexpected importance. It moved to Baden-Baden in 1927 to ac-commodate more ambitious projects and was relocated to Berlin* in 1930. Meanwhile, Hindemith became Composition Professor at Berlin s Hochschule fur Musik in 1927. Although he lacked classroom experience, he soon evolved into a popular teacher. He was also a regular performer, both with a string trio and as soloist on the violin and the viola. By 1930 he was the leading performer-composer of his time.

   The NSDAP did not immediately discredit Hindemith or his music. Although his anti-Nazi views were renowned among his students, he adopted a pragmatic attitude toward the Third Reich and ignored the dismissal of Jewish colleagues at the Hochschule. But the Nazis finally forbade performance of his works in November 1934. Although he was allowed to continue teaching, he finally left for Switzerland in 1938. He emigrated to New York in 1940 and eventually taught music theory at Yale. He retired to Switzerland in 1953.

   REFERENCES:Kemp, Hindemith; New Grove, vol. 8; Willett, Art and Politics.