An engaging selection of correspondences - by turns thoughtful,
funny, businesslike, and touching - from one of the century's
preeminent musical figures. Neatly timed to coincide with both the
centenary of Hindemith's birth and a shamefully belated production
of his operatic masterpiece Mathis der Maler at the New York City
Opera, this volume edited by Hindemith biographer Skelton offers a
wise and wide choice from a lifetime of letters written by the
composer, the first English translation of his correspondence.
Hindemith (1895-1963) was a protean musician, not "merely" a
composer of world renown, but a theorist of musical modernism, an
organizer of concerts and festivals of contemporary music, an
active professional performer on the violin and the viola, and, not
least, a pedagogue whom Yale was wise enough to snatch up shortly
after his immigration to America in 1940 (in one of his
characteristically realistic career assessments, Hindemith
intimates that it would be no use applying to Harvard for a
teaching position because "they already have Nadia [Boulanger] and
Igor [Stravinsky]"). Hindemith, ever an advocate for the "useful"
in art, approached correspondence as a medium to record his
activities and transmit his plans rather than as an independent
aesthetic exercise. Still, there is rarely a letter without some
touch of dry humor or personal feeling. Not surprisingly, most of
the letters chosen for this volume come from the decades of the
1930s and '40s, when Hindemith the outspoken modernist (although
not Jewish) saw his music banned as "decadent" in his native
Germany, and he and his wife were forced to flee from the Nazis.
The letters are arranged chronologically and linked by the editor's
deft but minimal interpolations to identify people or references.
As a result, this volume can be read by itself as an introduction
to an attractive personality but may be even more meaningful if
taken in conjunction with a full biography. One of the giants, in
his own words. (Kirkus Reviews)
Paul Hindemith had a multifaceted career as an internationally
acclaimed composer, performer, festival organizer, teacher,
lecturer, and writer. Born in Germany in 1895, he was a leading
member of the musical avant-garde, and when the Nazis came to power
his compositions eventually were banned as "decadent art." In 1938
Hindemith went into voluntary exile in Switzerland and in 1940
migrated to the United States, where he became a citizen. His
return to Europe after the war in response to urgent calls for help
in rebuilding European musical life gave rise to many inner
emotional problems. This selection of letters written by Hindemith
spans his entire career, from the First World War until shortly
before his death in 1963. Translated and edited by a leading
authority on Hindemith, the letters (some of which were written in
English) reveal that he was an observant, engaging, and opinionated
correspondent who took a keen interest in contemporary culture and
politics. The first such selection to appear in English, the
letters deal with personal and professional matters and are
addressed to his wife, publishers, and friends in both Europe and
America. Among the many important personalities with whom he came
into contact were the composers Stravinsky and Milhaud, the
conductors Mengelberg, Furtwängler, Koussevitzky, and Klemperer,
and the choreographers Massine and Balanchine. Published to
coincide with the centenary of Hindemith's birth, the letters fill
out our portrait of him and provide an absorbing chronicle of his
life and times.
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