Hindemith: Viola Sonata, Op. 11, No. 4
While serving in the German army during World War I, Paul Hindemith was charged by his commanding officer — himself a great music-lover and admirer of French art — to assemble a string quartet of fellow soldiers as a way of providing respite from the miseries of war. During a March 1918 performance of Debussy’s sensuous String Quartet, Hindemith and his group had just finished the slow movement when the signals officer burst in and announced the news of Debussy’s death. The performance did not continue. Hindemith recalled:
"It was as if the spirit had been removed from our playing. But now we felt for the first time how much more music is than just style, technique and an expression of personal feeling. Here music transcended all political barriers, national hatred and the horrors of war. I have never understood so clearly as then what direction music must take."
Debussy’s untimely death interrupted his projected cycle of Six sonatas for various instruments, of which he only completed half. Interestingly, Hindemith also made plans for a series of six sonatas during his military service, but he, too, would never finish the set. The Viola Sonata in F major, fourth in the would-be series of six, and the first of his five viola sonatas, marked Hindemith’s decision to pivot from playing the violin to its alto-voice cousin instead. Completed in June 1919, the year Hindemith returned from the service, the Sonata’s international style seems to reflect the composer’s wartime epiphany: Brahmsian warmth mixes with quasi-Dvořákian folksong, all occasionally refracted through the iridescence of Debussy’s harmonic language.
The viola croons inwardly at the outset of the wandering Fantasie that opens the piece, but soon grows more impassioned through a series of rhapsodic, swirling figurations. The surge is short-lived, and both players retreat until the viola is left on a naked A-sharp that bleeds into the folksy theme that announces the second movement. The theme’s capricious vacillation between duple and triple meter lends a kind of crooked lilt of the vernacular; this is music of oral tradition, not suited for square Western notation. The ensuing variations go on to explore different sides of this meandering quality, whether through hobbling meter, dizzying chromaticism or a flurry of arabesque-style piano accompaniment. The movement crashes headlong into the proud Finale, but curiously, the numbered variations series continues through this movement as well. The peculiar form here is a sort of hybrid of sonata and theme and variations, but its cumulative effect serves the movement’s buildup to its stamping conclusion.
© Graeme Steele Johnson for Piano on Park
While serving in the German army during World War I, Paul Hindemith was charged by his commanding officer — himself a great music-lover and admirer of French art — to assemble a string quartet of fellow soldiers as a way of providing respite from the miseries of war. During a March 1918 performance of Debussy’s sensuous String Quartet, Hindemith and his group had just finished the slow movement when the signals officer burst in and announced the news of Debussy’s death. The performance did not continue. Hindemith recalled:
"It was as if the spirit had been removed from our playing. But now we felt for the first time how much more music is than just style, technique and an expression of personal feeling. Here music transcended all political barriers, national hatred and the horrors of war. I have never understood so clearly as then what direction music must take."
Debussy’s untimely death interrupted his projected cycle of Six sonatas for various instruments, of which he only completed half. Interestingly, Hindemith also made plans for a series of six sonatas during his military service, but he, too, would never finish the set. The Viola Sonata in F major, fourth in the would-be series of six, and the first of his five viola sonatas, marked Hindemith’s decision to pivot from playing the violin to its alto-voice cousin instead. Completed in June 1919, the year Hindemith returned from the service, the Sonata’s international style seems to reflect the composer’s wartime epiphany: Brahmsian warmth mixes with quasi-Dvořákian folksong, all occasionally refracted through the iridescence of Debussy’s harmonic language.
The viola croons inwardly at the outset of the wandering Fantasie that opens the piece, but soon grows more impassioned through a series of rhapsodic, swirling figurations. The surge is short-lived, and both players retreat until the viola is left on a naked A-sharp that bleeds into the folksy theme that announces the second movement. The theme’s capricious vacillation between duple and triple meter lends a kind of crooked lilt of the vernacular; this is music of oral tradition, not suited for square Western notation. The ensuing variations go on to explore different sides of this meandering quality, whether through hobbling meter, dizzying chromaticism or a flurry of arabesque-style piano accompaniment. The movement crashes headlong into the proud Finale, but curiously, the numbered variations series continues through this movement as well. The peculiar form here is a sort of hybrid of sonata and theme and variations, but its cumulative effect serves the movement’s buildup to its stamping conclusion.
© Graeme Steele Johnson for Piano on Park