Help
Skip to main content

Paul Hindemith

Born: 16th November 1895, Hanau

Died: 28th December 1963, Frankfurt

Nationality: German

Paul Hindemith was a prolific German composer, violist, violinist, teacher and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity) style of music in the 1920s, with compositions such as Kammermusik, including works with viola and viola d'amore as solo instruments in a neo-Bachian spirit. Other notable compositions include his song cycle Das Marienleben (1923), Der Schwanendreher for viola and orchestra (1935), the opera Mathis der Maler (1938), the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943), and the oratorio When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, a requiem based on Walt Whitman's poem (1946).

Further Reading: Hindemith

Recording of the Week, A fin-de-siècle voyage with Barbara Hannigan and the Emerson String Quartet

The quartet - joined by Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou - go out on a high after nearly fifty years of music-making, with a programme of early twentieth-century works themed around journeying and longing.

Recording of the Week, Andris Nelsons conducts Sibelius and Wagner

James listens to Andris Nelsons’s début recording with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Popular Works: Hindemith

All Works: Hindemith

Recent Best Sellers: Hindemith