Hindemith reviews

Hindemith is sometimes dismissed as a drily academic composer, and it’s true that his vast output is uneven in quality. Yet at its best his music could be dazzlingly inventive, as it is in the three pieces recorded here. Two of them were written for virtuoso American orchestras – the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber for the New York Philharmonic, and the Concert Music for Strings and Brass for Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

As a viola player himself, Hindemith played in an ensemble together with the violinist Szymon Goldberg and the cellist Emanuel Feuermann, so he knew the workings of the string trio from the inside. The first of his two trios was written during his enfant terrible years in the 1920s. Beginning with an energetic Toccata and ending with a frenetic fugue, it includes a movement almost entirely in pizzicato – some four years before Bartók wrote a similar piece in his Fourth String Quartet.

This collection – the earliest recording a radiant account of the Hindemith Concerto – captures Gitlis’s unique brand of molten virtuosity from the interpretatively noble to the elusively impulsive.

Julian Haylock

The Amar Quartet plays Hindemith with all the proprietorial authority one would expect from such a brand. The first Amar Quartet was founded back in 1921 by Hindemith, who played viola in it under the leadership of Licco Amar. But the name was revived 20 years ago when, to mark the composer’s centenary, the Hindemith Institute awarded the title to today’s Swiss-based players on account of their deep engagement with his music. This third and final volume in their Naxos series of the complete Hindemith string quartets proves again how worthy they are of the honour.

The patron saint of neglected instruments, Hindemith composed more than 30 sonatas for very diverse resources – including, unusually, such instruments as the bass tuba and double bass. Among the more obscure combinations is the Sonata for Althorn and Piano, which opens this arresting new disc, and stands out further for including a spoken dialogue between the two players (here, Teunis van der Zwart and Alexander Melnikov) at the start of its finale.

We live in a string-playing age where soloists seem to consider (and they’re probably right) a huge sound as a near-essential requirement for developing and sustaining a world career. However understandable the situation, the effect can be nonetheless disconcertingly wearing – which I’m sure isn’t what Christian Poltéra in any way intends. But after listening to his otherwise deeply impressive cello-playing for over an hour, there’s no escaping the feeling of having been harangued, rather than drawn in, by the relentlessness of such weight of tone.

Bratsche! It’s not often that the German word for ‘viola’ comes with an exclamation mark attached, but the cover of Antoine Tamestit’s new release heralds something worth celebrating. Among the latest of the new star violists to record Hindemith, Tamestit brings his wonderful musical intelligence to bear on some of the greatest music written for the instrument.

As with previous releases from Lars Vogt’s Spannungen/Tensions festival, this selection from 2012 is a pleasure. Heimbach’s Hydroelectric Plant provides the unlikely setting for music by Lili and Nadia Boulanger, Debussy and Hindemith. It is the intensity and spontaneity that makes such festivals special, as heard in Vogt and Alina Ibragimova’s performance of Debussy’s Violin Sonata, with its daringly languid first movement.

Recordings of Hindemith’s viola music date back to those by the composer himself: the catalogue is full and rich. These wonderful works have yet to be universally embraced, though recently the discography has been swelled by some of this music’s most remarkable interpretations. Among them are those by Tabea Zimmermann, who has followed up her release last year of Hindemith’s works for viola and orchestra with this two-disc set of the complete sonatas – three with piano, and four for solo viola.

Hindemith’s Violin Sonatas date from crucial years both in his life and in the history of his native Germany. The first two from Op. 11 were begun in 1918 while Hindemith was serving in the German army and still to fully establish himself as a composer, while the other pair (without opus number) date from the gathering darkness of the mid-to-late 1930s; indeed, the remarkably serene C major work was written once he had exiled himself to Switzerland.

Before Hindemith became famous as a viola player – or, indeed, as a composer – the violin was his instrument. He was appointed leader of the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra when only 19, and this rewarding new release is a reminder of his continued close affinity with the instrument. Most of his stylistic phases are reflected in these pieces.