Violinist, then violist, proud herald of avant garde music, Paul Hindemith seems to be one of those composers we don’t know much about.

It is in1922 that some of his pieces were heard for the first time in the International Society for Contemporary Music festival at Salzburg and brought him to the attention of an international audience. The following year, he began to work as an organizer of the Donaueschingen Festival, where he programmed works by several avant garde composers, including Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg.

While some condemned his music as “degenerate” ans Joseph Goebbels publicly denounced Hindemith as an “atonal noisemaker”, others thought that he might provide Germany with an example of a modern German composer. He finally emigrated to Switzerland in 1938, then to the USA in 1940 and taught composition at the prestigious Yale University where he had such notable pupils as Lukas Foss, Norman Dello Joio, Mel Powell, Harold Shapero, Hans Otte, Ruth Schonthal, and Oscar-winning film director George Roy Hill. He became an American citizen in 1946, but returned to Europe in 1953, living in Zürich and teaching musicology at the university there.

Here are some famous quotes by the composer.

“My God, how can anyone ever be a master of music?”

“People who make music together cannot be enemies, at least while the music lasts.”

“There are only twelve tones and they need to be treated carefully.”

“There are only two things worth aiming for, good music and a clean conscience.”

I invite you to discover his wonderful Sonata for Harp, as performed by Valérie Milot on her Revelation album…

As a child, I plunged in the music of Schumann, head first so to speak, way before knowing anything about Eusebius, Florestan, Raro, the Philistines, Clara. The Album for the Young was invested, one piece at a time, as Schumann would have liked it to be, as a guide for the beginner that I was. A few years after that, I would discover his Romanza in F sharp major. (I must have thought the work was too beautiful to pass on, despite the six sharps taunting me as key signature.) I also played many Novelettes at that time. When I was 17, it was “the” chamber music revelation of my (then) short life: his Piano Quintet. I since then added to my list of favourites the sublime Dichterliebe (The love of the poet), the Papillons, the Fantasy, the Concerto, the Carnaval, that contains all the germs of this great composer’s genius. (more…)

The Chopin Year started officially last night, with a concert extravaganza featuring Lang Lang… who apparently will take part in a 3-D animated movie about the composer. Not quite sure what Chopin would have thought about this one…

So many pianists playing so much Chopin, it’s hard to know what to listen to. The OSM is featuring the 14-year-old Jan Lisiecki, winner of its Standard Life Competition, next Tuesday, in the Concerto in E minor.

To get in the mood, why not listen to Chopin’s waltzes, as played by Richard Raymond…

This seems to be such a touchy question, both on stage and in the hall. You  may get glares from your neighbours if you’re too enthusiastic after the effervescent double octaves finish of a concerto. Some will roll their eyes in dismay. Some performers will make a gesture to recap concentration. But others accept applause for what it is, a sign that the listener is touched. Pianist Emanuel Ax ponders on the subject here…

The Canadian Broadcasting Corportation had his radio orchestra until very recently. Technology may have pushed it to retirement but, this time, it will be on the Web that the National Broadcast Orchestra of Canada, based in Vancouver, but led by Québécois conductor Alain Trudel, will make its debuts on January 8.

Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti will perform Beethoven’s Concerto No. 0, an early work rebuilt and reorchestrated by Kuerti. (The pianist taks about the concerto here…) Program also includes the premiere of Canadian composer Michael Oesterle’s The Sparrow’s Ledger and Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony.

All the details on the Orchestra’s Website…

Kuerti in Beethoven’s Sonatas…