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…)

Through the years, he also became diplomatic correspondent, Kapellmeister of the courts of Duke Ernst of Gotha and eventually Kantor of the Hamburg Johanneum, a position that required  him to compose two cantatas a week, to produce a new Passion annually, and to provide occasional works for church and civil ceremonies. But it wasn’t enough for Telemann who also wanted to have his hand at opera, despite the opposition of the city fathers. Fed up with their attitude, he threatened to resign and applied for the post of Kantor of the Leipzig Thomaskirche, and in 1722 was chosen over Bach, Graupner and three other candidates. Since the Hamburg City Council refused to grant his release, they were nevertheless obliged to improve his salary and withdraw their objections to his association with the Hamburg Opera. Telemann remained in Hamburg until his death in 1767, being succeeded in that position by his godson, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, son of Johann Sebastian.

Considered the most famous musician in Germany, Telemann was an extremely prolific composer, and wrote more than 3000 works (some sources mention 3600), including more than 1500 church cantatas, 600 suites for orchestra and 46 settings of the Passion! Handel, a lifelong friend, would jokingly relate that Telemann “could write a church piece in eight parts with the same expedition another would write a letter”.

Listen to Telemann and the Baroque Gypsies, Ensemble Caprice’s latest album…

Born in Magdeburg in 1681, Georg Philipp Telemann showed considerable musical talent as a child and played the violin, the flute, the zither and keyboard. By the age of twelve, he had already composed an opera (Sigismundus), much to the dismay of his family who strongly disapproved of music. Georg Philipp’s will was stronger than all the negative energy surrounding his musical practice though and he relentlessly perfected his playing and his compositional skills, partly by transcribing works by Agostino Steffani, Johann Rosenmüller, Corelli and Antonio Caldara.

To his mother’s insistence, Telemann studied law at Leipzig University but, soon enough a career in music became the only possible path. While at the University, he founded the student Collegium Musicum with which he gave public concerts, an ensemble that Johann Sebastian Bach was later to direct. He also wrote operas for the Leipzig Theater, and in 1703 became musical director of the Leipzig Opera.

Two years later, he was appointed Kapellmeister to the court of Count Erdmann II of Promnitz at Sorau (now Zary). The proximity of the court to Berlin and contact with Polish folk music all proved very stimulating for the young composer but Telemann’s tenure was cut short by the imminent prospect of invasion by the Swedish army.

He then moved to Eisenach and his appointment there just overlapped with the presence of Bach. After his wife’s sudden death in 1711, he took up duties as Director of Municipal Music and also as Kapellmeister of the Barfüßerkirche in Frankfurt-am-Main. He composed occasional music for civic ceremonies, church cantatas, oratorios, orchestral music and a wealth of chamber music.

To listen to Telemann’s music…

Born in 1934 in Hawkesbury, Ontario, André Prévost studied composition with Clermont Pépin and writing techniques with Jean Papineau-Couture and Isabelle Delorme. He then furthered his studies in Paris with Messiaen and Dutilleux and later returned to study electroacoustic music with Michel Philoppot. The following summer was spent at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts, where he worked with Copland, Kodály, Schuller and Carter.

A tenured professor for many years at Université de Montréal, he taught composition and analysis.  It is in 1967 that Prévost created his most ambitious work, Terre des Hommes, for double orchestra, three choirs and two narrators, based on a poem by Michèle Lalonde, chosen to inaugurate the Expo 67 World Fair. He wrote more than 60 works, including Cosmophonie, Variations et thème, Mobiles and various sonatas and improvisations. We can hear Angèle Dubeau performing his Improvisation for solo violin here. He passed away in 2001.

An homage to the composer will be rendered in the next few days. Tonight at 5 p.m., at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, will be launched La musique que je suis, a book written under the direction of Lyse Richer. For more information: (514) 872-5338.

You will also be able to watch (for a first or second time) Journal d’une création, the fascinating documentary by James Dormeyer in which we follow the composer during the two years leading to the premiere of his Concerto for violin and orchestra, in April 1998. It will be featured on October 4, 6 and 7 at 1 p.m. at the Cinéma Parallèle.