Search - Hindemith, Albert, Frankfurt Radio Symphony :: Complete Wind Concertos

Three Pleasant Works and a Masterpiece

Christopher Forbes | Brooklyn,, NY | 11/05/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Having recently realized that there is a major hole in my 20th century CD collection, I have tried to remedy this with some new purchases of the music of Paul Hindemidth. Hindemidth, along with Stravinsky, Bartok and Schonberg, is usually cited as one of the great innovators and theorists of 20th century music, though the music of the German seems to inspire less adulation or damnation, at least in this country. While it is hard to find a Hindemidth hater, it is also hard to find legions of true believers in the composer either. Hindemidth's staggering output is partly to blame for this. Any composer who aims to write a sonata for every possible instrument, as well as concerti for most of them is going to have some less than inspired moments, just out of the sheer volume of material. Then, when such works end up as the first experiences young musicians have to a composer, it is perhaps inevitable that he should get the reputation of writing well-crafted but dry music. What is interesting on further listening is how far from the truth this perception is.The works on this CD, which purport to be the "complete" Wind concerti, all date from the 1947 - 49. During this period, Hindemidth was teaching in the United States, and he had developed the theories in The Craft of Musical Composition, which determined the music of his later life and had a great influence on a whole generation of non-serialist American composers. This is not the music of the spiky neo-classicist of the 20th, but a mellow and mature composer, interested in communicating with a broad audience in a fresh but still compelling way. Two of the works on the disc are quite well known. The Clarinet Concerto is another example of the great body of work that owes its existence to the clarinetist Benny Goodman, along with the Copland Concerto, Bartok's Contrasts and numerous other classical works. The work is in four short movements and written in a broad, attractively "romantic" style. Though the lines in the melodies are highly chromatic, they are never uncompromisingly dissonant. The clarinet part is well written, though not overly technical. The effect of the piece is pleasing, if not all that deep. The Horn Concerto is a stronger work, and probably one of Hindemidth's best-known concerti. Written for Dennis Brain in 1949, the piece is in three movements. The first two movements are brief, almost neo-baroque affairs, with one particular melody in the first movement resembling some of the composer's more famous Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber. The final movement is really three sections mashed together, a slow section that, at least in this recording, features a spoken text duet with the Horn, a faster development of the material, and a final slow section. The work is brilliantly orchestrated and deeply felt. Perhaps, along with the Violin Concerto and the Viola Concerto, this piece deserves a place in the strongest of Hindemidth's repertoire.The other two works on the CD are both attractive, lighter works, in the vein of Hindemidth's earlier Kammermusik, but without the spikiness of those early works. Both concerti resemble the baroque concerto grosso, in that the orchestral parts function as a ritornello, stating themes over and over, with developmental variation, while the concerto group (trumpet and bassoon in one concerto; flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and harp in the other) develops virtuoso passages derived from the main melodies. A feature of the second Concerto is the inclusion of passages from the Mendelssohn Wedding March, a tribute to the wedding anniversary of Hindemidth and his wife, which took place around the premiere of the piece.The performances on this CPO disc are quite good. The Radio Symphony Orchestra of Frankfurt has a good feel for the music, the balances are excellent between soloist and orchestra, and the sometimes motoric nature of Hindemidth's more baroque-inspired work is leavened with some romantic phrasing and an attention to orchestral sonority from the conductor Werner Andreas Albert. I can think of few more pleasing introductions to the music of this 20th century master than this disc. These are works that should be better known, and in the case of the Horn concerto, and perhaps the Clarinet Concerto, they are works that deserve a permanent place in the repertoire."