The Music and Music Theory of Paul Hindemith

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Summary

Despite Hindemith's intentions, and the overview of the previous chapter, the practical application of the Unterweisung requires further clarification. This is partly owing to the incomplete fourth volume (on four-part writing) and the dubious fidelity of the posthumously-published third volume. There can be little doubt that Hindemith intended his music theory for teaching and composition purposes: many reports from Hindemith's students recall his active use of Unterweisung material in class. However, the texts themselves – particularly the first, theoretical volume – do not always make the crucial relationship between theory and practice explicit, and the volume on two-part writing, though instructive, does not contain sufficient instruction for denser textures. Theorising the psychoacoustic relationship of harmonic partials to construct a pitch hierarchy offers a fascinating and enriching academic pursuit: but how might it help the enthusiastic student to compose music?

The present chapter cannot answer this question directly. We cannot take Hindemith's theory and apply it to his music without the need for several undermining assumptions: what do we make of music in three or more parts? What if our composition is not contrapuntal and functions without clearly defined voices? How should we use Series 1 and 2 to generate compositions? How does an identification of harmonic fluctuation affect our compositional process? Should we aim for certain harmonic fluctuation models, which Hindemith seemed to be moving towards in Unterweisung III? How does a combination of these factors affect foreground and background structural levels? Too much Unterweisung theory is missing or incomplete and though much of its basis is scientifically conceived, its application appears hazily subjective. However, we may consider those elements of Hindemith's music that are representative of his general style, and offer a mixture of set theory, salience principles and voice-leading reduction to provide an analysis of Hindemith's music. Crucially, in doing so we may find a way back to his music theory; his theory and practice are interwoven. In other words, we may reach for a study of his music to better understand and appreciate the theory that he was in the process of building.

Though it is not claimed as a new theory of Hindemith's music per se, this chapter offers a method for the study of Hindemith's theoretical principles within free composition, which is used throughout the rest of the book.

Summary

Revision is an intrinsic stage of the compositional process. Aside from the fortunate few who may write down a musical idea in polished form, composers constantly rework, refine and hone their material during the process of writing a new piece. This is not revelatory; and yet the status of a musical work, once premiered or published, changes. The present chapter considers two of Hindemith's revised works through the lens of his compositional development and theoretical re-workings, in addition to evaluating their critical reception. Its investigation is made all the more enticing given the timing and substance of Hindemith's revisions. The two examples, Das Marienleben for soprano and piano (1923 and 1948) and Lieder nach alten Texten for SSATB choir (1923 and 1937–1938) were crucially written before Hindemith devoted his time to writing the Unterweisung, and then subsequently revised as a corollary of his theory. They therefore provide a unique opportunity to analyse the relationship of Hindemith's music theory to his compositional practice, not just as a prescriptive device, but as a corrective tool. Marienleben and Lieder are set apart from a composition such as the Ludus Tonalis, which was written with fresh, theoretical ideas in mind. The revisions may be understood as a comparison of instinctive versus systematic musical composition. Along the way, we need to bear in mind the fundamental distinction between revision as process, and the revision of published scores to produce a simultaneously accessible second version. A draft, and a publication, possess different statuses. The difference is key to understanding the mixed, tangled and sometimes abrasive reception of several of Hindemith's revised scores.

Similar to the Ludus Tonalis, the Marienleben cycle is a composition of noteworthy length and scope. That all of the songs in the cycle, which lasts approximately sixty minutes in performance, underwent revision offers an enormous array of musical data which can be analysed to further understand the relationship of Hindemith's music theory to his own compositional practice. A comparison of the two versions also helps to quantify the stylistic difference between Hindemith's early and later styles. Lieder nach alten Texten, of smaller design, is instructive as an unaccompanied choral work, which affords an opportunity to engage with the revisions to Hindemith's counterpoint, in a way not found in a composition for soprano and piano. Hindemith's treatment of cadences, in particular, is noteworthy.

Summary

Like many readers, I came to know Paul Hindemith through one of his instrumental sonatas. In the gap between sixth form and university, I would visit trumpet professor Iaan Wilson at the Royal Academy of Music in London, who introduced me to Hindemith's Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. Our lessons occurred during a vital part of my technical and musical development, although – again, similarly to many readers – I look back on my endeavour with mixed feelings. I remember it being hard work – I had to improve my physical level to play the first movement convincingly – and, when it came to putting the trumpet part with the piano, it took me many attempts before I was able to execute a coherent and accurate rendition. However, it was not unrealistic. After practice I soon came to enjoy the work and appreciate the technical platform it offered. This highlights, I believe, the position that these duo sonatas often take. They are encountered regularly along the road to securing instrumental technique and are particularly common in examination, audition and competition environments. This does not necessarily make them popular – but undoubtedly, they are familiar to many. I was also to encounter his Elementary Training for Musicians whilst an undergraduate student at King's College London, guided by the now prominent British composer Joseph Phibbs. The case of Hindemith's music and writing is therefore of sentimental value, both due to the time in my life I first encountered it and the formative role it played in my development as a musician.

But this is to form a narrow image of Hindemith's musical legacy. Though works such as the instrumental sonatas have found a natural place in the repertoire – indeed, for many instruments they remain as some of the key works for recitals, examinations, auditions and competitions – they offer only one side of Hindemith's creative personality. This is also the man who wrote the ingenious Ludus Tonalis; the song cycle Das Marienleben; the jazztinged Suite 1922; and the radical, scandalous one-act opera Sancta Susanna. He was also an essential pioneer of the early music movement in North America through the establishment of the Yale Collegium Musicum; one of the most highly regarded proponents of the viola in the early twentieth century; and, for a time, seen as the future of German modernism.

Summary

As a member of his composition class I remember well how he used to discuss with his advanced pupils certain acoustical phenomena about which he was writing in his book, and their melodic and harmonic implications. To corroborate further his theory of tonal organisation he composed the monumental ‘Ludus Tonalis’ for piano which has become one of his most famous works.

—Franz Reizenstein, 1964

The Ludus Tonalis (‘Play of Tones’), written in 1942 and premiered by Willard MacGregor in 1943, is the quintessential model of Hindemith's music theory in practice. It was written five years after the first published edition of the Unterweisung, and shared proximity with Unterweisung II (1939), the second edition of Unterweisung I (1940), Craft I (1942) and the preparatory work towards Unterweisung III. Though Hindemith wrote many other compositions during this time, such as three organ sonatas (1937–1940), eleven instrumental sonatas and the ballet The Four Temperaments (1938), none have the explicit reference to music theory found in the Ludus: where all twelve of the starting pitches for the fugues correspond to the ordering of Series 1. If Hindemith's early works show the composer at his most pluralistic, the Ludus presents the composer at his most cerebral. It provides the strongest indication of how Hindemith's music theory might be transferred into free composition, and lends itself more suitably to a theoretical analysis than any of his other compositions. Hindemith invites us to analyse his piano cycle with his theory in mind.

The Ludus was completed two years after Hindemith's appointment at the Yale School of Music, and four years before he received American citizenship. It marked a watershed moment in Hindemith's life – the closing of his troubled chapter in Germany in the mid- to late 1930s, and the widespread acceptance of the refined compositional style in the Ludus, brought about by his intensive theoretical activity. The work is a unique example in the history of Western Music of the relationship between music theory and compositional practice. While for previous works, it is questionable whether Hindemith's theorising, or his composing, came first; with the Ludus it is absolutely clear. The theory came first.

Summary

This book is a critical study of Hindemith's music theory, through a close analysis of his music. His writing and theoretical ideas can be hard to grasp, particularly given his often hazy description of how ideas such as ‘harmonic fluctuation’ and ‘Series 1 orders’ can describe and compose music. The reader should not be deterred by Hindemith's rhetoric, however, as within his oeuvre lies one of the great practical musicians of the twentieth century. Since the time it was written, his music and music theory have encountered conflicting receptions, dividing those performers whose repertoire owes its foundations to a Hindemith sonata and those who claim that he was an unnecessary tinkerer of his compositions and whose meddling in music theory caused widespread mischief. Though this book does not refrain from offering critical perspectives on Hindemith's works, it does so with the agenda that the reader may become more acquainted with Hindemith's proto-theory and may reflect on how it may be developed and nurtured within the context of the twenty-first century.

Hindemith's Theory Publications

Hindemith finished seven theoretical and pedagogical textbooks, all but one of which are published by Schott & Co. and have enjoyed several revised editions. Following Hindemith's move from Germany to the USA during 1937, the original language of some of his texts switched to English. However, they were still translated back to German, which is testament to his popularity after the Second World War. In order of publication these include:

Summary

This chapter analyses in close detail a cross-section of Hindemith's early music in order to demonstrate the presence of two pitch strategies. The first relates to his use of quartal pitch collections, which have been defined in the previous chapter. They arguably stem from Hindemith's expert familiarity with string instruments, as the open strings on a violin, viola, ’cello or double bass all form the quartal tetrachord 4-23. This collection was to be subsequently formalised in the Unterweisung as Series 1 and 2, and became a hierarchical basis for chord roots, chord formation and an analytical method. The second pitch strategy examined in this chapter relates to collections with higher cardinal values, such as the octatonic scale (8-23) which provide a more general sense of chromaticism. A dual practice of quartal and high-cardinality collections is evident in Hindemith's early music, while after the Unterweisung he shows a clear preference for the first strategy, based on ascending fourths, at the expense of octatonic collections. These two strategies cannot coexist; it is impossible to create a quartal tetrachord within the octatonic scale.

Hindemith's early music, defined here until 1922, self-consciously swings from seriousness to the grotesque, borrowing from styles such as expressionism, impressionism and jazz; baroque and classical forms; and dances such as shimmies and foxtrots. Perhaps as a result of this pluralism, it has proven to be exceptionally hard to analyse. This is also a consequence of the complexity of some of his music, particularly in terms of pitch structure, and the formidable wealth of motivic material. And yet, an analytical understanding of this music is required to discriminate between those elements of Hindemith's style that were jettisoned after the Unterweisung, including the octatonic scale, and those that remained consistent, such as quartal pitch collections. It helps us to construct a musical backdrop against which Hindemith first began formulating his theory of music. Provocatively, among the works of this period, several elements can be considered within the broad definition of early twentieth-century atonality. There are furthermore several instances of polytonality. Both atonality and polytonality were subsequently rejected in Unterweisung theory, leading to two possible conclusions: (1) that Hindemith was keen to distance himself from his early works, or (2) that he was keen to distance himself from compositional techniques which had offended the agenda of the Third Reich.

Summary

Having explored Unterweisung principles within Hindemith's music, we may observe that works written from his Berlin appointment (1927) onwards tend towards a greater conservatism. In the main, they use fewer and more standardised performance and expression markings, contain more regular and explicit quartal pitch collections, and are constructed with clearer compositional strategies and pre-conceived formal structures. These features may be further highlighted through comparison of his eclectic earlier style and post-1927 compositions, and in the revisions to his music written before, and yet revised after, the Unterweisung.

Such techniques are not wholly absent from Hindemith's early music, however. Even in his most dissonant and anti-structuralistic works, such as the Sonata for Solo Viola op. 25/1, Hindemith shows a concern for voiceleading. There are also explicit quartal pitch collections to be found, although they feature less prominently than in his post-theory works. Hindemith's early music, while highly abstract, liberal and instinctive, still contained traces of thought that could become the subject of theory. One could therefore suggest that his early style lent itself well to theoretical refinement.

One area of his early style that was almost entirely jettisoned after the Unterweisung was the octatonic scale. I find it surprising that Hindemith's use of this scale has not been fully investigated, given the interest it has generated in relation to the music of other leading composers such as Stravinsky and Bartók. Unlike Stravinsky, however, Hindemith does not draw upon a national heritage for the modes of his composition; rather, the presence of the octatonic scale in his early music is but one facet of his pluralistic borrowings.

Hindemith's emphasis on quartal pitch collections relates to prolongational characteristics that are neither tonal nor atonal, and which defy conventional categorisation. These prolongations are also implicitly referred to in the Unterweisung, particularly within the graphic analyses. Furthermore, Hindemith's quartal pitch collections, which are fully invertible, allowed him to perform the myriad of contrapuntal operations in the Ludus Tonalis. The potential of these collections may be related to his growing fondness for writing musical canons from the 1940s onwards; he wrote only one canon before the Unterweisung.

Summary

Setting the Scene

Not all composers are music theorists, and fewer still publish theoretical textbooks. Of these few, the connection between their music and theory varies: Johann Joseph Fux wrote music in a mature Baroque style, yet his theory codified the earlier polyphonic practice of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. The French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau wrote an extensive treatise on thorough-bass, beginning with a first part that speculatively justifies the diatonic system using the overtone series. In turn, the Austrian thorough-bass theorists wrote practical treatises which reflected the harmonic character of their music-making, such as Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Simon Sechter and Anton Bruckner. The German theorist Hugo Riemann took Rameau's speculative application one step further and invented harmonic dualism to objectify the minor mode. Some composer-theorists were prominent composers in their lifetimes. Many were not.

Against this backdrop is a rare occurrence of a composer who turned to the writing of music theory textbooks as a way of streamlining his own compositional style: Paul Hindemith (1895–1963). Though he has been classed among the great composers of the early twentieth century, in the esteemed company of Béla Bartók, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, his legacy and music theory remain enigmatic. Unlike Schoenberg, who wrote textbooks to observe features of earlier, diatonic music, Hindemith created a speculative music theory that offered a direction for contemporary composition to follow which did not sever its ties with tonality, and yet used the chromatic scale. He entitled it Unterweisung im Tonsatz.

Hindemith's committed engagement with music theory is, further, unusual given his early popularity as a performer and a composer. His initial achievements in performance included entering the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra aged nineteen and subsequently playing in the Rebner and Amar String Quartets. The status of his technical prowess as a viola soloist was elevated to the highest international standing during the 1920s and 1930s, where he premiered his three viola concertos and, in addition, William Walton's Viola Concerto at infamously short notice. Hindemith performed his viola concertos with some of the leading musicians and ensembles of the twentieth century: for example, his fifth Kammermusik was premiered in November 1927 with the Berlin Staatskapelle under Otto Klemperer. Moreover, these were not isolated performances; Ian Kemp reports that, by 1938, Hindemith had played the Kammermusik ninety times.

Summary

By the time of Hindemith's final work catalogued with an opus number – the Concert Music for Strings and Brass (1929–1930) – we have seen that he was writing in a defined, consistent style. He had largely left behind the quasi-expressionistic language of the solo string music and Sancta Susanna, and the Neue Sachlichkeit of the Kammermusiken. Works such as Mathis der Maler and the piano sonatas contrast sharply in style and rhetoric with the earlier provocative and pluralistic works such as the Suite 1922 and op. 11 and op. 25 sonatas. The composer of the nonchalant Ragtime (Well Tempered) became the austere craftsman of the chamber sonatas, the Octet and the American symphonies. A further marked change in emphasis included Hindemith's community music-making, epitomised by Sing- und Spielmusik (Music for Singing and Playing) which began with a work for strings, flutes and oboes for the student orchestra of the Bieberstein boarding school in 1926, and culminated in Plöner Musiktag (1932). It was a prototype for music we now associate with valuable and sustainable education and outreach work. While Hindemith's early career married notable performance activity with compositions that were designed to shock and provoke, his career from 1927 became increasingly concerned with the challenges of teaching, conducting, and composing for the enthusiastic amateur or the marginalised instrumentalist. On the one hand this made him less appealing to the avant garde and yet, on the whole, many works written during the latter period became his most enduring and widely disseminated.

This change in attitude is inextricably linked to Hindemith's interest in music theory. Before arriving in Berlin, Hindemith appeared to have little interest in writing textbooks, whether of a deeply theoretical focus – aimed at the trained musician – or of a comprehensive and practical nature for use by musicians of a wider spectrum of knowledge and ability. He appeared, in print at least, to favour playing and composing music, rather than writing about it. His first publishing arrangement in 1933 shows that his intentions were to write a series of primers (presumably for twentieth-century composition) which ultimately grew into the ambitious and speculative Unterweisung.

Summary

All the young composers are writing like Hindemith.

—Copland, 1947

The present generation judges him harshly – is, in fact, downright unfriendly. Hindemith is no longer cited among the top men of our time; it is undeniable that a severe downgrading is in process.

—Copland, 1967

Music history has not been kind to Hindemith. Heralded by some in his own lifetime as the future of German contemporary music, and later chosen as one of the New Grove Dictionary's ‘Modern Masters’, he has begun to drift to the margins of music history. This is regrettable given both the quality of his music and the significant number of performances he continues to receive – particularly of his chamber works. He was never innovative enough for the avant-garde, and yet for others he still falls into the category of a ‘contemporary’ composer. History, it seems, does not know quite how to remember him.

Relevantly, many twentieth-century composers and theorists were reliant on their students to introduce and champion their work to a wider community. Schenker and Schoenberg are notable examples, whose theoretical work was posthumously disseminated and built up by faithful students Ernst Oster, Felix Salzer and Oswald Jonas, and Leonard Stein and Gerald Strang respectively.

Their enthusiasm and dedication precipitated the international understanding of Schenker's and Schoenberg's work in the second half of the twentieth century. Hindemith was not as fortunate as either. For a time, America brought him notable success, which reached its peak in the late 1940s. The editor of Time magazine wrote in 1948 that ‘few living composers have ever had so much of their music played in one week. Everyone seemed to burst out playing the knotty dissonant music of Paul Hindemith’. Moreover, Hindemith received fourteen commissions during his time in the USA, more than any other composer during the same period. However a dramatic devaluation of Hindemith's music and theory occurred during the 1950s, provoking Copland to reverse his implicit criticism of Hindemith's music influence in the 1940s to a defence of his worth. This chapter explores this general shift in attitude and its consequences for the wider reception of Hindemith's music and theory.

The Music and Music Theory of Paul Hindemith

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2 - Hindemith's Fourths

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5 - Theory-based Revisions

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Preface

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Index

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

Contents

List of Figures

4 - The Ludus Tonalis as Quintessential Hindemith

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Introduction

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Dedication

3 - Stylistic Borrowing and Pre-Unterweisung Music

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Frontmatter

Postlude

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1 - An Unterweisung Critical Commentary

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6 - Practical Music and Practical Textbooks

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7 - The Hindemith Legacy

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Acknowledgements

Bibliography

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