Hindemith Sonata No. 2, second movement: A Guide Towards Performance

Abstract

Like it or not, almost all organ music of any significance (and a lot that has no significance at all) was written by composers who were also organists. One of the major exceptions (along with Brahms, who was no organist either) is Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), arguably one of the giants of twentieth-century music. Hindemith wrote a handful of excellent works for organ: three sonatas (1937-40), the Kammermusik No. 7 (Concerto for Organ and Chamber Orchestra, 1927), and finally the Organ Concerto (1962). The three sonatas have long been an essential part of the organ repertoire, although probably more so in some cultures than in others. The Kammermusik, a very appealing work, has been recorded by a number of organists, but is not often heard in concert, undoubtedly for practical reasons. The 1962 Organ Concerto is very rarely heard. An outstanding violinist, Hindemith became concertmaster in Frankfurt at age 20, working with conductors such as Mengelberg, Furtwängler, and Scherchen. He soon had enough of orchestra life and, as a performer, concentrated on the viola and the viola d'amore, making a career both in chamber music and as a soloist. His real vocation, however, was composition. Hindemith wrote in every conceivable genre: opera, oratorio, choral (both sacred and secular), solo vocal (including the cycle 'Das Marienleben [The Life of Mary]'), orchestral, concerto, chamber music - often for instruments that had previously been treated in a stepmotherly fashion - and piano solo. Hindemith taught composition in Berlin and, after his emigration to the United States in 1940, theory at Yale University. He retired from the concert stage as a violist in 1939 upon hearing some of his own recordings; after World War II, he was increasingly active as a conductor, not only of his own works. The subject of this article is the second movement of Sonata No. 2 for organ, probably the most accessible of all of Hindemith's organ music, both to the performer and to the listener. The work is available from Schott (ED 2559), Hindemith’s publisher; the second movement is found on pp. 10–12.