Hindemith, Sonata Op. 25 No. 3 for Solo Cello (Schott)

1. Lebhaft, sehr markiert II. Mäßig schnell, Gemächlich III. Langsam IV. Lebhafte Viertel V. Mäßig schnell.

Paul Hindemith was born on 16.11.1895 in Hanau. He studied the violin and composition with Adolf Rebner, Arnold Mendelssohn and Bernhard Sekles at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt/Main. He was only twenty when he was appointed as the leader of the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra. After the end of the First World War, he returned to Frankfurt and founded the Amar Quartet in which he played the viola from 1922 to 1929. In 1923, Hindemith became a member of the organisational committee for the Donaueschingen Music Festival: it was at this festival that he gained an initial reputation following the first performance of his String Quartet Op. 16. In 1927, he was appointed as professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. His career as a composer reached a first peak at the beginning of the 1930s, but with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, his works were declared as “culturally bolshevist” and disappeared from concert programmes. Hindemith undertook a number of journeys to Turkey and the USA. In 1936, a final ban was issued for the performance of his works which provoked Hindemith to emigrate, initially to Switzerland. He subsequently relocated to the USA and acquired American nationality (1946). As a professor, he taught at Yale University from 1940 to 1953 and was a guest lecturer for poetry at the Harvard University in 1949/50. From 1951 to 1957, he was a professor for musicology at the Zurich University and settled in Blonay near Lake Geneva. Paul Hindemith died on 28 December 1963 in Frankfurt/Main.