Hindemith's
oeuvre re-examined.
A shirt-sleeves-rolled-up
concert atmosphere
Saturday, April 12 and
Sunday, April 13
Hindemithon. Frank Pavese
(coordinator), with students, faculty, alumni, and guests. Many works of Paul Hindemith.
By Paul Somers
Pianist Frank Pavese, who I had never before met, quite engagingly greeted me as if I were a long-lost friend to whom he wanted to show all the cool stuff he'd been doing. In this case the cool thing was a two-day "Hindemithon", a celebration of the life and works of Paul Hindemith (1895-1963). No anniversary occasioned the event, only Pavese's feeling that it is time to reclaim the composer's rightful place amongst the greats of the 20th century.
"You should have been here last night," he said. I
had had family obligations. "Thats
when I played Ludus Tonalis"
(Games [or play] with Tones). Pavese's colleague, the
pianist Gary Kirkpatrick joined us and said that the Ludus
performance had been brilliant. But facts were facts, and the operative fact
was that I had been in
"Tell you what," Pavese said, "I'll play it again this afternoon, just so you can hear it." I protested that the published program (which I had not yet seen) should be kept to and any Ludus lack on my part was my problem. After all, Ludus is close to an hour long.
Then he showed me the printed program. It turned out to be a rather loosely arranged suggestion of who would be there to play and what they as it was on Saturday night.There comes a time in the score when a special visitor arrives to see all the work that the builders have accomplished. On this occasion the special guest was Willie Ruff, a Yale professor who was a student of Hindemith when he taught at that same institution.
"'Singing is the most fundamental of all of humankind's music making,' a stage), production but gathered around the piano since they were actually learning the music as we watched.. Able assistance and body was lent by a trio of clarinet (Brian Rudderow), violin (James West), and bass (Pyoung Kim). The videotape concluded, and we launched into live Hindemith.
There was no mistaking the importance of the monumental Ludus would do. "See?" he said. "I can play it if you like." Well, a gift horse's mouth not being something I cared to peer into, I acquiesced. But first there was a tape of Saturday's demonstration of Let's Build a Town. It is a rather misunderstood bit of children's music in a world which wants polished performances by little Voigts-and-Domingosof-the-future on stage. That is exactly what this little piece is not. It is, instead a humane workshop experience teaching about learning a piece of music and beyond that what makes a community. "If each of us helps, we can build this town," sings one of the kids. Simplistic and cliched, perhaps, but this is for kids, not adults. Hindemith never suggested that it should be performed for an audience says Willie H. Ruff, Jr., professor adjunct at the School of Music, director and founder of the Duke Ellington Fellowship at Yale, and the French horn- and bass-playing half of the Mitchell-Ruff Duo." So says the Yale website (<http://www.yale.edu/ opa / ybc / v25.n30.news.06.html>). It was therefore quite fitting that the honored guest of the Hindemithon should also be the "visitor to the town" where kids were learning to sing. He went on stage with them and talked with them gently and in a most genuine manner while looking at the cardboard and paper representations of a bakery, the city hall, a park, and a house. In the background was Hindemith's music to accompany the visit. At various points in the experience the kids sang music Hindemith had composed for each activity, not as Tonalis.
Pavese described it before playing it: a Praeludium followed by a Fugue, an Interludium, a Fugue, an Interludium, and so on until there have been twelve Fugues. The work concludes with a Postludium, which is the Praeludium in *retrograde. Seated at the piano in slightly disheveled white shirt and tie with the sleeves rolled to his elbows as if he had just come from other chores (which he had, since this was mostly a one-man operation), Pavese played the enormous work with an ease which was in itself awesome, given the obvious difficulties of the music. Because the composer wrote fugue subjects which were easily identified through their contours and character, the pianist went for the music and not the didacticism, understanding well that there was no need to underline the obvious. Technical and musical difficulties abound in the course of the hour, and Pavese met them all with a full understanding of the score and what Hindemith had set out to accomplish. It was one of the most impressive solo piano performances of a single work I have heard in a long time.
During the snack-break in the proceedings which naturally followed such a feat of endurance, Pavese said that he felt this was the best performance of the three he had done. "Perhaps it was because I came here this afternoon not knowing that I would play it," he mused, "so I just let it flow spontaneously." It seemed to be the sum of the other performances, as he said that he found himself bringing out elements that he had never before planned to emphasize. The case for a very serious re-evaluation of Hindemith was made in that performance alone. The Ludus is lucid, far from the densely inaccessible music which came into vogue in its stead. Yet it is filled with the expected Germanic rigor. The Interludia are affecting and diverse. This is a piano masterpiece, nothing less, yet quite understandable by a general audience.
The remainder of the afternoon was spent in listening to students and faculty play from Hindemith's large sonata repertoire. One euphonium player bemoaned the lack of a sonata for his instrument and received a euphonium most naturally plays in the bassoon range, poaching was frowned upon. This was, of course, immediately after Gray's own well conceived performance of the sonata, so he could rightly become a tad defensive about the work.
The highlight of the student performances was the Clarinet Sonata with clarinetist Rudderow and pianist Jeffrey Woodworth. The virtues of the players were on display to good effect: taste, tone quality, technical security, and assertiveness - qualities which caused me to guess that they were students of clarinetist Andrew Lamy and Kirkpatrick, both on the William Paterson faculty. The two students chanced to sit down in front of me after playing, and I asked them if I had guessed correctly. I had, but frankly, it was a no-brainer.
The great surprise was a song The Moon, sung by baritone Phillip Haltman with pianist Itay Goren. The performance by both was expressive and secure, an evocative journey from shimmering excitement to calm contemplation. In spite of Hindemith's harmonic and melodic language, or perhaps because of its deeply personal nature, I was reminded of such intense, non-*strophic Schubert songs as Der Doppelganger. The more recent branch of *Lieder flowing from Hindemith's pen would be worth exploring.
Also heard was the final movement of the Trumpet Sonata with Richard Polatchek and Jeff Kresky, and the complete Tuba Sonata. John Williams played this latter securely, but as a composition it proved to be the weakest for its nominal soloist, though it was a virtuosic turn for pianist Kirkpatrick. Hindemith, who said he could play every note he ever wrote on the instrument he wrote it for, may have been a touch weak on the tuba and composed to his own technique. We imagine that Williams could play something more challenging. The relaxed "what'll-weplaynext?" ambience certainly went against the expectations of the formal concert crowd. But it made the exploration of a single composer more fun and inviting, for it showed the performers as wanting to share rather than show-off. And it gave the listener a chance to have some input in what was to be heard next. That's not always possible, but it certainly worked in this setting.
Regrets about missing Saturday? Not hearing Brett Deubner play violist Hindemith's Viola Sonata, op. 25, no. 4, with Kirkpatrick. Overall regret? No one played the delightful Oboe Sonata, my personal favorite, not even on Saturday.