NEWS 2023
December 11, 2023
Schleswig-Holstein Musik-Festival Hindemith Prize 2024
The recipient of the Hindemith Prize 2024 is Lisa Streich.
More information ...
December 11, 2023
New Publication: Hindemith-Jahrbuch / Annales Hindemith 2023/LII
This Hindemith Yearbook 2023/LII comprises the correspondence between between Paul Hindemith and his US-American publisher Ernest R. Voigt from Hindemith's arrival in the USA in 1940 until Voigt's death in March 1943, thus completing the edition begun in Yearbook 2021/L.
Günther Metz presents a previously unknown text by Hindemith on the subject of "early music". It appeared in 1934 in the French-language magazine journal Le Mois, which bears the ambitious subtitle Synthèse de l'activité mondiale and in which, in addition to political and economic and economic topics as well as literary, art-historical and musical themes were dealt with.
We offer our sincere thanks to the Strecker Foundation for their generous financial support for the publication.
Hindemith-Jahrbuch / Annales Hindemith 2023/LII
Herausgeber: Hindemith Institut Frankfurt im Auftrag der Fondation Hindemith, Blonay (CH)
Mainz: Schott 2023
ISBN-13: 978-3-7957-3187-8
ISSN: 0172-956X
November 16, 2023
Chamber music in the smallest concert hall in the world
The Hindemith Institute Frankfurt has been organising its "Chamber Music in the Cowherd's Tower" concert series since 2011. The medieval tower in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen, which served as Paul Hindemith's original domicile in the 1920s, is now home to what is probably the smallest concert hall in the world. In Hindemith's former "music room" on the top floor of the Kuhhirtenturm, you can experience internationally renowned performers as well as talented young musicians.
The 2024 concert series opens on 25 February with violinist Katharina Licht and pianist Jonas Haffner. Their programme includes, besides works by Karol Szymanowski and Franz Schubert, the Sonata in E flat for piano and violin op. 11 no. 1, with which Jonas Haffner received the special prize from the Fondation Hindemith for the most convincing interpretation of a work by Hindemith at the 2023 German Music Competition.
On 17 March, academy members of the "Paul Hindemith Orchestra Academy" of the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra will once again be guests. Marina Hatae (violin), Patrizia Batik (viola), Mufei Feng (cello) and Miriam Kops (bassoon) will perform works by Ernst v. Dohnányi, Paul Hindemith, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Jean Sibelius. Piano accompanist is Katarzyna Wieczorek.
On 28 April, pianist Victor Nicoara will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Busoni's death with works by Ferruccio Busoni, Paul Hindemith and Philipp Jarnach.
The vocal quartet voc'n'semble presents vocal music by Paul Hindemith, Luca Marenzio and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy on 9 June.
On 8 September, Catalan cellist Roger Morelló Ros will combine Hindemith's Sonata for Cello Solo Op. 25 No. 3 with works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Pau Casals, Gaspar Cassadó, Elisenda Fábregas, Marin Marais and Marc Migó.
In addition to Hindemith's Sonata in E flat for piano and violin op. 11 no. 1, the programme of violinist Ingo de Haas, long-time concertmaster at Frankfurt Opera House, and his piano partner Maria Ollikainen on 6 October includes Ludwig van Beethoven's great Sonata op. 96 and Claude Debussy's Violin Sonata.
The 2024 concert series will end with a Hindemith festival: the birthday concert on 16 November at 11 a.m. will feature Bettina Boller (violin) and Esther Walker (piano), who will be performing at the Hindemith Kabinett for the second time following her brilliant interpretation of Hindemith's piano cycle Ludus tonalis. They will present two sonatas for violin and piano, a solo sonata and the variations for piano that Hindemith originally intended for his first piano sonata in 1936.
Location: Kuhhirtenturm, Große Rittergasse 118, 60594 Frankfurt am Main
Time: If not otherwise indicated, on Sundays at both 5 pm and 7:30 pm
ADMISSION FREE – Advance booking required
Reservations: already possible
Contact: Tel. 069 597 03 62 (Mon-Fri 9 am to 1 pm)
October 18, 2023
Hindemith Days 2023
Hindemith is not only a Hanauer, but also a Frankfurter! He came from Hanau, where he was born in 1895, and came to Frankfurt in a roundabout way at the age of ten. Here he went to school, studied violin and composition, was concertmaster in the opera orchestra, married, became one of the most successful composers of his generation, later moved on to Berlin and was driven out of Germany into exile.
At this year's Hindemith Days, inspired for the first time by Tabea Zimmermann, President of the Hindemith Foundation and since April once again Professor at the HfMDK, we are looking back and performing a series of works that Hindemith composed in 1923, exactly 100 years ago.
This year's cooperation partners are the publishing house Schott Music Mainz, Bell'Arte Frankfurt RheinMain e.V., the Evangelische Kirchengemeinde Frankfurt/M.-Nordwest, Radio-Runde Neues Frankfurt and the city of Hanau.
The patron of the festival is Dr. Ina Hartwig, Head of the Department of Culture of the City of Frankfurt.
PROGRAMME
November 14, 7.30 pm
Frankfurt, HfMDK
Opening concert with HfMDK students
November 16, 11 am and 12.30 pm
Frankfurt, Hindemith Kabinett im Kuhhirtenturm
Tabea Zimmermann, Viola
November 22, 6.30 pm
Mainz, Schott Music
HfMDK Students
November 26, 11 pm
Hanau, Schloss Philippsruhe
Melinda Paulsen, Mezzosoprano - Andreas Frese, piano
Welcoming address of the Head of Culture and Science in Frankfurt am Main, Dr Ina Hartwig
August 31, 2023
Hindemith Honorary Prize of the City of Hanau for Herbert Blomstedt
The City of Hanau is awarding the Hindemith Honorary Prize for the first time this year. This non-endowed award is a supplement to the Hindemith Prize, which the City of Hanau has awarded since 2000. The prize winners are proposed by the Hindemith Foundation Board and confirmed by the Magistrate. The Hindemith Foundation now also provided the impetus for the new award, as the City of Hanau has announced. The honorary prize is intended to honour outstanding artistic personalities at irregular intervals who have rendered outstanding services to the work of the Hanau-born musician and composer Paul Hindemith.
The 96-year-old conductor Herbert Blomstedt was chosen as the first prize winner. He was born in the United States in 1927 to Swedish parents and received his musical training at the Royal Conservatory in Stockholm, the University of Uppsala and the Juilliard School of Music in New York. He has been principal conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the NDR Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, among others.
Since his student days, Herbert Blomstedt has been enthusiastic about Hindemith and has presented his works in numerous concerts and recordings. He said about Hindemith's music during an interview at the Hindemith Institute Frankfurt in 2008: "Hindemith can say important things even with the smallest ensembles and means. I especially appreciate this with him. His relationship to history, too. One senses in each moment that he reacts very conciously to Renaissance, baroque or classical music. The way he used old German folksongs or uses Bach two-part inventions as a model is always creative. [...] one feels that Hindemith is becoming more appreciated by the public. This is because Hindemith's music is very musical and therefore lively as well. [...] The prerequisites for a successful interpretation of Hindemith's music are both technical mastery and a lively performance. Hindemith's own attitude towards music-making should be a model for us interpreters."
The award will be presented in Bamberg on 25 November 2023.
August 23, 2023
Special Prize of the Hindemith Foundation
The Deutsche Musikwettbewerb des Deutschen Musikrats [German music competition held by the German Music Council] took place in Bonn from 10 to 17 August 2023. Again, the Fondation Hindemith offered a special prize in the amount of 3.000 euro for the most convincing interpretation of a work by Paul Hindemith. The prize was awarded this year to Jonas Haffner (piano) who played together with Katharina Licht (violin) Hindemith's Sonata in E flat op. 11 No. 1 (1918).
Jonas Emanuel Haffner received his first piano lessons in Stuttgart with Romuald Noll and studied with Konrad Elser and Roland Krüger. He then deepened his interest in chamber music in the class of Markus Becker. He received further musical inspiration from Elisabeth Leonskaja, Anatol Ugorski, Jan Philip Schulze, Eberhard Feltz and Thomas Brandis, among others.
He has won prizes at numerous national and international competitions, including Košice, Pörtschach and Nuremberg. He has received various scholarships, including from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and the Kiwanis Club Lübeck-Hanse. In 2021 he received the prize of the Hanover Stock Exchange Club.
As a soloist, he has performed with the Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Schwäbisch Gmünd Philharmonic Orchestra and the Academic Orchestra of the University of Stuttgart, among others.
February 21, 2023
Schleswig-Holstein Musik-Festival Hindemith Prize 2023
The recipient of the Hindemith Prize 2023 is Alex Paxton.
More informations ...
January 27, 2023
New Publication: Hindemith-Jahrbuch / Annales Hindemith 2022/LI
The 50th volume of the Annales Hindemith begins with a contribution by Maureen Falcon Hontanosas who examines individual phases of thematic construction in her detailed study of the sketches of Hindemith’s ballet music Nobilissima Visione (1938). An interview with Hindemith which appeared in the Turkish daily newspaper ULUS in November 1937 in the Turkish language and has not previously been a subject of Hindemith research is presented by Günther Metz together with a German translation of this article summarizing Hindemith’s cultural activities in Turkey. Correspondence between the composer and the US-American publisher Ernest R. Voigt documents among other topics Hindemith’s efforts to explore new possibilities of setting up a professional life in the ‘land of unlimited opportunity’ in the wake of his massive denunciation by leading Nazi functionaries and the official ban on performances of his music in 1936. The volume concludes with an article on the mountain film Im Kampf mit dem Berge 1. Teil: In Sturm und Eis [The Fight with the Mountain Part 1: In Storm and Snow] for which Hindemith composed the music in 1921. At the screening of this film in the Capitol cinema in Mainz on 24 November 2021 on the initiative of the publisher Schott Music, Susanne Schaal-Gotthardt outlined the origins and reception of Hindemith’s film scores.
Hindemith-Jahrbuch / Annales Hindemith 2022/LI
Herausgeber: Hindemith Institut Frankfurt im Auftrag der Fondation Hindemith, Blonay (CH)
Mainz: Schott 2022
ISBN-13: 978-3-7957-2797-0
ISSN: 0172-956X