New Changing Exhibition in the Hindemith Cabinet
The fact that works by such old masters as Gesualdo, Monteverdi, Biber and Schütz have become established in present-day musical life is largely due to the efforts of Paul Hindemith. Beginning in the early 1920s, he was one of the pioneers of today’s so-called “informed performance practice”. For example, he discovered for himself the art of playing the viola d’amore, an eighteenth-century instrument that had been largely forgotten. He searched for suitable pieces in libraries and archives, transcribing them and writing out the figured bass parts in accordance with the practice of the period. During the 1930s he performed on historical instruments with his students at the Berlin Academy of Music. Medieval organa, vocal and instrumental works of the Renaissance and the early Baroque period were on the programmes of Yale University’s Collegium Musicum, which he directed until 1953. In 1954 he presented Claudio Monteverdi’s opera “Orfeo” performed on historical instruments in Vienna – an event that proved a true epiphany for the cellist and conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt: “I only knew Monteverdi from music history until my musicians performed on historical instruments in ‘Orfeo’ directed by Paul Hindemith at the Vienna Festival in 1954. This performance had the effect of a bolt of lightning on me. I immediately began to occupy myself with the music of Monteverdi.”
The exhibition can be viewed during the regular opening hours of the Cowherds’ Tower (Sundays, 11:00 AM - 6:00 PM).
Duration of the changing exhibition: probably until October, 2021