Frankfurt Children's Trio
The upbringing of Paul and his siblings Toni and Rudolf was orientated towards a musical career already in their early childhood. Their father, Robert Rudolf Hindemith, attempting to compensate for his own unsatisfying social existence by projecting his dream of success as a musician onto his children, insisted with unrelenting discipline on their learning an instrument. Paul played the violin, Rudolf the cello and Toni the piano.
Their father had the siblings perform as the «Frankfurt Children's Trio» in bourgeois households, preferably in his Silesian homeland. He is said to have accompanied them on the zither. Their repertoire included works of Haydn, Corelli, Rameau, Martini, Mendelssohn and Wagner. The critiques were euphoric. Thus, in a review in the Elster-Chro¬nik on 15 July 1911 one could read: «One truly did not know which of the siblings one should admire the most - the dreamy violinist, the small mercurial cellist or the girl accompanying them with stoic calm.»
Already at elementary school, Paul rehearsed songs with his fellow pupils and made his first attempts at composition.
In Frankfurt Paul received private violin lessons from the Swiss violinist Anna Hegner, who taught at Hoch's Conservatory in that city. When Anna Hegner left Frankfurt in 1908, she passed Hindemith on to Adolph Rebner, who accepted him into his violin class at Hoch's Conservatory after he completed elementary school.