Installation Donaueschingen 1921
The «Donaueschingen Chamber Music Performances for the Furtherance of Contemporary Music» were held for the first time in the summer of 1921. The event was organised by the «Society of Friends of Music in Donaueschingen,» financed by the traditional music-loving house of the Prince zu Fürstenberg, who also made the rooms of his ancestral home available.
The declared objective of the programme committee was «to help young composers to find their way to a public through a special musical event dedicated exclusively to unknown or not-yet-known musical talents.» From over 600 submissions, ten works were selected for the three concerts in 1921. Heinrich Burkard, Eduard Erdmann and Joseph Haas were responsible for the programme selection.
The great success of the first Chamber Music Days was primarily thanks to Paul Hindemith. With the Amar Quartet, he established here his reputation as a widely acknowledged interpreter of contemporary music, and with the Third String Quartet, Op. 16 he moved, literally overnight, to the forefront of the musical avant garde in Germany. The press was thrilled: «Hindemith's composition reveals a rich, original gift for invention, a boldness of disposition and composition that allow him to be recognised as an outstanding talent.»