New Media
The progressive spirit that reigned at the Berlin Music Academy thanks to the initiative of its deputy director Georg Schünemann was very congenial to Hindemith's own interests. With great commitment, he explored the possibilities opened up to composers by film and radio, mechanical and electrical musical instruments.
Film music had occupied him for a long time: already in 1921 he had composed the music to the film «In Sturm und Eis» (In Storm and Ice) by Arnold Fanck. At the music festival «German Chamber Music in Baden-Baden» in 1927, he introduced his music to the film «Felix the Cat.»
He conceived the film Vormittagsspuk (Morning Apparition) with Hans Richter in 1928: «Out film is not a feature film, but a variety of abstract film in which people are only accessories. The motifs for motion are what primarily interest me here; these are to be musically realised and appraised more than the plot itself - the visual aspect of the film should become transformed into an intensively musical one here.»
During the academic year 1929/30 he worked at a film course with his pupils on the problems of film music. Harald Genzmer reported on the experiments at the radio laboratory as follows: «We went to the fourth floor of the Music Academy where the radio laboratory had been set up. Friedrich Trautwein was working on the Trautonium there; he had invented this electronic instrument in 1930 and Hindemith was most interested in its further development.»
Des kleinen Elektromusikers Lieblinge (The Little Electro-Musician's Favourite) is the title of Hindemith's composition for the Trautonium written in 1930. In 1931 he composed a concert piece (Konzertstück) for Trautonium accompanied by string orchestra. The radio play Sabinchen was created for the new medium of radio. Hindemith introduced his gramophone discs of his own music at the music festival «Neue Musik Berlin 1930.»