Hindemith's Death 1963
Hindemith must have created a strange mood of farewell at his final German concerts, described as follows by a reviewer of a concert in Stuttgart in February 1963: «Perhaps it was also Hindemith himself who spread this atmosphere of honour and anxiety. He did indeed respond to the respectful ovations several times with a friendly smile. But when he silently and enigmatically inspected his audience from above on the conductor's podium, as if on the railing of a departing ship, it was a farewell.» Hindemith nevertheless felt completely healthy, assuming from his family history that he would live to a ripe old age.
On 4 November 1963 he set off for Vienna for concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic, attended performances there at the State Opera and directed the world premiere of his Mass for mixed choir a capella at the Piaristenkirche in Vienna on 12 November. On 16 November, on his 68th birthday in Blonay, he came down with a high fever; the cause of illness could not be ascertained. Hindemith was brought to Frankfurt for further consultations. «We kept our stay in Frankfurt a secret so as not to attract the attention of journalists. Moreover, Paul had only gone to hospital for an examination and he was actually very glad to lie in bed for a week or two and wanted to write music – so it was not at all dramatic at first» (Gertrud Hindemith in a letter to a friend). On 9 December began a series of strokes from which Hindemith died in the late evening of 28 December.
It was established after his death that he had had a haemorrhage in the pancreas. Gertrud Hindemith: «His hour had come. Even if we had gotten him out of hospital, this thing would have broken out in three weeks at the latest and he would have had to suffer greatly.»
Hindemith was interred on 4 January 1964 in the closest circle of friends at the cemetery in St. Légier (Waadt, Switzerland), in close proximity to his Swiss home in Blonay. Speeches were given by Wolfgang Stresemann, Heinrich Straumann and Maurice Zermatten. Anton Heiller, the soloist at his Viennese concerts in November, also played selections from Hindemith's organ works.