An Integrated Approach to Preparing Paul Hindemith's Sonata For
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Eastern Illinois University The Keep Faculty Research and Creative Activity Music April 2013 An Integrated Approach to Preparing Paul Hindemith’s Sonata for Trombone and Piano: A guide to help achieve a better performance Jemmie Robertson Eastern Illinois University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://thekeep.eiu.edu/music_fac Part of the Composition Commons, and the Music Performance Commons Recommended Citation Robertson, Jemmie, "An Integrated Approach to Preparing Paul Hindemith’s Sonata for Trombone and Piano: A guide to help achieve a better performance" (2013). Faculty Research and Creative Activity. 1. http://thekeep.eiu.edu/music_fac/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Music at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Research and Creative Activity by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INTERNATIONAL TROMBONE ASSOCIATION JOURNAL GENERAL NEWS AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO PREPARING PAUL HINDEMITH’S by Dr. Jemmie Robertson Sonata for Trombone »and Piano A Guide to Help Achieve a Better Performance The aim of this article is to HISTORY the historical and codified his ideas on music enhance understanding of Paul Hindemith’s Sonata for Trombone and Piano theory and composition in The Craft of Musical of 1941 has become the landmark sonata of the Composition. He moved to Switzerland, and then the Hindemith Sonata and trombone repertoire of the twentieth century. to the United States, where he taught at Yale assist performers toward This work stands within the ambitious series University and composed prolifically during the of sonatas that he undertook to write for all 1940s. In the years after 1955, when serialism performances of the highest orchestral instruments, a project that occupied was in fashion, Hindemith’s style was deemed too musical quality and emotional Hindemith off and on from 1936 to 1955. This accessible and moderate for the musical climate impact. The goal is to produce project was an outgrowth of Hindemith’s desire of the time. Thus, over the course of his career to create Gebrauchmusik, which translates literally Hindemith went from being branded as a rogue a musical and historically as “music for use” or “utilitarian music,” in atonal composer, to being labeled as an out-of- informed performance, response to what he felt was an ever widening touch conservative. Perhaps a fairer assessment gap between the general public and the modern of Hindemith is offered by the noted Hindemith based on a good theoretical composer. Hindemith meant to strengthen the scholar David Neumeyer, who stated: foundation and thorough connection between composer, performer, and technical preparation. society by producing accessible works that could For Hindemith, the object all be performed by the professional or amateur in any setting. Hindemith said, “How can we say along was synthesis: of diatonic We will briefly discuss that just one specific musical style is usable? . and chromatic materials, tonal Let us rather strive to write a music so good that, the history and theory behind and atonal methods, French with representation suitable to its style, purpose, Hindemith’s Sonata, examine and instrumentation it must appear completely and German styles, twenties’ unique performance issues, satisfying and hence, usable” (Neumeyer). cleverness with the gravity of Paul Hindemith is largely remembered as a and introduce ways to prepare neoclassical composer; however, Hindemith’s style a sense of Western music’s for a successful performance varied greatly over the course of his career. Early traditions . throughout his in his career, in the 1920s, he was branded as an with several specific exercises career Hindemith searched atonal composer. After the successful premiere of designed to help the trombonist his Second String Quartet, Richard Strauss asked for a way out of the Romantic- decode Hindemith’s complex Hindemith, “Why do you compose atonal music? Modernist dialectic. Stravinsky You have plenty of talent.” To which Hindemith compositional language, which replied, “Professor, you make your music, and I’ll once referred to three neoclassic involves a unique approach to make mine” (Neumeyer). Considered a radical, trends in twentieth century music: tonality and rhythm. his anti–post-romantic leanings in the 1930s his own, Arnold Schoenberg’s and caused his music to be banned by the Nazi Party as “degenerate art” in his native Germany. Paul Hindemith’s. Hindemith then turned his thoughts toward -8- International Trombone Association Journal / www.trombone.net International Trombone Association Journal / www.trombone.net -9- Hindemith is considered to be the more The Sonata for Trombone and Piano uses a Musical Example 1: conservative of this trio of composers and the modified version of conventional sonata-allegro Hindemith Primary Sonata for Trombone and Piano is an excellent movement form. In this Sonata, Hindemith is Theme Motive example of Hindemith’s style at that time. The strongly aware of the Sonata was composed in early September 1941 at traditions of sonata form Hindemith’s home in New Haven, Connecticut, and its dependence on during a break between teaching at Tanglewood tonality. He generates and Yale and displays a highly ordered sense of interest throughout the logic that guides a listener through Hindemith’s Sonata by following these music. The harmonic language is complex and traditions on some levels, ordered, yet the character of the music at times yet departing from them reflects the chaotic state of the contemporaneous in unexpected ways. The departures Hindemith Musical Example 2: world, as many nations were then engaged in chooses become all the more innovative Hindemith Lied-B theme World War II. against the backdrop of THEORY the traditional Let us begin our theoretical discussion with two elements that quotes from the preface to The Craft of Musical give them Composition that give us excellent insight into context. the musical mind of Paul Hindemith, his It is clear orientation toward tonality, and the importance from the tonal of understanding a composer’s works: processes Metamorphoses on themes of Carl Maria Von Hindemith employs that they are not completed Weber. The Hindemith Sonata is an example Theoretical knowledge within the first section and thus it is appropriate of his borrowing of material from the German Volkslied tradition. Hindemith frequently certainly will not directly to view this entire work as one large modified sonata-allegro form movement. The first referred to German folk music in Franz M. improve a violinist’s finger- section, the Allegro Moderato Maestoso, serves Böhme’s Old German Song Book: An in depth technique; but is it not likely to as the exposition and the beginning of the discussion of possible source material for broaden his musical horizon development. This process is interrupted when the Lied is outside the scope of this article. and influence his ability to we abruptly come to a halt at the end of the For more information refer to Landmarks of Twentieth Century Trombone Repertoire interpret a composition? If our first section. The second and third sections of the work, the Allegretto Grazioso and the (Robertson). performers—players, singers, Lied des Raufbolds (“Song of the Ruffian” or and conductors alike—had “Swashbuckler’s Song,” marked Allegro Pesante), PERFORMANCE a better insight into the contain further material that on the surface PREPARATION GUIDE essentials of musical scores, appears unrelated to the thematic material For any successful performance, we must have a specific conception of how we wish we would not be faced with from the opening sonata-allegro material of the first section. The finale of the work features a to express the music and the technique with what seems to have become return to the development begun in the first which to express these musical ideas. To guide almost a rule in the superficially section. This finalAllegro Moderato Maestoso you toward your own interpretation, let’s look overpolished performance brings us to the arrival of the recapitulation and at a few facets of the Sonata. First, a majority of today: either the rattling a short triumphant coda that brings the work of the Sonata is notated at a forte or fortissimo dynamic (Willis). The predominance of these through a piece without any to a close. What is particularly innovative here is that the melodic seed for the entire sonata loud dynamic markings brings up issues of reasonable articulation, without can be derived from the B theme of the Lied effective pacing and balance. The trombonist, any deeper penetration into its des Raufbolds, and that B theme appears to be observing these dynamics, tends to play character, tempo, expression, derived from, or at least inspired by, original bombastically and with inappropriate force. meaning, and effect—or the German folk song material. What this means We must realize that there are no instances of notated fortississimo (FFF) within the Sonata. hyper individualistic distortion is that Hindemith took the kernel of a melodic idea from a piece of German folk music, draped Though it is essential to balance with the of the ideas expressed in the it in a highly chromatic musical language, and piano, it is more vital to value phrase direction, composer’s score. constructed an elaborate sonata-allegro formal rhythm, and style above loudness so as not structure around it. Music Examples 1 and 2 to obscure the nature of Hindemith’s musical In the world of tones, the triad illustrate the relationship between the B theme expression by unnecessarily shouting in a stentorian style. Take musical advantage of the corresponds to the force of of the Lied des Raufbolds and the Primary Theme Motive. softer dynamics in the portion of the Sonata gravity . Music, as long as Hindemith is known for constructing that is marked in the mezzo forte and piano it exists, will always take its multi-movement works deriving from the dynamic ranges.