Tag Archives: Paul Hindemith

In concert – Benjamin Grosvenor, CBSO / Jac van Steen: Stravinsky, Hindemith, Ravel & Honegger

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Benjamin Grosvenor (piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Jac van Steen

Hindemith Concert Music for Strings and Brass Op.50 (1930)
Ravel Piano Concerto in G major (1929-31)
Honegger Pacific 231 (1923)
Stravinsky Petruska (1911, rev. 1947)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 5 May 2026

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture (c) Jonathan Ferro

Tonight’s concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra saw the welcome return of Jac van Steen in a programme centred on several of the composers who contributed works to the Boston’s Symphony’s 50th season and what was an auspicious time for Western music.

Concert Music for strings and brass found Hindemith at an early peak of success abroad, as is evident from the ease with which he variously juxtaposes and combines these distinct groups. Formally the work is no less innovative – its initial part eliding first and slow movements as it pivots between densely orchestral or translucently chamber textures on the way towards a cumulatively sustained threnody; whereas its successor elides scherzo and finale as it veers between incisively fugal or plaintively homophonic textures prior to its resolute apotheosis. Music which has a notable advocate in Steen, ensuring this music never sounded congested or rhythmically inflexible while securing an impressive response from the CBSO musicians.

Although the Hindemith has latterly regained prominence, Ravel’s Piano Concerto has only gained further hearings across time. No mean exponent, Benjamin Grosvenor was not at his best in this account – the initial Allegramente finding rapport between soloist and orchestra less than unanimous, with its elements of jazz sounding a touch forced. The central Adagio opened with its solo passage lacking subtlety, though the build-up towards its close brought a frisson of anticipation, while the final Presto had a fluency and energy even more evident in that from Prokofiev’s Seventh Piano Sonata – Grosvenor on something like his best form.

A pity that no-one ever revives the [First] Symphony which Honegger wrote for that Boston anniversary, but his Pacific 231 has retained something of its early notoriety and Steen made the most of its implacable build-up from stasis, via a remorselessly accruing velocity then on to its merciless apotheosis. Certain members of the audience might first have encountered it in Louis Frémaux’s recording with this orchestra from 1973; the present performance being no less attentive to the music’s essentially human rendering of a technological phenomenon.

The scene was duly set for Stravinsky’s Petrushka, heard in its 1947 orchestration but with no lack of finesse on Steen’s part such as opened-out the music’s textures yet without diluting its emotional immediacy. There was no lack of evocation in the opening tableau’s depiction of St. Petersburg’s Shrove-Tide Fair, nor with that tantalizing passage when the anti-hero comes to life before a spirited Russian Dance. The central tableaux, focussing on Petrushka then the Moor in their respective cells, found an unerring balance between the music’s whimsical and its all-too-human emotions; heading into the Shrove-Tide Fair at Evening with its set-pieces vividly characterized. Just why Steen dispensed with the final minutes, depicting Petrushka’s death then his ‘resurrection’, is anyone’s guess: the CBSO trumpets were doubtless up for it.

An impressive concert, even so, not least as means for launching the CBSO’s 2026/27 season – details of which can be found elsewhere on Arcana.fm as well as on the orchestra’s website. Given the fitful funding at local and national levels, such ambition can only be commended.

To read more about the CBSO’s 2025/26 season, visit the CBSO website. Click on the names for more on soloist Benjamin Grosvenor and conductor Jac van Steen

Published post no.2,883 – Sunday 9 May 2026

In Concert – Nelson Goerner, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada: Hindemith, Rachmaninoff & Bartók

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Nelsen Goerner (piano) City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Hindemith Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943)
Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Op.43 (1934)
Bartók Concerto for Orchestra BB123 (1943)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 9 April 2026

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Pictures (c) Andrew Fox (above) and Marco Borggreve (below)

There was a pleasing overall balance to this evening’s concert from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and its music director Kazuki Yamada: the three works, written within a decade of each other, drawing extensively on earlier composers or, indeed, traditional music.

If not as familiar as it once was (and not least in Birmingham), Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber is always worth revival – not least for finding Hindemith at his most approachable and uninhibited. It was this latter aspect which came over most vividly here – Yamada securing a forceful though never blowzy response in the opening Allegro, then making the most of its ‘Turandot’ Scherzo’s freewheeling play on Weber’s already recalcitrant overture to which the CBSO responded in like fashion. Easily to underestimate, the Andantino emerged as music of no mean pathos as well as a foil to the final March’s breezy treatment of incisive then jocular melodies, with a close of real panache. Did a smile on the face of certain older punters indicate the latter tune’s audible resemblance to a once popular wartime song?

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini has become increasingly familiar in recent decades, as has Rachmaninoff’s music as a whole, and tonight’s performance amply underlined why. He may not have partnered the CBSO for several years, but Nelson Goerner secured a rapport from the outset – the initial 15 variations pivoting between impetuosity and inwardness with dextrous assurance, then those three which constitute a ‘slow movement’ rendered with a soulfulness and, in the evergreen Variation XVIII, a deftness such as banished any hint of sentimentality. The closing six variations duly unfolded as a ‘finale’ capricious and scintillating, Goerner at one with the orchestra in rounding off this work with a deathless payoff. Impeccably played if emotionally aloof, Brahms’ Intermezzo in A major (Op. 118/2) was the less than apposite encore.

The CBSO has an association with Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra itself going back decades with the present account notable, above all, for its sheer virtuosity of playing. Interpretatively things was not quite this consistent – the expressive contrasts in its Introduzione just a little inflexibly drawn so that the movement felt no more than the sum of its admittedly impressive parts, with the succession of duets in Presentando le coppie a little too detached from each other for this to become the genial though equally vulnerable scherzando it ideally should be.

Conversely, the Elegia had an ideal balance between wrenching anguish and that unworldly ‘night music’ from which it emerges and into which it ultimately withdraws, while the quirky interplay of styles and parodies – whether Léhar or Shostakovich seems beside the point – in the Intermezzo interrotto never sounded at all contrived. Neither did the Finale disappoint as it navigated between pulsating energy and brazen high jinx, on route to a coda of hushed anticipation capped by a peroration which set the seal on this work in an exhilarating QED.

Overall, a fine showing for the CBSO and Yamada in the wake of their latest European tour. The orchestra returns next week in an enterprising programme of Respighi and Puccini, the latter represented by syntheses from two of his operas devised by the conductor Carlo Rizzi.

To read more about the CBSO’s 2025/26 season, visit the CBSO website. Click on the names for more on their principal conductor Kazuki Yamada and pianist Nelson Goerner

Published post no.2,854 – Saturday 11 April 2026

On this day – the birth of Paul Hindemith

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published by Ben Hogwood. Photo of Hindemith in 1923 courtesy of the Hindemith-Institut als Rechteinhaber / Wikipedia

Two days ago we marked 90 years since the world premiere of Paul Hindemith‘s three-movement concerto for viola and orchestra, Der Schwanendreher (The Swan Turner). Now Arcana mark 130 years to the day since the birth of the composer himself. Back in 2013 I penned an appreciation of his music for the blog I was running – and would like to recycle it here:

“Hindemith’s absence from the concert hall is frequently baffling, because only a small proportion of his works fulfil the dull, academic caricature that insists on following him around. It is true that there are some pieces that are dry and more difficult to get on with, but doesn’t every composer have their weaker moments? For each of those there is one that sparkles with wit, invention and originality.

With this in mind, I wanted to share why Hindemith is one of my favourite composers, to explore on the surface some new recordings and to suggest some works it would be good to know better.

Hindemith’s orchestral output, for starters, is full of colourful scores. The most played of these tend to be the symphony constructed from his opera Mathis der Maler, the ballet Nobilissima Visione, the Symphonic Metamorphoses on themes of Weber and the Konzertmusik for strings and brass.

Three of these can be heard together on a fine disc from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins, released on Hyperion. The strings and brass shine on the latter piece, whose bold writing really blows away the cobwebs. In Brabbins’ hands the Mathis der Maler Symphony is shown off as the masterpiece it is, with broad melodies that often have a softer centre, as well as powerful orchestral tuttis that have an enchanted air, thanks to Hindemith’s frequently inventive orchestration. Finally the Symphonic Metamorphoses on themes of Weber are great fun, energetic and witty.

Nobilissima Visione is my personal Hindemith choice. In the suite it has a March and Pastorale of silvery beauty, and a noble Passacaglia that builds to a powerful and blazing conclusion. This is quintessential Hindemith, with a theme that moves in directions often contrary to the listener’s expectations while somehow making complete sense.

By way of contrast I would recommend the Piano Concerto, The Four Temperaments, a theme and four variations for piano and strings that finds Hindemith at his most mischievous but also has revealing and intimate asides. It bursts with melodic content, and its combination of humour and poignancy would make it an ideal concert piece. While that is sadly not likely to happen soon there are a number of good recordings – one of which was recently released by ECM, with Anna Gourari and the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by Markus Poschner

Hindemith wrote for such colourful characters as Benny Goodman and Dennis Brain. His Concerto for clarinet and orchestra is a charming piece with a beautifully written solo part, while the Horn Concerto, a challenging work technically, is also extremely rewarding.

Hindemith wrote a lot of music, which is possibly part of the problem in getting it recognised though he showed what an extraordinarily resourceful composer he was by writing sonatas for tuba, trombone and cor anglais among others. My first encounter with him was through three short but surprisingly baleful pieces for cello and piano, the Three Easy Pieces – the first of which was a Grade 3 piece.

In 2013, Hindemith’s anniversary year, Hyperion issued fine discs of the complete Violin Sonatas, ably performed by Tanja Becker-Bender and Péter Nagy, and the Piano Sonatas, impressively deconstructed by Markus Becker. Among the chamber music my choice would have to be the Kleine Kammermusik, a spiky piece for wind quintet with some good tunes, spicy harmonies and fine writing for woodwind.

Finally another aspect of Hindemith’s output that should be noted is his vocal music, and there is an excellent disc from the Hänssler label of his Mass and Six Chansons. The Mass in particular is a substantial piece, difficult to sing but rewarding to listen to in a recording as open as this.

I would urge you, then, to discover the music of a composer whose greatness has often been lauded in the same breath as Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Bartók, but whose music no longer enjoys anything like their profile. I wager you won’t be disappointed!

Published post no.2,720 – Sunday 16 November 2025

On this day – the first performance of Hindemith’s Der Schwanendreher

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published by Ben Hogwood, using text from the Brilliant Classics website

On this day in 1935, Paul Hindemith gave the first performance of his own three-movement concerto for viola and orchestra, Der Schwanendreher (The Swan Turner).

As the website notes, the concerto “is based on medieval German folk songs. While the ‘swan turner’ was literally someone who turned the spit of a roasting swan, metaphorically it referred to an itinerant minstrel whose street organ or hurdy-gurdy was cranked via a swan’s-neck handle. He composed the work between September and October 1935, and it was premiered at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, with the composer (a virtuoso violist who did much to elevate the instrument’s status) serving as soloist.”

You can read more about the work – and the new release profiled above – on the Brilliant Classics website, or watch a superb live performance below, with soloist Antoine Tamestit and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Paavo Järvi:

Published post no.2,718 – Friday 14 November 2025

Playlist: Herbert Blomstedt at 95

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by Ben Hogwood

To mark the 95th birthday of the great Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt on Monday just gone, Arcana has put together a playlist including a snapshot of some of his greatest and most enduring recordings.

They include the Fifth Symphony of Nielsen, part of a landmark cycle of the composer’s symphonies with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for Decca. Blomstedt’s recordings with that orchestra in the 1990s were notable for their sonic prowess but left some critics cold; however on revisiting his Sibelius cycle, for instance, they stand up very well. The Third Symphony is included here, as is the first Peer Gynt Suite of Grieg.

Also in the 1990s came a trio of fascinating discs lending weight to the cause of Paul Hindemith. A disc of the Mathis der Maler Symphony, the Symphonic Metamorphoses and Trauermusik was to be expected, perhaps, but the follow-ups were even more valuable – a disc of the music for Nobilissima Visione, the Konzertmusik for Brass and Strings and Der Schwanendreher, and a pairing of the Symphonia Serena and symphony from the opera Die Harmonie der Welt, included here.

Blomstedt has more recently recorded a well-received Brahms cycle with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, though prior to that recorded a fine disc of the composer’s choral works in San Francisco. With the Gewandhaus, however, he has completed his most recent release, that of Schubert’s Unfinished and Great symphonies. The former is included here. Enjoy this selection of wonderful recordings!