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| Hindemith |
-Compiled by Brian Mendonca
Work: Sonata for Harp
Year of composition:1939
Form: Sonata
Period: Modern (1890-1950)
Duration: 10.03 mins.
Listen
Harp: Tatiana Alquati
Recording: 2015
Movements Duration Counter
I. Massig schnell (04.27) [00.05]
II. Lebhaft (02.20) [04.32]
III. Lied (Poem) (03.10) [06.53]
Context
Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) was a German composer. He favoured the use of the chromatic scale (13 notes) as compared to the diatonic scale (7 notes with a home key). His atonal music is the signature of modernity. Hounded by the Nazis after his opera on German Renaissance painter Matthias Grunnewald in 1934 was banned by Goebbels, Hindemith fled to Turkey. He subsequently held positions in Ankara, New York and Zurich. The last movement of the harp sonata is based on a poem by Ludwig Holty, an eighteenth-century German poet. It describes the last wish of a harpist that his harp be placed behind the altar so that in the evenings it may play of its own accord.
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Pic courtesy: britannica(dot)com; references: britannica(dot)com, harpconnection.com, holocaustmusic.ort.org
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