Hindemith: Works For Viola And Piano

This new album by flutist Stathis Karapanos represents Paul Hindemith’s (1895–1963) complete works for flute featuring an impressive roster of accompanying artists. This selection, which also includes one world première recording, shows the unexpected versatility of Hindemith, one of the major names in 20th Century music, as a composer.

This beautifully programmed CD presents three settings for viola and orchestra and a more eloquent statement about the beauty of the viola as an instrument would be hard to imagine (except for perhaps including Vaughan Williams' 'Flos Campi'). The viola finds that middle voice between violin and cello, a rich tone with a built in quality of mournfulness. That quality has inspired the works on this recording and the result is some of the more wistful music ever written. Dennis Russell Davies conducts the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra with the superb violist Kim Kashkashian.

Paul Hindemith, considered the foremost German composer of his generation, believed in a strong link between music and social needs, and regarded the composer as a craftsman; someone who could provide for those needs. His chamber music is renowned for being unconventional and eclectic; the composer often experimented with a variety of styles and combinations of instruments. The Trio Op.47 uses the heckelphone, a baritone oboe used in several of the works of Richard Strauss. Op.47 is particularly notable for the atmospheric Arioso for this rare instrument.

Hindemith was not only a composer but also a hugely talented viola player who wrote a number of remarkable, innovative works for his instrument. The piano-accompanied sonatas are relatively wellknown, so too the Trauermusik composed in a single evening to mark the death of King George V. The solo viola works have had less attention: Hindemith referred to them as Gebrauchsmusik, by which he meant compositions with simple, linear structures, often intended for amateur players: music that responded to a particular need or use.

New recordings of unfamiliar, imposing concertos by an Italian contemporary of Prokofiev.