When discussing Hindemith’s connection to J.S. Bach, it’s impossible to ignore the influence of the historical context both in the world, and in music history, that surrounded Hindemith. These influences, together with the stylistic developments of his time, are a big part of the development of Hindemith’s personal style.

In this chapter I will take a look at the development of musical style in relation to its historical context and interpersonal relations between the composers of this time. As Hindemith’s Solo Sonata Op.25 No.1 was written in 1922, I will focus on the first quarter of the 20th century and the period preceding it to contextualise the time that led into this extreme stylistic divergence and individuality that stood for the cultural development throughout the 20th century. Because the most impactful stylistic development and reactions to one another took place in Europe as well as the fact that Hindemith himself was German, I will mainly limit myself to discussing these elements within the borders of Europe.

To get to the concept of style shattering into numerous different small pieces, we have to start our journey at the height of the Romanticism, at the end of the 19th century, with composers such as Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and Richard Wagner (1813-1883) being very significant figures for the reactionaries. All change starts with the general rising perception of the Romanticism as being bombast, bloated, overly emotional and personal.

When looking at France, at the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th century, there was the fin-de-siècle period, which was a time filled with cultural changes. These changes were evoked by Wagner’s music and his extreme chromaticism and use of chromatic tonality, and while there was admiration at first, his musical language as well as the general musical language of the Romanticism, was soon experienced as over the top expression. This reaction on Wagner was also consistent in historical context as there were great political tensions between France and Germany. Furthermore, there was Wagner’s musical language, matching in time with Impressionism in art and Symbolism in literature. Next to these tensions, it was also felt by the French that the 19^th century had strongly been dominated by the German musical tradition. All this evoked a rise of nationalism in culture, pushing the French reactionaries to start drawing inspiration from French music of times before the Romantic period. This was the first time some sort of early idea of ‘Neoclassicism’ was born, although not yet under that name and not under the more specified connotation that it reached at its height in the 1920’s. We can see that composers such as Claude Debussy (1862-1918), Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931) started taking examples from earlier French composers such as François Couperin (1668-1733) and Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764). They didn’t all limit themselves to just the French tradition, because some of them, such as d’Indy, saw composers, such as Bach and Beethoven, more as universal pillars in history than as belonging to a certain tradition.1

With Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), we experience a similar development into their connection to early music as well as the development of their Impressionistic styles. The Impressionism was rooted in the reaction to Romanticism by instead of overexpression, wanting to create some more distance between themselves and the music. They executed this by recreating moods and impressions, strengthening their ideas with suggestive titles rather than literal descriptions. Their journey with early music was similar in the sense that when they first started using early music forms or titling their pieces after Baroque dances they didn’t really mirror the material  from the 17^th and 18^th century periods from which they took the inspiration, they took the actual material by looking at their contemporaries who had preceded them in using early music. This approach shifted with the turn of the century when early music editions as well as concerts programming this music became more accessible. This access created their affinity with composers such as Rameau and Couperin, making their music a mix between the typical characteristics of these composers’ music combining them with their own musical language.

In Germany and Austria the changes and shifts started happening slightly later than in France, when entering the 20^th century. Similar to France, the major reactions were also caused by the Wagnerianism, this being perceived as a symbol of artistic decadence, and this Wagnerianism pushed many composers over the edge, creating an aversion for Romanticism and a reaction evolving towards a more objective, thus budding ‘Neoclassicistic’ as well as ‘New Objectivity’, view on music. This movement started with the Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) at the base of this German line of development, but he was later surpassed by composers like Arnold Schoenberg and Paul Hindemith.2

This wedge between France and Germany at the start of the 1920’s Neoclassicism can be explained by the two countries being isolated from each other, as they were on opposite sides during the war. Due to this isolation, many individual tendencies and styles had developed and after the war, and when both sides came in touch with each other again, none of them felt the need to unify the new ideas that had sprouted in the time before.

In the French line of development of the Neoclassicism, the earliest roots, close to its 1920’s values, can interestingly enough be found in music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) in works like Pulcinella (1920) or his Octet for Winds (1923).3 In the Octet, there is sincere counterpoint to be found. Stravinsky, himself, was also aware of the shift in the artistic approaches, as seen in an interview during which he talked about wanting to manifest emotions, simply express them rather than the vagueness and suggestiveness seen in the reaction found in the Impressionism. He is considered to belong to the French line as he aligned with those views on the neoclassical movement, most probably also due to the strong influence on his work by his friend Erik Satie (1866-1925). Satie was a French composer, not truly following the French tradition of the time, setting himself apart from his heritage, and who could be defined by the almost childlike simplicity in his musical style. Instead of taking from the refinement or simplicities of the French traditions, Satie created a voice of his own, his own personal simplistic oasis. Especially in this standing apart from any line of tradition, Stravinsky felt a strong connection to his friend Satie. The influence of Satie on Stravinsky’s work was present in his pre-war compositions but even more eminent in his works written after World War I. He continued to simplify his style, reducing musical elements to their simplest forms and reducing instruments to groups as seen in Pulcinella. In a 1921 interview Stravinsky talked about this last one: We have wind instruments, stringed instruments, percussion instruments, and the human voice – there is our material. From the actual use of these materials the form should arise.4 His style after the Sacre du Printemps (1913) had evolved into something that could be described as simple, straightforward, objective, pure and concise, making Stravinsky the leader of the Neoclassical movement in the 1920’s.

Going back to tradition and combining it with modern influences, together creating an objective new style was, however not the only reaction on the Romanticism and Wagner’s chromaticism.

Some composers decided on a more conservative approach, simply modifying the Romantic style to fit their expressive purposes. In this group we can find composers like Edward Elgar (1857-1934) and Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943).

Another approach was a more nationalistic approach, as we saw in France, but not modifying the harmonical language as the main aspect but simply incorporating folk music in their works. From this style we can find examples in music by Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), Bela Bartok (1881-1945) and Manuel De Falla (1876-1946). This Nationalistic, also Folkloristic style developed itself, as during the general history of the 20^th century the strong idea of relating to your country its national history had become very popular. The original idea for this style however came from Russian composers, such as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), of the 19^th century.

Next to these, a strongly influential style that came into existence in the early 20^th century was the Expressionism. This style identified itself with experimentation, and stretching different musical elements such as tonality and expression. As it stands for going to the extremes of expression of subjective emotion, extremes of tonality until it eventually dissolved, it could be called almost nightmarish music as this was the feeling that the dissonances in the music evoked. One of the first composers related to this movement was Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), and later his pupils Anton Webern (1883-1945) and Alban Berg (1885-1935), with whom he later formed the second Viennese School.

The stylistic development Schoenberg went through, can generally be seen in 3 periods.5 During his early period he was still heavily influenced by Romanticism, meaning taking strong inspiration from Brahms, Mahler and Wagnerian harmony as well as the more programmatic purpose of chamber music. An example is his String Sextet Verklärte Nacht, written in 1899.

A next period, which we could call his Expressionistic and atonal period, is one in which he stretched the limits of imagination in all aspects of tonality resulting in new techniques such as ‘Sprechstimme’ and the collapse of tonal system, an example of this is Pierrot Lunaire (1912).

This development led him to his final style, Serialism. He created this system as he desired a way to organise his music, leading him to inside his complete dissolution of harmony and melody to invent a technique employing the twelve existing tones in new relationships. This is how the 12-tone technique came to be using 12-tone rows with a distinct set of rules so equality of all tones was guaranteed. We can see an example of this in Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra (1928).

His pupils Berg and Webern added their own personality but were true followers of Schoenberg’s serial style. Berg’s music was somewhat more lyrical and dramatic than Schoenberg and Webern employed a more minimalistic style writing shorter pieces.

Even though I’m listing these styles as separate waves, a lot of intertwining happened and it’s not because a composer seemingly belonged to one certain style that he wouldn’t use elements of the other styles. For example, Stravinsky and Hindemith making use of folk tunes, so leaning into the nationalistic or folklorism approach, didn’t negate their primarily neoclassical style, yet it incorporated other popular stylistic tendencies of their time as well.

This intertwining of the styles and the interpersonal connections between all these different composers is where it gets interesting.

The influence of both Schoenberg and Stravinsky was of incomparable value on the stylistic world of the early 20^th century. After World War I, they both made a complete break with the tradition of the Romantic aesthetic that came before, with as a result that they both went into the past while going polar opposite directions, especially concerning tonality, Schoenberg being dodecaphonic, Stravinsky neotonal.

The personal relations between Schoenberg and Stravinsky went through an interesting evolution as there was a general appreciation of each other before the war, speaking about music like Pierrot Lunaire and the ballet Petruschka (1911), but after the war this turned into disdain, due to the political climate and their more and more opposing view as their styles evolved. Both being leaders of contemporary music at those times, Stravinsky’s music was often performed in Berlin and Vienna in the 1920’s, having an important influence on the German composers of the generation of Berg and Webern. Naturally, Schoenberg’s music was also performed by many of his contemporaries, such as Hindemith with his Amar Quartet.

As I’m sketching the broad context of the stylistic divergence during the first quarter of the 20^th century to put Hindemith in the context of his time, it is important to zoom in more closely on the Neoclassicism from here. It is especially crucial when the stylistic fragmentation reached its peak in the 1920’s, when composers had lost all sense of musical mainstream and had no vision of clear orientation. This was caused by the new political climate and the economic problems found in the aftermath of the first World War. It’s result was that composers with their new serious styles had lost the 19^th century older elitist audience and had to find a different way to reach ‘the people’. This idea of ‘the people’ was central to the nationalistic political climate that reached its height in the 1930’s.

The 1920’s was also the start of a more defined version of the Neoclassical style, standing for a new unity between Classicism, meaning period ideals of style and form and concepts of aesthetic perfection, and Modernity, meaning inclusion of the new harmonical language and idea of objectivity in music by recourse to the past. This definition ended up being the one that applied to all composers of importance representing this movement, including Paul Hindemith.

It's of importance to discuss Stravinsky’s journey into his Neoclassical style as he was one of the main leaders of this movement. As many composers living at the turn of the century, he started working with the ideas surrounding him, namely the Russian Nationalism as well as the late Romanticism. Then, before reaching his Neoclassical period, he went through a transitional period in which he explored expanding the chromaticism and the more dissonant chord structures, bordering on atonality, showing his affinity with Schoenberg during this period.

Finally he reached his Neoclassical period, in which, contrary to other followers of the movement, he didn’t imitate Classical or Baroque forms but rather incorporated more general earlier principles of organisation in his music. Later in life, Stravinsky even did some exploring in the serial style, making more flexible use of the tone rows rather than following Schoenberg’s rigid rules.

Hindemith: Neoclassicism or Neobaroque?

Making the connection to our next composer, Paul Hindemith, it’s important to note that his importance for musical style in the 20^th century was also acknowledged by the Neoclassicistic master Igor Stravinsky, as there are sources mentioning that Stravinsky himself spoke of 3 existing neoclassical schools, namely his own, Schoenberg’s and the one of Paul Hindemith.6 In Stravinsky’s opinion those schools determined the course of music history in the period before the second World War, between 1930 and 1945.7 Schoenberg, might seem like the odd one out in a row of important neoclassicists and while I do acknowledge that his influence was greater in the development of atonality to serialism, it has to be recognised that even he looked back to earlier times where it concerned form, counterpoint and the rhythmical, rather than harmonical and melodical, structures of thematic development. While we’ve already established that Stravinsky by that moment in time, had little appreciation for the music of the Schoenberg circle, without denying its importance for the musical development of the 20^th century, Stravinsky had a certain budding appreciation for the young Hindemith as can be seen in this quote: This Hindemith is sort of like a German Prokofiev, infinitely more sympathetic than all of the others under Schoenberg.8

Hindemith is seen as an important representative of the Neoclassicism, coming slightly later than Stravinsky but staying more true to the style for longer. He was a central figure in German contemporary music. His stylistic journey was similar to many, in his early works exploring the influences of late Romantic composers like Brahms followed by a period of experimentation discovering expressionism, parodistic elements as well as jazz idioms, all this gradually leading into his final Neoclassical style at the start of the 1920’s. A style very fitting for Hindemith and his objective ideals, a style in which he married stylistic elements of mostly Baroque music (by Bach and earlier composers), only few elements of Classical style, with his modern harmonic practices and linear counterpoint. His tendency to incorporate mainly Baroque stylistic elements is why Hindemith’s music within the Neoclassicism can actually simply be considered Neo Baroque.

Hindemith was extremely against the idea of the collapse of tonality and the concept of atonality or complete equality of tones in Serialism. He, however, also felt the need to progress and evolve his harmonical system with all the changes happening during his time. Hindemith, therefore, created his own tonal system and discussed the complete theoretical basis of his harmonical style in his book ‘Unterweisung im Tonsatz’ (1937), a very complicated system which can be summarized to a few essential practices. Hindemith organised all intervals from least to most dissonant, from octave to tritone, the degree of tension that was appointed to them decided their use. Chords, he didn’t compile necessarily making a combination of thirds, but this however didn’t make them completely random as Hindemith made sure they all referenced back to a tonal centre.9 Lastly, the importance of the fourth can’t be ignored, as it was extremely prominent in almost all of Hindemith’s music, especially in melodic context. These elements are all very clearly present in the Solo Sonata Op.25 No.1 that we discuss in this research. The important thing being, connecting us back to the Baroque, is that an harmonical hierarchy remains, even though reorganised.

Going more into detail of Hindemith’s music, the textures and forms in his works were based on earlier centuries, seeing impressive contrapuntal technique, forms such as passacaglia, fugue, concerto grosso, and his solutions of problems with complex canonic and fugal writing. His focus on the clarity of the earlier times was never clouded as even when he used many polyphonic textures, he never lost sight of clear phrases and cadences. His rhythmic flow was a great help in this.

Hindemith’s serious approach and values of music, also aligning with those of Bach, were reflected in him not just viewing music as entertainment. His music has a clear aim of reflecting the philosophical and spiritual nature of man, as music was seen as an ethical and moral force in his opinion, serving to stand for something, rather than just functioning as entertainment for an audience.

Hindemith’s strong position in the Neoclassicism was valuable because of his consistent style over four decades, adding varied expressive contents as he lived life.

To summarize, we notice a strong shattering of all notion of a general musical style when reaching the 20^th century. The main reasons for this were the overtly expressive and increasingly chromatic style of the late Romanticism as well as the upcoming nationalism in many countries. Many composers, depending on where they were from took their own turn reacting to this, creating an abundance of individual styles, even within certain stylistic developments there were many interpretations, often distinguishing themselves from one another, either in their approach to harmony and tonality, or in their expressive approach. A general tendency was however found in looking back to earlier times, earlier styles, to what came before this bloated Romanticism with extreme emotion. This resulted in styles such as Impressionism, Folklorism, Serialism but for many also Neoclassicism. However, the term Neoclassicism was very broad, with only its general meaning of balance, order, clarity, objectivity and emotional restraint, often using 17^th and 18^th century ideas about form and structure, as well as techniques such as counterpoint. All these different interpretations of the style make the connection between Bach and Hindemith very special. As many took ideas from earlier times but only few decided to connect so closely to Bach’s music specifically.

The 20th century can in a few simple words be described as experimental and individualistic, as we can see in the first quarter, but these tendencies continued throughout the rest of the century, strongly influenced by the political climate as well as by all the very different styles surrounding them. Just a few examples of where the 20^th century would take us for its latter 75 years, can be found in Boulez’s extreme Serialism (rows for duration, dynamics, articulation as well as notes), electronic devices being used to create and manipulate sound, jazz undergoing many stylistic developments, chance music (the performer received fragments of musical ideas and can then decide their order and how many times they would be played) and many more.

The 20th century truly marked the opening up of endless musical possibilities without any general stylistic restrictions due to the time in history.

Concert programme of the Amar Quartet with music by Schoenberg and Hindemith (at the bottom of the page there's an announcement for a next concert with music by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven)

Concert programme of the Amar Quartet including works by Stravinsky, Schubert and Hindemith

Hindemith's Amar Quartet with Igor Stravinsky

Claude Debussy

Igor Stravinsky

Richard Wagner

Arnold Schoenberg

Paul Hindemith

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