As no one was ever just influenced by one person during their lifetime, I thought it necessary to look into which composers, besides Bach, had a strong influence, either through friendship or through admiration of their music, on Hindemith. Most of these important influences were part of his early composing days and lost importance as his style developed. However, there are a few that stayed with Hindemith throughout his stylistic development.

Most influences on Hindemith are naturally found during his early years, as these are formative years but it is also due to his insecurity about his composition skills. He himself stated (around 1935), that he didn’t believe he possessed any special compositional talent until he was around 24 and some of his works got published.1  

Many manuscripts of his very early works show clear inspiration that sprouted from Brahms’ and Wagner’s compositional style. However, Hindemith was special in the natural flair that he had in combining all the different influences on his compositions into what later became an incredibly personal style. He incorporated Brahms’ use of form, Reger’s chromaticism and contrapuntal techniques, Strauss’ flow of melody, harmony from French and Russian music, early Schoenberg in his connection of poetry and instrumental music and Franz Schreker (1878-1934) in his orchestral colouration.2

Around 1918, Hindemith wanted to break free from the strict conservatoire routine, saying I want to write music, not song forms and sonata forms… I can’t talk seriously with anyone at the conservatory because none of them has any ideals left. Their whole art has become far too much craft!3 This feeling was unleashed in Hindemith after hearing about Debussy’s death while performing his music at the front during World War I. A particularly speaking letter illustrates Hindemith’s personal feelings during this moment: As a soldier during the First World War, I was a member of a string quartet, which represented for the colonel of our regiment a means of forgetting he hated military service. He was a great friend of music and a connoisseur and admirer of French culture. Small wonder, then, that his most burning desire was to hear Debussy’s string quartet. We practiced the piece and played it for him with great emotion at a private concert. Just as we had finished the slow movement the radio officer entered the room, visibly shaken, and reported that the news of Debussy’s death had just come over the radio. We didn’t finish the performance. It was as if the breath of life had been taken from our playing. But we realized for the first time that music is more than style, technique and the expression of personal feeling. Here, music transcended political boundaries, national hatred and the horrors of war. At no other time have I ever comprehended so completely in what direction music must develop.4 This moment marked Hindemith’s loss of identification with the musical values from before the war. He shortly turned to a more provocative and aggressive novelty style as in his burlesque ‘Das Nusch-Nuschi’ in 1921. After he went into the direction of his Neoclassical style, inspired by contemporaries such as Bartok, Stravinsky, Milhaud, jazz and folk music.5

This might sound like a juxtaposition as Hindemith’s eventual final style developed into one that was extremely mathematical and based on structure, which is very clear when looking at the score. The quote above might suggest a complete absence of form, yet Hindemith went the opposite way. My take on this is that he wanted to be free from forms, such as sonata form, enabling the overly personal emotion, through the expected development of the clearly stated long themes, which was popular in the Romanticism. In our Solo Sonata Op.25 No.1, even though it’s called a sonata, we do not at all see the traditional sonata form structure hidden inside anywhere, merely the idea of a moderate beginning, a slow middle followed by a quick movement. Looking at it excluding our first and fifth movement, prologue and epilogue, already adds something extra and unusual to Hindemith’s general form in this piece. Bach and Hindemith’s connection is indeed based on structure, yet it’s not at all the big form that creates the commonalities between the two composers, it’s small building blocks, never long themes or ideas. Hindemith however was fond of having sections in his pieces, often though different from the sonata form, and the big sections have a clear separation element to them and don’t just intertwine without even being noticed. So in my opinion, Hindemith created an absence of the strict following of big detailed forms, such as sonata form, and sought even in this a certain simplicity, distancing and objectivity. This presents itself in his Solo Sonata op.25 No.1 through a rather persistent ternary form in all movements, each time having his opening clearly repeated at the end, though sometimes followed by a small closing section.

In this period of his life, during which he also composed his Solo Sonata Op.25 No.1 which we discuss throughout this research, the influence of the late Romantic composers had passed and the more permanent influences throughout his life started to settle. Hindemith had a deep appreciation for Bartok and Stravinsky, saying that those were the only composers of his time who wrote music that would survive the test of time.6 His strong friendship to Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) and Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) documented in letters and mutual dedications was also of significant influence on his compositions.

Hindemith was familiar with Bartok, especially his first violin sonata, as he performed and admired it publicly during his early performing years. In this sonata, Bartok extended the limits of dissonance within the use of folk music of Eastern Europe. This technique of using folk tunes in a new harmonic setting is an element that can be seen in several of Hindemith’s later compositions. With folk music also becoming a big influence stemming from his liking of Bartok’s music, pieces such as his Mathis der Maler symphony and his viola concerto Der Schwanendreher came into existence. This influence connects back to all his life work, returning back to tradition, showing that only that which is rooted in tradition can make a claim to permanence.7

Influences of Stravinsky and Milhaud are present in Hindemith’s Kammermusik No.1, whose final movement is a foxtrot, which was unusual in a chamber music work. Before this, Hindemith also incorporated Bach’s C minor Fugue BWV847 in one of his pieces combining it with a ragtime, showing influence from Stravinsky, in incorporating older music, from jazz, as that’s where ragtime originated. He received a lot of criticism for this but addressed this with the following statement: “Do you think that Bach is turning in his grave? He wouldn’t think of it! If Bach were alive today, he might perhaps have invented the shimmy or at least incorporated it into respectable music. Perhaps he too would have taken a theme from the Well-Tempered Clavier of a composer who represented Bach to him.” This shows that he considered Bach a revolutionary of his time.8

The last important influence we have to address however, is Max Reger. Hindemith came in touch with his repertoire as a young violinist. After already studying Bach’s Violin Sonatas and Partitas, he discovered Reger’s Solo Violin Sonatas. These set an example that as much as Hindemith took from Bach, he also learned a lot from his contemporaries, especially Reger, where it concerned contrapuntal structures and techniques.9 It is also not to be ignored that Bach was also of great influence on Reger10, not only as they were both organists who contributed greatly to the organ repertoire but it can also be deducted from a famous quote of his saying Sebastian Bach is for me the beginning and end of all music; upon him rests, and from him originates, all real progress! 11. This quote is part of a short essay Reger wrote as response to the question ‘What is Johann Sebastian Bach to me and what does he mean for our time?’ for the periodical Die Musik in 1905.12 The full essay13 shows his deep appreciation for Bach even more. Bach’s influence on Reger is considered to be on a deeper level, going beyond the classical romantic idioms that inspired him.14 Reger thoroughly studied Bach’s music in 1890 in Sondershausen and was extremely fascinated by his counterpoint and fugal writing.15 His own music is however never an imitation of Bach’s music. Under the guidance of his teacher Hugo Riemann (1849-1919), he developed a very personal and individual harmony, never losing sight of Bach’s legacy of polyphony and artful voice leading.16 This strengthens his will and views on music of wanting to preserve a certain connection, a dependence on tradition while taking into account the inspirations of his time. His style has often been described by others as a marriage between Bach’s Baroque and Wagner’s Romanticism17, he himself however considered his style as a continuation of  the styles of Beethoven and Brahms.18 This is not surprising as he came into contact with Beethoven’s music from a very young age before he had even encountered the great Thomascantor J.S. Bach. Reger’s profound love for Brahms was also a key component in the development of his personal style, as is clear from this quote: What secures Brahms’ immortality, is never his reference to the old masters, but rather his ability to trigger new spiritual atmospheres on the basis of his own spiritual personality.19 Although the path he followed from there, was not the one of imitation, but rather of following in Brahms’ footsteps of thorough study of the older generations such as Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Händel, … He strongly believed this would lead him out of the chaos of the aesthetic that came with the turn of the century ( 19th to 20th century).20

To bring it back to Hindemith and Bach, Reger’s Suites for solo violoncello and solo viola, both part of Op.131c and d, composed in 1915 in Jena at the end of his life, show us a strong example of Bach, incorporated in Reger’s personal style.21 These Suites for Solo Viola Op.131d were however a real novelty of the times, as barely any works of great importance had been written for viola solo, previous to this.22 Between Hindemith and Reger, common ground was not only found in the technical approach of elements such as counterpoint but also a shared sincerity on the approach of extending the life of the great tradition of musical history, particularly preserving the German musical heritage. They wanted to approach this in neither a reactionary nor a nostalgic way23, but rather as their own individual stylistic homage. Hindemith’s deep found appreciation for Reger is also reflected in this quote from a conversation Paul Hindemith had with author Helmut Wirth (1912-1989): Max Reger was the last giant in music. I wouldn’t be without him.24

By discussing which composers had a big impact on Hindemith’s style, it also shapes our idea of the picture of sound, phrasing, timing and voice leading he had in mind. This helps to take our interpretation over the borders of the strong connection to Bach and helps to highlight the differences due to the timeframe that stands 200 years apart.

The Soldiers' Quartet (Hindemith's quartet at the front)

Johannes Brahms

Béla Bartók

Darius Milhaud

Max Reger

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