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Hindemith, Paul. (1895–1963). Symphony in E flat [First Movement] - Autograph Musical Manuscript .
An important and hitherto un-researched autograph musical manuscript draft of the complete first movement of Hindemith's Symphony in E flat, signed and inscribed by the composer to the violinist Ruth Posselt (1911 - 2007) around the time of the work's composition. Upright folio. 27.5 x 34 cm. Covers, with inscription to inside front; 10 pp. musical manuscript in pencil. On the inside front page, opposite the first page of music, Hindemith has inscribed in ink: "For Ruth with best wishes Paul Hindemith 1940." Music titled "Symphonie / 1. Satz [movement]" at the head and dated "Lenox / 1 Sept. 40" at the conclusion, consisting of the complete first movement (subsequently published with the title/tempo indication "Sehr Lebhaft") written in a condensed score with only occasional indications of instrumentation, but with the music in a fairly worked-out stage of composition. Small tears and marks to the outer blank pages and to blank margins, otherwise in very fine condition throughout.
This manuscript, gifted by the composer to the violinist Ruth Posselt who would give the New York premiere of his Violin Concerto the following year, has not previously been offered for sale. We believe it to be one of the most significant Hindemith autograph manuscripts to have appeared on the market in at least 30 years.
The opening of the first movement begins with a fanfare-like theme of heroic character and the music bristles with energy as the main theme permeates the musical landscape throughout. A rousing recording of the composer conducting this movement with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a 1949 performance may be heard here.
Hindemith's Symphony in E flat was one of the first works the composer wrote after his arrival in the United States in 1940. A refugee from Nazi Germany, Hindemith joined the faculty of Yale University in 1940 and later became an American citizen. The symphony was begun shortly after his arrival, initially for Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but after a falling-out between the composer and the BSO, it was instead premiered by Dimitri Mitropoulos and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in November 1941.
According to David Fanning, Hindemith's "only full-on engagement with the [symphonic] genre was his punchy Symphony in E flat of 1940." ("The Symphony since Mahler" in The Cambridge Companion to the Symphony, p. 101). Although he wrote several other "symphonies," such as the Symphony: Mathis der Maler and the later Pittsburgh Symphony, the Symphony in E flat was Hindemith's only attempt to carry on the Austro-Germanic tradition of the "pure" symphony. At a time when composers such as Stravinsky and Schoenberg were writing for orchestra, but with radical techniques such as the twelve-tone system, Hindemith was relatively conservative. Philip Huscher writes that "for Hindemith, composing a “tonal” symphony was a rallying cry [...he] thought of his finest works, such as this E-flat symphony, as part of a grand, centuries-spanning continuum." (Program notes for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, May 10, 2011.)
The symphony was generally well-received at its premiere in Minneapolis, but not by one prominent listener: "As it happened, another composer was in town that week: Sergei Rachmaninoff. [...] Since Rachmaninoff would be in town for the first performance of the Hindemith symphony, Mitropoulos invited him to sit backstage (where he would not be bothered by autograph seekers) and listen. This was really a good symphony, the conductor insisted. Rachmaninoff took a chair and stationed himself just out of sight behind the proscenium arch. At the conclusion of the symphony... [Mitropoulos] tapped Rachmaninoff on the shoulder, and said: 'Well?' Rachmaninoff looked up at him with a doleful expression and lugubriously intoned: 'No gooooood.' " (William R. Trotter: Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos, pp. 197–198.)
A student of Emanuel Ondříček, Massachusetts-born Ruth Posselt launched her career as a child prodigy at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1923 and performed widely through the late seventies. Though she struggled with the widespread gender bias against female violinists as well as the prejudice of American audiences and managers against American-born virtuosos, Posselt was nevertheless an important force in premiering and popularizing major works for the violin by twentieth-century composers such as E. B. Hill, Walter Piston, Samuel Barber, Paul Hindemith, Bohuslav Martinu, Aaron Copland, Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke) and others. From 1958, Posselt performed on a 1732 Giuseppe Guarneri "Del Gesu" known as the "Posselt, Phillip".
Hindemith, Paul. (1895–1963). Symphony in E flat [First Movement] - Autograph Musical Manuscript .
An important and hitherto un-researched autograph musical manuscript draft of the complete first movement of Hindemith's Symphony in E flat, signed and inscribed by the composer to the violinist Ruth Posselt (1911 - 2007) around the time of the work's composition. Upright folio. 27.5 x 34 cm. Covers, with inscription to inside front; 10 pp. musical manuscript in pencil. On the inside front page, opposite the first page of music, Hindemith has inscribed in ink: "For Ruth with best wishes Paul Hindemith 1940." Music titled "Symphonie / 1. Satz [movement]" at the head and dated "Lenox / 1 Sept. 40" at the conclusion, consisting of the complete first movement (subsequently published with the title/tempo indication "Sehr Lebhaft") written in a condensed score with only occasional indications of instrumentation, but with the music in a fairly worked-out stage of composition. Small tears and marks to the outer blank pages and to blank margins, otherwise in very fine condition throughout.
This manuscript, gifted by the composer to the violinist Ruth Posselt who would give the New York premiere of his Violin Concerto the following year, has not previously been offered for sale. We believe it to be one of the most significant Hindemith autograph manuscripts to have appeared on the market in at least 30 years.
The opening of the first movement begins with a fanfare-like theme of heroic character and the music bristles with energy as the main theme permeates the musical landscape throughout. A rousing recording of the composer conducting this movement with Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a 1949 performance may be heard here.
Hindemith's Symphony in E flat was one of the first works the composer wrote after his arrival in the United States in 1940. A refugee from Nazi Germany, Hindemith joined the faculty of Yale University in 1940 and later became an American citizen. The symphony was begun shortly after his arrival, initially for Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but after a falling-out between the composer and the BSO, it was instead premiered by Dimitri Mitropoulos and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in November 1941.
According to David Fanning, Hindemith's "only full-on engagement with the [symphonic] genre was his punchy Symphony in E flat of 1940." ("The Symphony since Mahler" in The Cambridge Companion to the Symphony, p. 101). Although he wrote several other "symphonies," such as the Symphony: Mathis der Maler and the later Pittsburgh Symphony, the Symphony in E flat was Hindemith's only attempt to carry on the Austro-Germanic tradition of the "pure" symphony. At a time when composers such as Stravinsky and Schoenberg were writing for orchestra, but with radical techniques such as the twelve-tone system, Hindemith was relatively conservative. Philip Huscher writes that "for Hindemith, composing a “tonal” symphony was a rallying cry [...he] thought of his finest works, such as this E-flat symphony, as part of a grand, centuries-spanning continuum." (Program notes for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, May 10, 2011.)
The symphony was generally well-received at its premiere in Minneapolis, but not by one prominent listener: "As it happened, another composer was in town that week: Sergei Rachmaninoff. [...] Since Rachmaninoff would be in town for the first performance of the Hindemith symphony, Mitropoulos invited him to sit backstage (where he would not be bothered by autograph seekers) and listen. This was really a good symphony, the conductor insisted. Rachmaninoff took a chair and stationed himself just out of sight behind the proscenium arch. At the conclusion of the symphony... [Mitropoulos] tapped Rachmaninoff on the shoulder, and said: 'Well?' Rachmaninoff looked up at him with a doleful expression and lugubriously intoned: 'No gooooood.' " (William R. Trotter: Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos, pp. 197–198.)
A student of Emanuel Ondříček, Massachusetts-born Ruth Posselt launched her career as a child prodigy at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1923 and performed widely through the late seventies. Though she struggled with the widespread gender bias against female violinists as well as the prejudice of American audiences and managers against American-born virtuosos, Posselt was nevertheless an important force in premiering and popularizing major works for the violin by twentieth-century composers such as E. B. Hill, Walter Piston, Samuel Barber, Paul Hindemith, Bohuslav Martinu, Aaron Copland, Vladimir Dukelsky (Vernon Duke) and others. From 1958, Posselt performed on a 1732 Giuseppe Guarneri "Del Gesu" known as the "Posselt, Phillip".