Video: Hindemith’s edgy homecoming

Video: Hindemith’s edgy homecoming

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norman lebrecht

August 09, 2014

Newly retrieved film of Paul Hindemith conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in 1949 conveys some degree of tension between the composer, forced to emigrate in the late 1930s, and the somewhat threadbare resident players.

The commentary says he left Germany for America in 1934. This is untrue. Hindemith was not denounced by Goebbels until December 1934. He took a teaching post in Turkey in the hope he might yet return, moved to Switzerland in 1938 and finally fled to the US in 1940.

(Click on word ‘Post’ if video does not pop out)

hindemith berlin
pictured: Hindemith (left) receiving an honorary doctorate in Berlin, 1950

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