Hindemith and early European music in the United States (1940-53)

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)--composer, teacher, and performer of early music--was one of the inaugurators of the early music revival in the United States. During his tenure at Yale University (1940-53) Hindemith directed concerts of primarily medieval and Renaissance music in 1941 (Tanglewood), 1945-47 (Yale), 1948 (Yale and the Metropolitan Museum of Art), 1950 (Harvard), 1951 and 1953 (Yale and the Metropolitan Museum of Art). He participated in a concert of 17th-century music at Yale in 1943. The success of these performances gave Hindemith national recognition. He was able to establish these concerts as the result of self-education and relentless determination. Although he was not part of the burgeoning collegium musicum movement in Germany he directed the Yale Collegium Musicum unhindered, for the most part, by the disastrous effects of World War II. Neither before nor after his tenure at Yale did early music performance form a significant part of his life.Chapter 1 focuses on relevant issues in Hindemith's background while in Germany. Using Stephen Hinton's analysis of the idea of Gebrauchsmusik, this chapter shows that although Hindemith denounced the term "Gebrauchsmusik" as a slogan, his early music performances emerged from the same Gebrauchsmusik, (music-for-amateurs) philosophy. The term "Gebrauchsmusik" appears in this a dissertation as a favorable "pre-Nazi/Weimar Republic" concept; a philosophical construct which formed the basis of Hindemith's early music performances in the United States.Chapter 2 deals with Hindemith's advocacy of early music in the United States. This chapter also includes discussions on the public reception of Hindemith's early music programs, as well as the work of contemporaries during that phase of the early music revival in the United States. The following chapter is an evaluation of Hindemith's recordings of two Yale Collegium Musicum concerts, his use of historical instruments and his performance scores. The evaluation of Hindemith's performance scores centers primarily around French dances which he performed on period instruments in 1948 and their adaptation for modern instruments in his Suite franzoesischer Taenze (1958). The final chapter is a reflection upon the issues of Gebrauchsmusik, and historicity in Hindemith's early music performances. The appendices contain programs, personnel and repertoire lists.School of MusicThesis (D.A.