Paul Hindemith - Suite 1922 [With score]

-Composer: (16 November 1895 – 28 December 1963) -Performer: Sviatoslav Richter -Recorded in 1989 Suite 1922, for piano, Op. 26, written in 1921-22 00:00 - I. Marsch 01:36 - II. Shimmy 04:54 - III. Nachtstück 11:44 - IV. Boston 18:04 - V. Ragtime Whereas in the Kleine Kammermusik of 1921 Hindemith chuckled good-naturedly about such shopworn forms as marches and waltzes, in the 1922 Suite for solo piano, his attitude toward the march, shimmy, Boston and ragtime is more plainly bad-tempered. In the years immediately following the First World War, Hindemith had been privately composing pastiches of popular dances of the day, but had held them back from publication, considering them mere "sports." By 1922, however, Hindemith no longer had any qualms about using popular music as a basis for serious musical statements. In Suite "1922", satire borders on sarcasm; in the opening "Marsch," the pianist is instructed to play it "rather clumsily." The writing for the piano is unusually thick and heavy with chords, especially in the left hand; as such it is almost unrecognizable as coming from one of the master contrapuntalists of the twentieth century. The rhythm is irregular, and the harmonies -- built on dissonant, cluster-like explosions and angular aggregations of fourths and fifths -- make for a very unmarchable march indeed. The other dance forms are similarly undermined in the suite. The second movement, "Shimmy," is based on a dance-hall variant of the foxtrot, but makes...