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Paul Hindemith ( November 16, 1895 - December 28, 1963) was a German classical composer, violist, teacher, theorist and conductor.1 Biography
Born in Hanau, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child, but his parents objected to his musical ambitions, and he left home at the age of eleven as a result. He entered the Hoch Conservatoire in Frankfurt am Main where he studied conducting, composition and violin under Arnold Mendelssohn and Bernhard Sekles , supporting himself by playing in dance bands and musical-comedy outfits. He led the Frankfurt Opera orchestra from 1915 to 1923 and played in the Rebner string quartet in 1921 in which he played second violin, and later the viola. In 1929 he founded the Amar Quartet, playing viola, and extensively touring Europe.
In 1922, some of his pieces were heard in the International Society for Contemporary Music festival at Salzburg, which first brought him to the attention of an international audience. The following year, he began to work as an organiser of the Donaueschingen Festival, where he programmed works by several avant garde composers, including Anton WebernAnton Webern ( December 3, 1883 September 15, 1945) was a composer of classical music and a member of the so called Second Viennese School. He was born Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern but never used his middle names, and dropped the von in 1918. Biogra and Arnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg (the anglicized form of Schonberg Schoenberg changed the spelling officially when he became a U. citizen) ( September 13, 1874 July 13, 1951) was a composer, born in Vienna, Austria. He is particularly remembered as one of the first comp. From 1927 he taught composition at BerlinBerlin [ bɛrˈliːn ] is the national capital of Germany and its largest city, with 3,387,404 inhabitants (as of September 2004); down from 4. 5 million before World War II. Berlin is located on the rivers Spree and Havel in the northea and in the 1930s he made several visits to AnkaraAnkara (formerly known as Angora or Enguri , and in the classical period, Ancyra is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city (after Istanbul) and lies at an approximate altitude of 850 meters (about 2800 feet). It is also the capital of where he led the task of reorganising TurkishTurkey (officially the Republic of Turkey Turkish Turkiye is a country located in Southwest Asia with a small part in southeastern Europe. Until 1922 the country was the center of the Ottoman Empire. The Anatolian peninsula, between the Black Sea and the music education. Towards the end of the 30s, he made several tours of America as a viola and viola d'amoreThe viola d'amore is a stringed musical instrument sharing some characteristics with the viol family. Like viols, it has a flat back and intricately carved head at the top of the peg box, but it is unfretted, and played much like a violin, being held hori soloist.
Despite protests from the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, his music was condemned as "degenerate" by the Nazis, and in 1940 he emigrated to the USA, where he taught music at Yale University and Harvard, and influenced younger, American composers such as Harold Shapero. He became an American citizen in 1946, but returned to Europe in 1953, living in Zürich and teaching at the University there. Towards the end of his life he began to conduct more. He was awarded the Balzan Prize in 1962.
Hindemith died in Frankfurt am Main from acute pancreatitis.
