Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) Erno Dohnanyi (1877-1960)
PAUL HINDEMITH
Minimax
1. Armeemarsch 606 (Der Hohenfurstenberger)
2. Ouverture (zu “Wasserdichter und Vogelbauer'')
3. Ein Abend an der Donauquelle
4. Lowenzahnchen an Baches Rand
5. Die beiden lustigen Mistfinken
6. Alte Karbonaden
ERNO DOHNANYI
String Quartet No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 33
1. Allegro agitato e appassionato
2. Andante religioso con variazioni
3. Vivace giocoso
The Composers String Quartet:
Matthew Raimondi, First violin
Anahid Ajemian, Second violin
Jean Dane, Viola
Mark Shuman, Violoncello
Along with "Songs of Pomp, Circumstances, and Fire Prevention" for male quartet, and a string quartet transcription of the Flying Dutchman Overture (which "includes all the mistakes ever made by any orchestra"), Minimax is an example of Hindemith's incidental music unpublished during his lifetime. His exuberant sense of humor and love of parody eventually got him in trouble, his music banned -- but at 28, generally acknowledged leader of German avantgarde, he gave free rein to his romantic (and occasionally chaotic) imagination, and found outlet for what he called his "rabbitlike productivity" (he had already produced his first four string quartets, three one-act operas, three song cycles, numerous solo sonatas, etc.) in many small festivals and societies devoted to the production of new music. One of the most prestigious of these was Donaueschingen, family seat of the princes von Furstenberg, with a long history of promoting new music and musicians (10year-old Mozart played there in 1766, Liszt in 1843). By the early 1920s Hindemith was on the committee running the current prince's summer festival. Though none of his new music was (officially) performed there in 1923, the year he wrote Minimax, this
"Suite for Military Orchestra" was obviously meant for Donaueschingen, and for the Amar Quartet (he was violist, his younger brother cellist), nucleus of the festival's performing groups. It is packed with puns, parodies, and private jokes relating to the quartet, the Furstenberg family, and even the grounds of the Donaueschingen castle. Some we can trace, but many are lost on us "outsiders"; even so, the music comes across as marvelously funny, whether we are in on all its jokes or not.
The title itself refers to the recently married Prince Max and Wilhelmine -- besides being the nickname of the happy couple, it was also a familiar brand of fire extinguisher. The opening march, (re)named "Der Hohenfurstenberger" in obvious tribute to the patrons of the festival, is a parody of the well-known Hohenfriedberger March, fanfare of the Prussian cavalry (in it you will note that the fourth valve of the cello--i.e. Kaiserbass, contrabass tuba -- is stuck), and the second movement is another parody, a takeoff on von Suppe's Poet and Peasant Overture.
The next carries a misspelled dedication to the second violinist -- he writes "Kapser," poking fun at his colleague who had, in fact,
in the past three years, changed his name from Heinrich Kaspar to Walter Kaspar to Walter Caspar. It is a serenade called "An Evening at the Fountain of the Danube, Intermezzo for Two Distant Trumpets," and contains the peculiar, and rather startling, direction that the second violinist and violist are to play while standing on the toilet seats. There is, in fact, a "fountain" on the ground, where the Danube's two sources unite, surrounded by a round tower not far from the west side of the castle -- also not far, it seems, from a pair of outhouses: it was on these seats that some, apparently, were in the habit of standing, to yell through the open windows at anyone near the fountain. (The cadenza in the middle, with its familiar motives from Beethoven, Wagner, and others, may or may not give us an idea of the kind of dialogue these two "distant trumpets" were likely to carry on.)
The fourth movement is a set of waltzes, with a double meaning in its title -"Lowenzahnchen (Dandelions) on the Brook's Edge" refers to a person or family, no longer traceable, who played a prominent role in the festival -- but the key to the significance of specific composers and melodies parodied here has not been found.
The fifth piece is Hindemith's version of H.A.L. Kling's fantasy polka ''Two Little Finches," transformed (by changing "Finken" to "Mistfinken") into two jolly little grubby-faced children, i.e. the violinists Amar and "Kapser." Kling's original two piccolos are perfectly reproduced by the violins' harmonics -- a marvelous effect, wonderfully funny. And he ends, as he began, with a spoof (here a version that must be meant for marchers with three or five feet!) of a well-known German military march: "Alte Kamaraden" (Old Comrades) becomes, in Hindemith's irreverent hands, "Alte Karbonaden" (Leftover Grilled Ribs).
Brahms heard Dohnanyi's op. 1 in 1895 and immediately took a hand in the 18-year-old pianistcomposer's career by sponsoring his first performances in Vienna. It, as a brilliantly successful career -- "No living pianist can approach him," the critics said of his debuts (at 21) with the major orchestras in Berlin, London, and New York. The following year, no competitors in Vienna's concerto-writing contest could either. He taught piano in Berlin, then spent 30 years in Budapest as director of its Academy, conductor of its Philharmonic, and musical director of the State Radio. After losing both
sons in the war he left Hungary, lived briefly in Austria and Argentina, and made his last home in the United States, as Composer in Residence at Florida State University until his death in 1960.
Dohnanyi's works represent the last and, after Liszt, richest of Hungarian romanticism, well grounded in classic German tradition. Born only a few miles from Vienna, this "borderline Hungarian" had none of Bartok's interest in native folk music: his few pieces in that vein have a decidedly synthetic flavor, and the majority of his music is essentially a-national, always unashamedly conservative -- 19th century to the death, though he outlived Bartok by 15 years. At times Dohnanyi can be wildly witty, as in his popular Variations on a Nursery Tune (dedicated "to the enjoyment of lovers of humor and to the annoyance of others"), and we get just a hint of that in this quartet, dating from about 1930. But mostly it gives us, by turns, passion, heroism, tenderness, a good deal of sparkle and dash, and in compositional elements and technique nothing more exotic than whole-tone scales. No Bulgarese rhythms here -- on the contrary, there are some in the finale that bring to mind not Bela Bartok but Fred Astaire!
Jean Dane
The members of the Composers String Quartet have been performing together since 1975, though the Quartet originated ten years earlier, when Matthew Raimondi and Anahid Ajemian founded the Quartet in New York City. The CSQ's colorful and varied career is reflected in such activities as its premiere of Beethoven's op. 135 in Calcutta, India; a Mozart Festival in Adelaide, Australia; performing on Lincoln Center's New York Philharmonic Series under Pierre Boulez; inaugural concerts for the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; and introducing string quartet music to West Africans in Togo, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast. During its concert tour of East Germany, and at the special invitation of Professor Karl-Heinz Kohler, director of the Music Division of the German State Library in East Berlin, the CSQ was given private access to the manuscript of Mendelssohn's Quartet, op. 13.
In residence at Columbia University since 1975, and closely associated with Vassar through many performances in its beautiful Belle Skinner Hall, the CSQ has an extensive list of colleges and universities abroad, as well, where it has lectured and performed.
A prodigious number of recordings, including the prize-winning recording of Carter's Quartets nos. 1 and 2, has been made by the CSQ.
Each summer the CSQ is in residence at Northeast Harbor, Maine, where it is the nucleus of the Mt. Desert Festival of Music, now in its 19th season.
Recorded in Belle Skinner Hall, Vassar College
Recording Engineer: William Crawford
Editing Engineer: Fred Miller
Mastering: Bill Kipper, Masterdisk Corp.
Cover Art: The Composers String Quartet
(from left): Mark Shuman, Matthew Raimondi, Jean Dane, and Anahid Ajemian
Jacket Design: Sara Breslow
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-743129
