There are multiple ways of looking for a narrative to inspire the visualization of a classical composition, such as a program narrative, a certain mood, or the structure of the piece. For this research, I created a case-study around a performance with visualisations of Paul Hindemith's Sonate für Harfe. Important to keep in mind with this work for harp, is that it is not program music (as the titles or program notes do not suggest visual images), but absolute music. It is key to look for a narrative in various parts. This chapter goes into the motivation and process of Hindemith himself while writing the work, including the correspondence he had with the harpist to whom he eventually dedicated the work. The historical and narrative context of the piece will be addressed, next to background information on the poem on which the third movement of the sonata is based, and a concise technical and narrative analysis will be done. The chapter closes with comments on the performance practice of the piece.
Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) was (among other things) a German composer. He wrote the Sonate für Harfe (later mentioned as sonata or harp sonata) in 1939. The sonata consists of three movements I. Mäβig Schnell, II. Lebhaft and III. Lied – Sehr Langsam. The third movement is based upon/inspired by the poem Lied by Ludwig Hölty.
The harp sonata was composed in October 1939 in Bluche, Switzerland, just after the start of World War II, and can be considered neoclassical (Jackson Sliva, 2017). Hindemith resided in Switzerland between 1938 and 1940. During this time, he also toured extensively in America. When he returned to Switzerland in 1939, where he dedicated a year to composing. Here he wrote the harp sonata among other things. Harpist Barbara Poeschl-Edrich mentions in her article Hindemith’s Sonate für Harfe: Comments and Commentary that it is possible to hear this turbulent time in his work in a direct way (Poeschl-Edrich, 2008).
Hindemith wrote most of his twenty-six sonatas for various instruments while working on another large-scale work. German musicologist Giselher Schubert mentioned in the program notes of Paul Hindemith's Complete Sonatas vol.4, as performed by Ensemble Villa Musica, that “Hindemith implicated that a number of these sonatas, which were often composed in a very short period, were, in fact, technical exercises to assist him with greater projects, or were a means of distracting his thoughts while he was involved with larger-scale work” (Poeschl-Edrich, 2005). Hindemith himself wrote, also regarding the harp sonata, that: “They also serve as a technical exercise for the great coup which I hope to bring off next spring: Die Harmonie der Welt (that or something like it will be the Kepler title)” (Skelton, 1975).
During the writing process of his harp sonata, Hindemith worked closely together with Italian harpist Clelia Gatti Aldrovandi[26]. It is unclear how the two met[27], but there has been a well-documented partnership, through surviving letters, and brief corrections she made on Hindemith’s autographs. “[The sonata] was composed at Aldrovandi’s request, pursued with her considerable powers of persuasion during a train journey where she admitted to using to the full of knowledge that the composer could not, for some hours, escape her entreaties” (Marson, 1989 as cited in Plank, 2016a). Gatti Aldrovandi also tells this story to her students, but it could be that she glorified the creation of the harp sonata, due to her diva-like character. It could also have been Gatti Aldrovandi’s husband, musicologist Guido M. Gatti, who may have motivated Hindemith to write a solo piece for harp (Poeschl-Edrich, 2005). On the other hand, there is a letter that suggests that the sonata was written before Hindemith met Gatti Aldrovandi[28]. Clelia Gatti Aldrovandi did assist Hindemith in the technical aspects of writing for harp, which can be seen in a comparison of an earlier autograph, located in the Hindemith-Institut Frankfurt/Main, and the final published version of 1940 by Schott.
Hindemith described in a letter to his publisher that it “should remedy a long felt need”, and he also mentioned that it would probably be better to wait for better times to publish the harp sonata, as the Second World War started two months before this letter (Plank, 2021). It is also possible that the content of the poem Lied inspired Hindemith to write the piece, as the poem is about the death of a harpist whose wish is to have his harp placed behind the altar next to the funeral wreaths of young maidens (Poeschl-Edrich, 2005).
Harpist Barbara Poeschl-Edrich wrote in her dissertation: “Hindemith has clearly explained that the first movement of the sonata is an evocation of a plaza in front of a cathedral, within which an organist is practicing. The second movement is an evocation of children playing in the same plaza” (Poeschl-Edrich, 2005). This is according to harpist and harp maker Carl Swanson as mentioned in a letter to Poeschl-Edrich. I contacted her about this quote, as there’s no indication of Hindemith himself mentioning these ideas (at least in written sources). Poeschl-Eldrich mentioned in her response that she cannot give proof that Hindemith made these comments: “It can be assumed that Hindemith expressed these ideas in conversations or even classes. I have no better idea than that, unfortunately.”(B. Poeschl-Edirch, personal communication, April 14, 2023). Elizabeth Plank mentions in more recent research that harpist Pierre Jamet could have told Carl Swanson this story (Plank, 2016b). But Carl Swanson is not the only harpist with these thoughts (and different versions of the same narrative ideas are circulating):
- Harpist and composer Marcel Grandjany: “The first movement reminded him [Grandjany] of ‘a cathedral, majestic and beautiful. In the end, the shadows grow longer and longer, the sun descending at the end of an afternoon.’ His image of the second movement was of ‘children playing around the churchyard’” (Poeschl-Edrich, 2005).“The influential harpist-composer Marcel Grandjany described the first movement as evoking the grand chords of an organist practicing in a great cathedral, and the second movement as depicting children playing in the square outside the cathedral with strains of the organ occasionally heard in the background.” (Potter Thorburn, 2017)
- Harpist Edward Witsenburg: “In the first movement a cathedral rises to the imagination, majestic and beautiful. Finally, with the setting of the sun, the shadows grow longer, softening the contours. The second movement depicts children playing in the churchyard. The third movement, in which lies the key to the interpretation of the sonata, carries as a motto a poem by Ludwig Hölty.” A quote from Edward Witsenburg’s program notes, as cited in (Poeschl-Edrich, 2005). “According to Edward Witsenburg, Marcel Grandjany passed on the following metaphor to his students. The first movement is an evocation of the plaza in front of a cathedral. With the setting of the sun, the shadows grow longer, softening the contours. The second movement depicts children playing in the churchyard. Finally, the third movement, in which lies the key to the interpretation of the sonata, is an instrumental setting of a poem by the German Romantic poet Ludwig Hölty (1748-1776). The poet describes the death of a harpist whose last wish is to have his harp placed behind the cathedral altar. Indeed, the performer may want to pencil in the words of the poem to see how Hindemith has set it word for note.” (Poeschl-Edrich, 2008)
- Harpist Elizabeth Plank: “And the last movement is about death and commemoration of the dead. That means that parts of the poem are set to music in the other movements as well” (Plank, 2016b) And a second quote “Whether Hindemith is reflecting the outbreak of the Second World War with the evocations of the texts remains to be seen, but is at least hinted at as an interpretive approach” (Plank, 2016a)
The third movement of the sonata is inspired by the poem Lied by Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty, an early Sturm und Drang poet. He was very aware of death as a young boy, as his mother died when he was seven, and several of his siblings died young when Hölty was still a child. Hölty and his family lived next to the parish graveyard, he got smallpox at an early age (which disfigured his face), and he died at the age of twenty-seven due to tuberculosis. “Hölty’s awareness of death is evident in his work and many of his poems reflect the contemplation of death. Despite his numerous losses and an illness that plagued him for the majority of his adult life, many of his poems show an optimistic affirmation in regard to death” (Jackson Sliva, 2017). During the time Hölty wrote Lied, “grave poems” were in fashion: poems characterized by their somber reflections on mortality.
Hindemith wrote various other instrumental pieces with death-related contexts around the same time he wrote his harp sonata: Sonata for Trumpet (written November 1939), from which the third movement is called Trauermusik, and Hindemith’s Trauermusik for viola and string orchestra which he wrote in 1936. (Poeschl-Edrich, 2005). It is very likely, that the outbreak of World War II had influenced Hindemith’s work and choice of poetry (Plank, 2016b). The sonata “reflects the catastrophic political developments of those times in a direct way” (Poeschl-Edrich, 2005).
The poem can be directly placed onto the music: “The Sonate für Harfe of 1939 with its final movement ‘Lied. Sehr langsam’ on a poem by Ludwig Heinrich Christoph Hölty which can be imagined sung-along discreetly” (Salmen, 1969). The words of the poem correlate easily with the structure and the rhythm of the piece. It follows the model of the “Alcian Odenstrophe: the words of the poem can be syllabically subordinated to the upper voice of the third movement” (Plank, 2016a). In that sense, the given tempo seems “very high, especially with the marking ‘Sehr Langsam’ (very slow)” (Plank, 2021).
Paul Hindemith based his whole harp sonata on the “Urmotiv” of an ascending fourth, following a descending major second[29]. All three movements start with this (varied) motiv. It can be found throughout the whole piece, for example at the end of the third movement or bar 76 in the second movement.
The tonal centers of the different movements are also based on the Urmotiv, but in retrograde: starting with an ascending major second, followed by a descending fourth. The Urmotiv is so to speak part of the macro- and microstructure of the piece. Other elements that Hindemith uses a lot in his piece are minor and major seconds: “Frequently appearing as a descending second, a so-called Seufzermotiv” (Poeschl-Edrich, 2005), or the technique of fourth stackings: “Quartenschichtungen”.
Next to the technical analysis of the piece, this research also looked at the narrative analysis done by Abigail Lee Jackson Sliva (Doctor of Musical Arts). For this analysis, she looked at Byron Almén’s (writer of A Theory of Musical Narrative) use of the three levels of literary analysis by semiotician James Jacob Liszka. In summary, she identifies the three movements of the sonata as different archetypes, with different connections and hierarchies between different musical units. The changing hierarchy between these musical units explains the narrative structure of the piece: “The level in which the interaction of the expressive units is understood in relation to the playing out of tension between an order imposing hierarchy and a transgression hierarchy”. (Jackson Sliva, 2017). The way that these musical units then interact with each other, says something about the narrative archetype of the movement: “The first and second movements are presented as Type 3 sonata forms with romance archetypes. The third movement is in strophic form and can be viewed as an epilogue that meditates on the attached poem and motives of the previous two movements.” This will result in the following archetypes in the different movements (the following list is a summary by the author of this research):
- I: Romance: Order defeats transgressor, listener empathizes with order (Victory of preferred order over transgressor)
- II: Romance: Order defeats transgressor, listener empathizes with order (Victory of preferred order over transgressor)
- III: Comedy: Transgressor defeats order, listener empathizes with transgressor
There have been numerous debates about the performance practice of certain elements in the piece. For example, if the harmonics in the piece should be played as written or an octave down. I choose, because of a conversation with my teacher Sylvain Blassel, to play the harmonics an octave lower than written, as, looking at bar 22-28 in the third movement. This makes more sense in the context of the musical lines and melody. Another example is the ending of the second movement (bar 166-171), where the question was raised if this should be played forte or pianissimo. Paul Hindemith mentioned in a note in a letter from Clelia Gatti Aldrovandi to Gertrud Hindemith (Hindemith’s wife): “I no longer know what the original was like, but I believe that I chose the now familiar form (i.e. pp remains) for the final printing. So please refrain from using her private ff” (Plank, 2016a).
Hindemith himself has mentioned the importance of a thorough analysis of a work of music before performing, and the importance of taking the ideas expressed by the composer on paper seriously (Hindemith, 1937 as cited in Robertson, 2013). Adding on top of these ideas and in terms of interpretation, there is a quote that said: “Hindemith himself said that what he wrote on the paper varied greatly from what he would actually love to hear”, followed by a story of a soloist performing his viola sonata in a very romantic way, and then being afraid of Hindemith’s opinion. Hindemith however said to the performer (with tears in his eyes): “I’ve never heard anybody actually make a piece of music out of something of mine” (Bough, 2003 as cited in Robertson, 2013). Harpist and Professor Emeritus of Music at California State University in Hayward Wenonah Milton Govea mentioned the danger of playing the last movement of the harp sonata too romantic: “There is something about the thought of a quiet harp that affects the most practical and insensitive of harpists and turns them into quivering jelly. This, then, can make the final movement a saccharine dessert rather than a well-developed, well-defined recapitulation of the whole sonata” (Govea, 2008). My teacher Sylvain Blassel mentioned that the most important thing about playing the Hindemith sonata is “to have an intelligent perception of the construction of the sonata, but that’s the same for all the works you have to play, isn’t it?”, (S. Blassel, personal communication, January 23, 2024).