Hindemith: Violin Sonatas

Featuring

Tanja Becker-Bender
Péter Nagy
Paul Hindemith

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Composition History

The Violin Sonata in E flat major Op 11 No 1 was part of a group of six stringed-instrument sonatas Hindemith started in 1918 while serving in the German army on the Western Front.

Composer Biography

Paul Hindemith, the composer, claimed he could play every instrument of the orchestra and became leader of the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra at age nineteen.

Performer Biography

Péter Nagy, the pianist, won first prize in the 1979 Hungarian Radio Competition and was admitted to the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest at age eight.

Instruments

Tanja Becker-Bender performs on a Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù violin, which is on loan through the German Music Foundation from a private owner.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Hindemith grouped many works under a single opus number, like the six stringed-instrument sonatas of his opus 11, to move away from Romantic ideas that each composition was a completely separate work of art.

Historical Context

Hindemith fell out of favor with the Nazi regime, leading to an unofficial ban on his music, a campaign of vilification in the Fascist press, and his works being featured in the 1938 'Degenerate Music' Exhibition.

Performer Biography

Tanja Becker-Bender, the violinist on this album, was appointed one of Germany's youngest-ever professors in Saarbrücken in 2006, following Maxim Vengerov.