Post-postmodern Neoclassical Polystylistic Late Romantic Serial Tintinnabulist

And Speaking of Hindemith...

Close reading of the previous entry on Paul Hindemith reveals that I neglected to appropriately label or categorize Herr Hindemith as a Neoclassicist or Modernist or ante-post-après-Modernist, or some other academic claptrap, thereby sucking the life out of his music and relegating him to a lower status amongst the Pantheon of great German Welt-shaking composers blah blah blah. My sarcasm is palpable. 

Here’s the thing, I dislike the Romantic and Classical labels, and doubly so the fractured  twentieth century tags. Just for fun, let’s try to name as many as we can. Ready, go:

Modernism, futurism, impressionism, post-romanticism, neoclassicism, experimentalism, expressionism, minimalism, serialism, polystylism, historicism, neoromanticism, post-minimalism...

Ow. My brain hurts.

These labels have merit to some extent, and it is helpful to be able to describe to students why this sounds like this and not like that. However, the tendency of the academics is to go way too far, and try to generalize individual practice for large-scale trends, and a little bit of Plato goes a long way. 

I’ve always seen composers as having percentages of classicism and romanticism, and Hindemith is a great example. His love of what could be termed ‘academic’ styles of composition (i.e. counterpoint, fugues, his constant use of classical forms), alternates with the romantic characters in his dramatic works (Johannes Kepler, Matthias Grünewald) and his quiet allegiance to German folk song and popular song. 

And just adding a bowtie makes him less scary already.

I find this attitude sometimes brings a fresh face to composers and works that I have grown sick of. For instance, I am often pleasantly surprised by the occasional moments of Romanticism in Haydn’s works, or Mozart’s. Alternatively there are very traditional, Classical elements in Liszt, Wagner, and Mahler (think of Mahler’s middle movements [I’ve often enjoyed the interior movements of Mahler’s Symphonies; after all, many of them were premiered piecemeal]). Felix Mendelssohn is another interesting Classical/Romantic composer. I wish we would talk more about Classical or Romantic trends in the composers we love, rather than simply paint them as one or the other. 

N.B. All photos are from the invaluable headquarters of Paul Hindemith on the interwebs: www.hindemith.info. All opinions expressed in this weblog are solely that of the writer, and not of any administrative body or entity. Any copyrighted works exhibited here are included for the purpose of criticism, comment, scholarship, and research. All other rights reserved by the author.