Uploaded January 2016 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
- Composer: Paul Hindemith (16 November 1895 -- 28 December 1963)
- Performers: Kocian Quartet:
Pavel Hůla (violin), Jan Odstrčil (violin), Zbyněk Paďourek (viola), Václav Bernášek (cello)
- Year of recording: 1995
String Quartet No. 2 in F minor, Op. 10, written in 1918.
00:00 - I. Sehr lebhaft, straff im Rhythmus
05:46 - II. Thema mit Variationen. Gemächlich
15:43 - III. Finale. Sehr lebhaft
Paul Hindemith wrote his three-movement String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, between January and April 1918 while he was a soldier in the field, yet it is free of those horrors of war which Hindemith experienced and also described in a war diary; by his own testimony he survived a grenade attack only "by a miracle". With the composition of this work Hindemith seems to have released himself physically and to have escaped into another world which gave him the power to withstand the terrible experiences of the war. The work is a first synthesis of his early compositions. It seems to be as much influenced by Brahms or Reger, as by the colouristic stimulus and impetus of Slavic music.
- Hindemith constructs the first movement as a concise sonata movement with thematic material which is pithy and which never gets out of control or is too insistent. In the development section he includes, unusually enough, a fugato, which is to be performed "completely listlessly, numb" and which maintains the identity of the fugal subject which is derived from the main theme, not just breaking it up or fragmenting it.
- The six variations of the middle movement, on an original theme, which returns unaltered at the end, stand out not only through the superior intervention of the art of thematic transformation, but also perhaps suggest the fourth variation, which has the character of a slow march and which should be played "like music from afar", and in the third variation which has parodies of expressive "romantic" playing with rubato.
- The Finale, on the other hand, is a technically challenging, extremely demanding, concertante virtuoso movement for all four instruments, with an elegantly catchy subsidiary theme, that skilful chamber music opens up with supporting elements, completes and extends. It ends with a rousing coda.
As the distinguished music critic Alfred Einstein observed in the 1920s, this music operates with "an absolutely overpowering joy in playing and hearing music." It stands as another good example that Hindemith's string quartets cycle should be just as famous as Bartók's and Shostakovich's.
- Composer: Paul Hindemith (16 November 1895 -- 28 December 1963)
- Performers: Kocian Quartet:
Pavel Hůla (violin), Jan Odstrčil (violin), Zbyněk Paďourek (viola), Václav Bernášek (cello)
- Year of recording: 1995
String Quartet No. 2 in F minor, Op. 10, written in 1918.
00:00 - I. Sehr lebhaft, straff im Rhythmus
05:46 - II. Thema mit Variationen. Gemächlich
15:43 - III. Finale. Sehr lebhaft
Paul Hindemith wrote his three-movement String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, between January and April 1918 while he was a soldier in the field, yet it is free of those horrors of war which Hindemith experienced and also described in a war diary; by his own testimony he survived a grenade attack only "by a miracle". With the composition of this work Hindemith seems to have released himself physically and to have escaped into another world which gave him the power to withstand the terrible experiences of the war. The work is a first synthesis of his early compositions. It seems to be as much influenced by Brahms or Reger, as by the colouristic stimulus and impetus of Slavic music.
- Hindemith constructs the first movement as a concise sonata movement with thematic material which is pithy and which never gets out of control or is too insistent. In the development section he includes, unusually enough, a fugato, which is to be performed "completely listlessly, numb" and which maintains the identity of the fugal subject which is derived from the main theme, not just breaking it up or fragmenting it.
- The six variations of the middle movement, on an original theme, which returns unaltered at the end, stand out not only through the superior intervention of the art of thematic transformation, but also perhaps suggest the fourth variation, which has the character of a slow march and which should be played "like music from afar", and in the third variation which has parodies of expressive "romantic" playing with rubato.
- The Finale, on the other hand, is a technically challenging, extremely demanding, concertante virtuoso movement for all four instruments, with an elegantly catchy subsidiary theme, that skilful chamber music opens up with supporting elements, completes and extends. It ends with a rousing coda.
As the distinguished music critic Alfred Einstein observed in the 1920s, this music operates with "an absolutely overpowering joy in playing and hearing music." It stands as another good example that Hindemith's string quartets cycle should be just as famous as Bartók's and Shostakovich's.
