- Date: 1958
- Composer: Paul Hindemith
- Period: Modern (1910-1949)
Review
Paul Hindemith wrote the Pittsburgh Symphony, his sixth and final symphony, at the request of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's then-music director William Steinberg in 1958 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the city. To accomplish this musical celebration, Hindemith included two songs associated with the city in the fabric of his work, the Pennsylvania Dutch folk song Hab lumbedruwwel mit me lumbeschatz in the central portion of the central movement and the contemporary folk song "Pittsburgh Is a Great Old Town" by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger in the final portion of the closing movement. The opening movement, Molto energico, is a mono-thematic movement that has elements of both sonata form and three-part form in its structure. The outer sections are the exposition and recapitulation of sonata form, but the central section, Piu calmo, is more of a quiet interlude between the stormy outer section rather than a development section proper. The central movement is actually three movements in one: a slow march led by the oboe and then taken up by the strings in a series of variations, an Allegro assai central section that treats the Pennsylvania Dutch folk song as a symphonic scherzo, and a closing section that unites the slow march and the scherzo in one structure. The closing movement, Ostinato Allegro moderato, is -- like so many of Hindemith's symphonic finales -- a passacaglia. The movement and the work reaches a climax in the statement of Guthrie and Seeger's song as a cantus firmus in the horns that drives the work to its powerful conclusion. It is interesting to note that, for all his stated antipathy to atonal and serial music, Hindemith found a way to integrate a quotation from Webern's symphony in the finale of the Pittsburgh Symphony. ~ James Leonard, RoviAlbums with Complete Performances of the Work
| Pittsburgh Overture, for woodwinds & timpani | |
| Pittura Fresca, concerto for violin |
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