Das Klavierwerk, Vol. 4 – Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith's final work for solo piano, 1942's Ludus Tonalis (Studies in Counterpoint, Tonal Organisation and Piano Playing), was composed two years after the German composer's wartime exile in America, and was apparently, at least in part, intended as a response to the jingoistic spirit with which Dimitri Shostakovich's Leningrad symphony had been received upon its American premiere. Though Hindemith was far from a Nazi supporter, having been branded a "cultural Bolshevik" by Hitler's government, he was stung by the way in which the war had made all German composers, regardless of their sympathies, immediately suspect. The intentionally dry subtitle of the work invokes a didactic spirit, as if Hindemith is exhibiting for the world what he, a German composer, can show the American and Russian composers who were currently overshadowing him thanks to geo-political forces far removed from the concerns of art. This 1993 recording by Siegfried Mauser, the final volume in a complete set of Hindemith's works for solo piano, finds the pianist playing in a warm, loose style that softens the sense of stiff formal consistency at the heart of this mostly theoretical work. Mauser has taken the time to tease out the melodies in these three-part fugues, imbuing them with something close to the playful spirit of Aldo Ciccolini's recordings of Erik Satie's whimsical piano works. Ludus Tonalis remains a challenging listen, but at least in this recording, not a difficult one. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide