Viola Sonata (Hindemith)
Encyclopedia
The Viola
Sonata
is the fourth instrumental sonata in Paul Hindemith
's Opus
11. The complete title in German , as given by Hindemith, is Sonate für Bratsche und Klavier. Composed in 1919, this sonata and the following Op. 11 No. 5 (for solo viola) mark Hindemith's decision to abandon playing the violin
in favor of its larger cousin.
A typical performance lasts between 15 and 18 minutes.
, which are played without a break:
At about three minutes in length, this is the shortest of the movements, and also the freest in form and harmonic exploration, passing through roughly ten keys in the space of 41 measures. The viola introduces the main theme of the sonata in the key of F, over hushed piano accompaniment; the piano soon picks up this melody and the two instruments begin to develop a rhythmic figure that serves as a sort of coda
to the theme. The piano then falls back to a subsidiary role with shimmering thirty-second note
accompaniment, while the theme builds in the viola to a powerful, C-major cadenza
. The music picks up again quietly in E minor on the piano, as the viola plays a decorative rhythmic figure. The theme returns quickly and is passed between the instruments in a show of virtuosity for the soloist. After a final, powerful statement, the music comes to rest in D; the piano attempts to stray to the minor mode with G-minor chords and F-naturals, but the viola insists on rising to an F-sharp. Alone now, the viola rises by whole steps to A-sharp, which is sustained enharmonically
to G-flat as the beginning of the next movement.
The theme of the second movement is, as the marking suggests, a simple, folkish tune introduced in G-flat major by the viola. The theme is notable for bearing a time signature
of both 2/4 and 3/4; Hindemith finds this a convenient solution for notating phrases of different lengths without resorting to abolishing bar lines or notating time signature changes nearly every bar. Variation III and the third movement also make extensive use of this technique.
The variations proceed as follows:
Variation I is in 6/8 time, with the melody, now in E-Flat minor reduced to notes of equal length, played in a contrapuntal
overlap by the piano and viola.
Variation II returns to 2/4, and is a spry, rhythmic rendition of the theme in the viola over an accompaniment of staccato
thirds and sixths.
Variation III is lyrical and sweeping, in the key of E-Flat. Long lines in the viola contrast a moto perpetuo accompaniment of sixteenth and thirty-second notes in the piano.
Variation IV reaches a climax, with an ostinato
accompaniment providing the grounding for the off-kilter rhythmic setting of the theme. Hindemith introduces a non-traditional key signature (G-sharp and F-Sharp only) that sets the music in a whole-tone mode; while the viola does occasionally play runs and phrases with half-steps, the piano persists in the figure G#-F#-E-D, over which the viola builds towards a climax in C-sharp minor, which is the first note of the third movement.
This movement is the apotheosis of Hindemith's mastery of classical forms. It functions both as an unusual set of variations, as its name suggests, and as a full-fledged Sonata-Allegro
movement. As indicated by the continuation of variations numbers from the previous movement, the theme being varied is the one from that movement, which functions as the second theme in Sonata-Allegro terminology. The first theme, introduced immediately at the beginning of the movement, is the very distinctive figure of a turn followed by an ascending scale. This figure is played and elaborated on by the soloist, with the pianist providing tonicizing changes of harmony at each instance of the turn figure. The viola then transforms this figure into the beginning of a more lyrical theme, which brings the music down in tempo and dynamic level. The main theme returns momentarily, only to falter and give way to a new quiet theme which is a continuance of the rhythmic developments made by the first softer section. This theme, quick downward steps followed by a gentle Mannheim skyrocket and another set of descending steps, may easily be mistaken for a second theme, when in fact it is an extension and transformation of the movement's opening gesture.
The music comes completely to rest before the viola re-introduces the second movement theme in Variation 5. After a simple statement of the theme, the piano and viola engage in call-and-response on a theme derived from the rhythm of the second movement's first variation. After some varied tonal wanderings, there is a strong buildup of dominant-preparation for A-flat major, in which key the piano restates the folk song theme while the viola plays the rhythmic coda-variant as a sort of counter-subject, creating a brilliant and beautiful synthesis. This leads into a headlong acceleration, with running eighth notes in the piano set against off-beat tied notes in the viola. The soloist recaps the second movement theme in its original form, albeit at a breakneck speed, and this leads back into the opening theme of the movement, now in E major. This security quickly dies away in harmonic ambiguity, leaving two beats of non-tonic silence in which to begin the next variation.
The fugal treatment of the theme in Variation VI fastidiously avoids functional tonal harmony that the ear can follow. The contour of the melody is made to outline a diminished triad rather than the accustomed major triad, and the accompaniment consists of clunking, harmonically unrelated dominant seventh chords missing their fifth degrees, very much lending the music to the composer's direction of 'bizarre and clumsy'. By the pianist's entrance, the viola has taken the coda figure, much in the same form as in previous sections, and transformed it into the fugue's counter-subject. The texture remains thin throughout, but the music increases in volume as the pianist adds octaves to both hands and the violist contributes two- and three-note pizzicati, giving strong but unexpected tonicization for E-Flat minor, in which key occurs the sonata's recapitulation. This section is a transposed and compressed repetition of the opening, which skips the development of the first theme into the impostor second theme, jumping straight into the latter. This section is also repeated almost note-for-note. The viola falls silent when the piano re-introduces the second-movement theme, entering in what was previously the accompaniment's role of playing the coda-figure. Where before the instruments traded this figure back and forth, now the viola retains it exclusively as the piano builds to an identical climax and plays the second movement theme, accompanied as before by the coda-figure in the viola. The instruments again accelerate into a statement of the second-movement theme in the viola, and into a seemingly-familiar arrival at the third-movement theme. Now, however, the piano abandons solid tonic triads in favor of a more leading dominant seventh chord, and both instruments rush upward to a climax followed by a downward harmonic minor scale in unison, which transforms into the ostinato from the end of the second movement, seemingly leading to a similar, crashing climax.
After the pounding whole-tone ostinato of the previous measures, the hushed repetition of the second movement theme in E-Flat Minor is supremely unexpected. The piano plays off-beat chords, then a counter-melody whose harmonies move in quick circle-of-fifths and enharmonic progression. After a few small experiments with rhythmic displacement of the theme, the viola begins a figure of ascending triplets while the piano recapitulates exactly (albeit in a different key and with textural changes) the climax of the Theme section of Movement II. At the marking 'Wild', the piano takes up the triplet figure and the viola plays off-beat eight notes, which seem to gradually transform into dotted eighths followed by a sixteenth, then into a single eight followed by two sixteenths, while the piano now comes into a broad statement of the second movement theme in E-Flat Minor. The final bars make use of this theme in a variety of rhythms, eventually distilling it down to one, powerful phrase. The piano emphasizes E-Flat Major but the flat sixth of the theme pulls towards minor, and its final statement, in unison between the viola and triple double octaves in the piano, is modally ambiguous, though unquestionably triumphant.
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
Sonata
Sonata
Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
is the fourth instrumental sonata in Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
's Opus
Opus number
An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...
11. The complete title in German , as given by Hindemith, is Sonate für Bratsche und Klavier. Composed in 1919, this sonata and the following Op. 11 No. 5 (for solo viola) mark Hindemith's decision to abandon playing the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
in favor of its larger cousin.
A typical performance lasts between 15 and 18 minutes.
Movements
The sonata is in three movementsMovement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
, which are played without a break:
- FantasieFantasia (music)The fantasia is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. Because of this, it seldom approximates the textbook rules of any strict musical form ....
- Thema mit Variationen
- Finale (mit Variationen)
Fantasie
Ruhig - Sehr Breit - Im Zeitmaß - BreitAt about three minutes in length, this is the shortest of the movements, and also the freest in form and harmonic exploration, passing through roughly ten keys in the space of 41 measures. The viola introduces the main theme of the sonata in the key of F, over hushed piano accompaniment; the piano soon picks up this melody and the two instruments begin to develop a rhythmic figure that serves as a sort of coda
Coda
Coda can denote any concluding event, summation, or section.Coda may also refer to:-Acronyms:* Calgary Olympic Development Association, the former name of the Canadian Winter Sport Institute, a non profit organization...
to the theme. The piano then falls back to a subsidiary role with shimmering thirty-second note
Thirty-second note
In music, a thirty-second note or demisemiquaver is a note played for 1/32 of the duration of a whole note...
accompaniment, while the theme builds in the viola to a powerful, C-major cadenza
Cadenza
In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display....
. The music picks up again quietly in E minor on the piano, as the viola plays a decorative rhythmic figure. The theme returns quickly and is passed between the instruments in a show of virtuosity for the soloist. After a final, powerful statement, the music comes to rest in D; the piano attempts to stray to the minor mode with G-minor chords and F-naturals, but the viola insists on rising to an F-sharp. Alone now, the viola rises by whole steps to A-sharp, which is sustained enharmonically
Enharmonic
In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note , interval , or key signature which is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature, but "spelled", or named, differently...
to G-flat as the beginning of the next movement.
Thema mit Variationen
Ruhig end einfach, wie ein Volkslied- Var. I Dasselbe Zeitmaß
- Var. II ein wenig kapriziös
- Var. III Lebhafter und sehr fließend
- Var. IV noch lebhafter
The theme of the second movement is, as the marking suggests, a simple, folkish tune introduced in G-flat major by the viola. The theme is notable for bearing a time signature
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
of both 2/4 and 3/4; Hindemith finds this a convenient solution for notating phrases of different lengths without resorting to abolishing bar lines or notating time signature changes nearly every bar. Variation III and the third movement also make extensive use of this technique.
The variations proceed as follows:
Variation I is in 6/8 time, with the melody, now in E-Flat minor reduced to notes of equal length, played in a contrapuntal
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
overlap by the piano and viola.
Variation II returns to 2/4, and is a spry, rhythmic rendition of the theme in the viola over an accompaniment of staccato
Staccato
Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation it signifies a note of shortened duration and separated from the note that may follow by silence...
thirds and sixths.
Variation III is lyrical and sweeping, in the key of E-Flat. Long lines in the viola contrast a moto perpetuo accompaniment of sixteenth and thirty-second notes in the piano.
Variation IV reaches a climax, with an ostinato
Ostinato
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...
accompaniment providing the grounding for the off-kilter rhythmic setting of the theme. Hindemith introduces a non-traditional key signature (G-sharp and F-Sharp only) that sets the music in a whole-tone mode; while the viola does occasionally play runs and phrases with half-steps, the piano persists in the figure G#-F#-E-D, over which the viola builds towards a climax in C-sharp minor, which is the first note of the third movement.
Finale (mit Variationen)
- Sehr lebhaft - Breit - Leicht fließend
- Var. V Ruhig fließend
- Sehr lebhaft
- Var. VI Fugato, mit bizarrer Plumpheit vorzutragen
- Im Hauptzeitmaß - Wie vorhin leicht fließend - Ruhig fließend
- Var. VII Coda
- Wild - Noch mehr treiben - Breiter
This movement is the apotheosis of Hindemith's mastery of classical forms. It functions both as an unusual set of variations, as its name suggests, and as a full-fledged Sonata-Allegro
Sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
movement. As indicated by the continuation of variations numbers from the previous movement, the theme being varied is the one from that movement, which functions as the second theme in Sonata-Allegro terminology. The first theme, introduced immediately at the beginning of the movement, is the very distinctive figure of a turn followed by an ascending scale. This figure is played and elaborated on by the soloist, with the pianist providing tonicizing changes of harmony at each instance of the turn figure. The viola then transforms this figure into the beginning of a more lyrical theme, which brings the music down in tempo and dynamic level. The main theme returns momentarily, only to falter and give way to a new quiet theme which is a continuance of the rhythmic developments made by the first softer section. This theme, quick downward steps followed by a gentle Mannheim skyrocket and another set of descending steps, may easily be mistaken for a second theme, when in fact it is an extension and transformation of the movement's opening gesture.
The music comes completely to rest before the viola re-introduces the second movement theme in Variation 5. After a simple statement of the theme, the piano and viola engage in call-and-response on a theme derived from the rhythm of the second movement's first variation. After some varied tonal wanderings, there is a strong buildup of dominant-preparation for A-flat major, in which key the piano restates the folk song theme while the viola plays the rhythmic coda-variant as a sort of counter-subject, creating a brilliant and beautiful synthesis. This leads into a headlong acceleration, with running eighth notes in the piano set against off-beat tied notes in the viola. The soloist recaps the second movement theme in its original form, albeit at a breakneck speed, and this leads back into the opening theme of the movement, now in E major. This security quickly dies away in harmonic ambiguity, leaving two beats of non-tonic silence in which to begin the next variation.
The fugal treatment of the theme in Variation VI fastidiously avoids functional tonal harmony that the ear can follow. The contour of the melody is made to outline a diminished triad rather than the accustomed major triad, and the accompaniment consists of clunking, harmonically unrelated dominant seventh chords missing their fifth degrees, very much lending the music to the composer's direction of 'bizarre and clumsy'. By the pianist's entrance, the viola has taken the coda figure, much in the same form as in previous sections, and transformed it into the fugue's counter-subject. The texture remains thin throughout, but the music increases in volume as the pianist adds octaves to both hands and the violist contributes two- and three-note pizzicati, giving strong but unexpected tonicization for E-Flat minor, in which key occurs the sonata's recapitulation. This section is a transposed and compressed repetition of the opening, which skips the development of the first theme into the impostor second theme, jumping straight into the latter. This section is also repeated almost note-for-note. The viola falls silent when the piano re-introduces the second-movement theme, entering in what was previously the accompaniment's role of playing the coda-figure. Where before the instruments traded this figure back and forth, now the viola retains it exclusively as the piano builds to an identical climax and plays the second movement theme, accompanied as before by the coda-figure in the viola. The instruments again accelerate into a statement of the second-movement theme in the viola, and into a seemingly-familiar arrival at the third-movement theme. Now, however, the piano abandons solid tonic triads in favor of a more leading dominant seventh chord, and both instruments rush upward to a climax followed by a downward harmonic minor scale in unison, which transforms into the ostinato from the end of the second movement, seemingly leading to a similar, crashing climax.
After the pounding whole-tone ostinato of the previous measures, the hushed repetition of the second movement theme in E-Flat Minor is supremely unexpected. The piano plays off-beat chords, then a counter-melody whose harmonies move in quick circle-of-fifths and enharmonic progression. After a few small experiments with rhythmic displacement of the theme, the viola begins a figure of ascending triplets while the piano recapitulates exactly (albeit in a different key and with textural changes) the climax of the Theme section of Movement II. At the marking 'Wild', the piano takes up the triplet figure and the viola plays off-beat eight notes, which seem to gradually transform into dotted eighths followed by a sixteenth, then into a single eight followed by two sixteenths, while the piano now comes into a broad statement of the second movement theme in E-Flat Minor. The final bars make use of this theme in a variety of rhythms, eventually distilling it down to one, powerful phrase. The piano emphasizes E-Flat Major but the flat sixth of the theme pulls towards minor, and its final statement, in unison between the viola and triple double octaves in the piano, is modally ambiguous, though unquestionably triumphant.