Hindemith
Of the young Germans, Paul Hindemith is the most important. He was born in 1895 and according to Riemann, “is the freshest and most full-blooded talent among the younger German composers.” He seems to satisfy the two factions, for he is not too radical for the Old or too old-fashioned for the New, so as Lawrence Gilman says, “he carries water on both shoulders.... He seems to be able to write polytonally or atonally if he chooses, and also to write as the Academics might observe, like a gentleman. Richard Strauss is reported to have said to him: ‘Why do you write atonally when you have talent?’”
Today he is viola player in the Amar Quartet, but he has played in cafés, in the “movies,” dance halls, operetta theatres, and jazz bands! Although only thirty, he has many chamber music pieces to his credit and three dramatic works. His success has been tremendous.
A society to further an interest in the new music was founded by Hermann Scherchen and Eduard Erdmann. Scherchen created a sensation in Berlin just before the war by conducting Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and after having been a prisoner of war in Russia he came back with renewed purpose of bringing the new music to the public. He has published a few songs and a string quartet. His right-hand man Erdmann, besides being a pianist, has written a symphony, the first attempt of a youth without orchestral experience, which astonished the audience as a combination of Richard Strauss, Schoenberg, “to which is added a portion of genuine Erdmann flavor,” says Hugo Leichtentritt.
Another young German is Heinz Tiessen (1887), who is writing besides piano music in atonality, incidental music to a drama by Hauptman, and songs.
Philipp Jarnach (1892), a pupil of Busoni, Spanish by birth, educated in Paris, lives in Berlin and writes in the new style. Kurt Weill (1900) is also a gifted Busoni-ite.
Ernst Toch (1887), Viennese by birth, who lives in Germany has written string quartets, sonatas, concertos, and a symphony.
Heinrich Kaminsky is accepted in Germany as the composer who is trying to build a bridge from Bach to modern times. His Concerto Grosso for double orchestra commands great respect.
Hungary—Bartók and Kodály
Béla Bartók (1881) and his friend Soltan Kodály (1882) have done much to bring Hungarian folk music into the modern world, for they are steeped in folk tunes, which they use with skill and imagination. Bartók has written a short opera, two ballets, orchestral works, string quartets, violin sonata, and many piano compositions. His children’s pieces are delightful, based as they are on Hungarian folk tunes.