PAUL HINDEMITH
The oldest of three brothers, Paul Hindemith began to take music lessons in 1904, to his father's request. He studies in Frankfurt's Hoch Conservatory between 1907 and 1917, working afterwards, principally, as violin and clarinet player. After World War I he accessed the post of Composition Teacher in Berlin's Hochschule für Musik; as many of his contemporaries, he began to have trouble with the Nazi Party at the beginning of the thirties, ending fleeing to the United States in 1940. American citizen since 1946, Hindemith dedicates a big part of the rest of his career to teaching and orchestral conducting, although he never left to compose. A prolific author, with multitude of symphonic and chamber works, his music was changing from his first expressionist times to the contrapuntistic neoclassicism of his more mature period, being, probably, the more technical and theorical of all german composers of this century.
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