This is #4 of the new reissue series from the UK. I find I had this Hindemith Symphony on an original Everest LP but didn’t listen to it frequently. It was probably because this is extremely sombre and serious music – quite unlike my favorites of his orchestral works, the Weber Metamorphoses, or even his symphony extracted from the opera Mathis der Maler. The explanation for this seriousness is probably found in the date of the work: it falls just after Hindemith found living in Germany no longer possible and emigrated to the O.S. in this soon-to-be wartime. The symphony was the first work he wrote in the U.S., where he accepted an appointment at Yale.
The performance and sonics are without criticism. I found the new CD issue fidelity to be identical to the previous Omega effort of 1996, except that that one also included Hindemith’s Violin Concerto. The original vinyl version, though, had the edge if you ignore a bit of surface noise.
– John Sunier
