Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the Neue Sachlichkeit style of music in the 1920s, with compositions such as Kammermusik, including works with viola and viola d'amore as solo instruments in a neo-Bachian spirit. Other notable compositions include his song cycle Das Marienleben (1923), Der Schwanendreher for viola and orchestra (1935), the opera Mathis der Maler (1938), the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber (1943), and the oratorio When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1946), a requiem based on Walt Whitman's poem. Hindemith and his wife emigrated to Switzerland and the United States ahead of World War II, after worsening difficulties with the Nazi German regime. In his later years, he conducted and recorded much of his own music.

16 November 1895

Born on the same birth day (16 November): Aditya Roy Kapur • Alan Budd • Alexander Kolchak • Andy Dalton (rugby union) • Barbara Smith • Boris Krivokapić • Christian Horner • Colin Burgess (musician) • Dave Kushner • Daws Butler • Donna McKechnie • Gerry Marshall • Joan Lindsay • Kang Ning-hsiang • Mani (musician) • Mauricio Ochmann • Oliver Braddick • Princess Cecilia of Sweden • Tiberius • Valeria Bruni Tedeschi • Waheed Alli, Baron Alli • Zina Garrison

Born in the same month (November 1895): Anastas Mikoyan • Bill W. • Busby Berkeley • Charles MacArthur • Esther Applin • Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia • Gregorio López (writer) • Helen Hooven Santmyer • Jack Northrop • József Mátyás Baló • Manuel Alonso Areizaga • Pierre Cot • Walter Gieseking • Walter Jackson Freeman II