Like much of Hindemith's music written after World War II, the Symphonia Serena (1946) combines a new preoccupation with intensely chromatic counterpoint with a wry sense of humor, a feature largely dormant in the composer's music since his departure from Germany in the 1930s. As might be expected from a composer whose own instrumental expertise fostered a special affinity with performers, Hindemith also filled his score with a multitude of felicities that could be counted on to delight players and listeners alike: witty parody, ingenious instrumental combinations, and different simultaneous tempi.

The opening movement, marked "Moderately fast," presents an appropriately serene, motto-like theme in the horns against celestial-sounding strings; a pastoral, plangent second subject appears in counterpoint in the woodwinds. The movement proceeds much like a set of variations, employing mostly the second subject in a series of episodes that highlight various sections and individual instruments of the orchestra. Particularly outstanding is the wistful treatment of the second theme by the solo violin, accompanied by chordal woodwinds, which builds to a fine contrapuntal climax at the re-entry of the first theme. There follows a remarkable sequence, again utilizing the endlessly pliable second theme on English horn and piccolo, accompanied by pizzicato strings and tuned woodblocks. The movement ends with a fugal episode that culminates in a brass-heavy peroration of the opening motto.

A miniature military march by Beethoven, the "Yorck'sche Marsch," is the thematic basis for the second movement, "Geschwindmarsch by Beethoven." This scherzo is scored entirely for winds and brass. Chattering woodwinds create a shifting chromatic background for fragments of Beethoven's theme, stuttered out amusingly by horns and tuba. A trio section presents the same theme in irregular chordal phrases, with woodwinds imitating the reedy drone of bagpipes. The return of the main section presents Beethoven's march theme in its entirety, with the same élan and harmonic abandon that Hindemith employed twenty-five years earlier in his orchestral jazz parody Ragtime (Well-Tempered).

The third movement, "Colloquy," is an ingenious interlocking puzzle consisting of three sections, the third section a superimposition of the first two. The sections are divided by two mirror-like cadenza sequences, each featuring a dialogue between an onstage and an offstage solo instrument. Where the second movement featured winds with some percussion underpinning, "Colloquy" is scored for strings alone, divided into two groups. The first section presents chorale-like material played divisi and arco by the first string group. A cadenza for solo violin, echoed by an offstage violin, leads to the middle section, played pizzicato by the second string group. In a reversal of the previous cadenza sequence, the second cadenza features an offstage solo viola answered by its onstage colleague before the two solo violins return and usher in the final section of the movement. Here, the arco and pizzicato sections run simultaneously, providing both a striking surprise and a satisfying conclusion to this sophisticated hall of mirrors.

The entire orchestra is reunited for the finale, marked "Gay." The movement's unusually wide-ranging theme is first heard in the solo clarinet. The whirlwind interplay of this and subsequent themes results in one of Hindemith's most complex essays. During the ten or so minutes that conclude the Symphonia Serena, the sections and first-desk players are called upon to create a tricky contrapuntal web that climaxes, appropriately, with a return of the symphony's opening horn theme and a lengthy, complex coda that features the clarinet theme and one characterized by an insistently repeated note. The work ends with a bold fanfare.

The Symphonia Serena was premiered on February 2, 1947, by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra directed by Antal Dorati.



© All Music Guide