Given Hindemith's sympathies with the Neo-Classical and Neo-Baroque movements of the 1920s and 1930s, it's no surprise that he would have been attracted to the Orgelbewegung (organ movement) of the same era. The Orgelbewegung's proponents sought to strip away the layers of Romantic excess that had accrued in organ writing and performance over the previous century, returning to the earlier model of eighteenth-century style as exemplified in the organ music of Bach and his contemporaries. In 1937, Hindemith wrote two organ sonatas that embodied the Baroque spirit perhaps better and more organically than any composer since Max Reger (a third sonata appeared in 1940). Of the three works, the Organ Sonata No. 1 is the longest and most imaginative.

Hindemith's first organ sonata is in two movements, each of which divides into a number of clear-cut sections. The first is marked "Moderately fast," and announces itself with a series of imposing chords. The harmony is spare and based on open fifths, which allows the music to pass freely between major and minor modes. Much of the sonata is based on thematic cells first declared at this point. There follows a faster section ("Lebhaft") exploring melodic extensions of the material through various contrapuntal techniques, including Hindemith's specialty, fugue. The imposing opening measures return, now in the swinging triple time of the "Lebhaft" section, and the movement ends with a slow meditation on the two themes of the allegro, over a sustained pedal.

The second movement is in three parts, beginning with a slow, Bach-like trio sonata, simple in structure and elegant in its expression of a somewhat theatrical melancholy. The dissonant second part harks to the opening measures, with its free rhapsody based on a bad-tempered four-note phrase in the pedal. From this music are sent flying dramatic, toccata-like gestures, climaxing in an impressive phalanx of unexpectedly consonant chords based on the pedal theme. The last movement is quiet and phlegmatic, ruminating wistfully on transformations of the original themes. There is a brief episode in which a delicate melody dances inconclusively in the high register before the work comes to a thoughtful end.

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