Points of Emphasis
Today the
Hindemith Institute has found its permanent residence in the Academy of
Music and the Performing Arts in Frankfurt. By order of the Hindemith
Foundation, all of the sources from Hindemith's estate that aid musicological
research on the composer are preserved there, and the body of material
is being continually enlarged. Since its founding, the Institute has sought
contact with other archives and private individuals in possession of musical
sources, texts or letters of the composer. Thus the actual estate of the
Hindemith couple could be greatly expanded during the past years through
purchases as well as numerous gifts and donations.
Besides attending to the archives, the employees of the Institute are
dedicated to scholarly research on the sources from the composer's estate
and to the publication of their own research on Hindemith. Central to
this work is the Paul Hindemith Complete
Edition, that has been continuously accompanied by the editors Kurt
von Fischer and Ludwig Finscher ever since the planning of its contents.
The first volume of the Edition appeared shortly after the founding of
the Institute, in 1975; in the meantime nearly half of Paul Hindemith's
compositions are included in this new, critical Complete Edition. When
the Edition is completed, which we can expect around the year 2025, it
will have grown to approximately sixty volumes.
In addition to this, the Institute publishes two musicological series
dedicated to research in the field of twentieth-century music. In the
Hindemith Yearbook,
published since 1971, it is primarily documents of Hindemith research
that are brought together. Besides essays on Hindemith's life and work,
historical documents from the composer's estate are published here; some
issues contain current, up-to-date Paul Hindemith bibliographies.
By contrast, the Frankfurt Studies contain essays that merely have an
indirect connection with the work of Paul Hindemith. Usually these are
lectures from earlier symposia organised by the Hindemith Institute at
irregular intervals.
Very recently, the Hindemith Forum
has been called into being as a complement to these collections of articles,
offering information concerning current projects in concert life, new
publications and events of the Hindemith Foundation.
The documents of the Hindemith Institute are also available to guests
for the purpose of musicological research. However, written applications
should contain a short description of the research content and goal in
addition to the exact date of stay. Copies of all recorded documents from
Paul Hindemith's estate have been entrusted to the German Radio Archives,
Frankfurt and brought together there with the documents from the composer's
work on German Radio. The German Radio Archives are currently preparing
re-recordings of historical and inaccessible recordings from this extensive
collection.