FACULTY PROFILE

On a Thursday afternoon early in October, a confused freshman listened to a short, friendly, round-faced man with a German accent explain Pythagoras' mathematical construction of the musical scale. Soon aghast with perplexity, he turned around and asked, "Is this Music I?" When told that it was Hindemith's History of Musical Theory, he departed in relieved embarrassment.

Everyone has not been so unaware of the coming of the great composer. A few weeks later, one of his students appeared in class with a movie camera and proceeded to film the lecture. There is a reason for such mechanized awe. Aside from his fame as a composer, Hindemith is probably the most gifted of music teachers, and it was indeed a coup when the creator of "Mathis der Maler" took a leave from Yale to teach and give the Norton lectures here.

Hindemith believes that composers are generally the best teachers of composition. "If you want to know how to design a bridge, you get an engineer to tell you." More than this, he thinks that composers should teach, not only as a means of support, but as a responsibility to future generations of musicians. "Since Bach," he says, "hardly any of the great composers have been outstanding teachers. Today, when there is a general lack of skill in the technique of composition, no composer should withdraw from teaching."

His analysis of the physical quality of sound and his tendency to talk in scientific analogies are part of his crusade to re-emphasize craftsmanship, rather than inspiration, in composition. He rejects entirely the esthetics of Romanticism, which define creativity as a mystical experience, writing down music drawn from the blue. He is impatient with those who still refuse to explore "twilight" areas in music such as melody. Everything can and should be analyzed.

Hindemith is reworking musical theory himself to accommodate the tremendous developments in the use of musical materials during the past hundred years. Only when such a theory is developed and taught will composers have the requisite technical skill to be masters of their craft. They must, he holds, become proficient at the most elementary level of composition, the management of tones, and this can come only from understanding. "Then maybe we avoid some accidents."

A great theorist himself, he is no advocate of uninterrupted theorizing, but believes that teachers and students should refresh themselves constantly in the practical aspects of music. Already in his course, he is forming a chorus which will start rehearsals for a concert of thirteenth and fourteenth century music in March.

When asked if teaching is detrimental to composition, if it limits the composer's own contribution to music, Hindemuth answers, "Myself, I cannot compose all the time. I don't get ideas just sitting around waiting for them. They come form somewhere, and I get them teaching." He admits, however, that his schedule here with a class and a lecture for publication every week is not entirely conducive to creativity.

"What about getting modern music performed? You don't seem much concerned."

"Ya--well--I never had that problem." And it is hard not to agree when, within two days last week, he had two of his works played here.

Next year Hindemith will be teaching again at Yale, where he has been since 1939, the year after he left Germany. "It's nice to change, but I built up class there for ten years, and I don't give it up."