# Hindemith's Mathis Der Maler - The Complete Opera



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

The three movement symphony which Paul Hindemith made from his great opera Mathis Der Maler (Mathis the painter) is fairly well-known in the concert hall and on recordings, but the opera itself is rarely performed. Which is unfortunate, because I'm convinced that it's one of the greatest 20th century operas , and one of the composer's greatest works,period .
I've been listening to the superb EMI recording with Dietruch Fischer-Dieskau and the late James King conducted by the late Rafael Kubelik , which I recently borrowed from my local library .I hadn't heard it for many years, and got to know the opera back in the 80s on LP .
The opera dates from the 1930s , and was suppressed by the Hitler and the Nazis because Hindemith was Persona Non Grata with them as a composer of "degenerate music", and deals with among other things, censorship of books, which did not reflect well on the Nazis. 
The opera takes place in 16th century Germany during the Protestant reformation 
and the bloody rebellions of downtrodden peasants, and the title character is one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance, Matthias Grunewald, although the story is somewhat fictionalized .
Mathis has a cushy job as the official church painter to Albrecht, the Cardinal of Mainz, at that time the most powerful Catholic prelate in Germany . He is greatly admired at a painter.
But he meets Hans Schwalb, the leader of the rebellious and oppressed peasaants, who is fleeing the authorities with his young daughter Regina . Mathis helps them flee with one of their horses after learning of the terrible plight of the peasants from Schwalb. He resolves to leave his position and help the peasants in whatever way he can, even though the Catholic authorities are outraged .
The Cardinal is sympathetic to him, however, and protects him from being arrested as a traitor.
Meanwhile, there is a great deal of conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants in Mainz, and Mathis's beloved Ursula, daughter of a Protestant leader ,is offered by her father as a potential wife of Albrecht, who has been urged by Martin Luther to marry despite Cathloic law, to make peace between the two feuding groups.
But Mathis becomes disillusioned with the cause when he observes the brutality of the rebellious peasants . The German troops strike down the peasants mercilessly, and Schwalb is killed .
Mathis flees with Schwalb's daughter Regina into the forest , and he has prophetic
and symbolic dream ,where he sees all the characters in the opera as Biblical saints and sinners. They and demons torment Mathis with guilt for having abandoned his 
true gifts as a painter. In the dream , he experiences himself as Saint Anthony being tempted . Albrecht appears at Saint Peter , and urges him to return to his position,
and the two sing an exultant Hallelujah .
In the last scene, Ursula dies, and Mathis relfects wistfully on his eventful but unfulfilled life .
Powerful stuff ! Many people consider Hindemith's music to be rather dry and academic, but the opera is anything but this .On the contrary ,it has a downright Wagnerian sweep,grandeur, and emotional power .
There are two other recordings of Mathis which I haven''t heard yet, conducted by Gerd Albrecht, and a recent conducted by Simone Young, one of today''s leading women conductors, live from the hamburg State opera. 
The New York City opera did a production in the mid 90s, which were the last performances of the late,lamented conductor Christopher Keene, who unfortunately died of AIDS shortly after .
This opera should definitely be done by the Met, with perhaps Bryn Terfel or Thomas hampson as Mathis, Renee Fleming or Deborah Voigt as Ursula, and Ben heppner as Cardinal Albrecht, maybe with Christian Thielemann .conducting.
By all means get the EMI recording if you can find it !


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

This seems wonderful, superhorn, thanks for the hint. I have bought a copy from Beaches_Entertainment, one of the Amazon.com marketplace vendors, for $18 + $3 of shipping.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

This is a very interesting opera, indeed. The music is brilliant, though perhaps the vocal lines are not near the same quality.

I watched it live in Barcelona, at Liceu, back in the '90s. It was not the best of productions, and nothing closer to the EMI recording in musical terms, but it was nice to be there, anyhow. There are not many performances of this opera.


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

i'm glad i've now heard of this, reading about it reminds me much of Tarkovsky's _Andrei Rublev_


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Just ordered the EMI set. Thanks!


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I have many works by Hindemith but none of his operas - this could be the spur I need to correct one of my more persistent and less excusable examples of procrastination. The Wergo label have especially served Hindemith well but most of their recordings of his operas are sadly a bit too pricey for me.

Anyway, it's always good to see Hindemith's operatic output get some exposure around here as I think, starthrower, you alsomentioned Das Nusch-Nuschi earlier?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Yes! This one is really fine. Also on Wergo. The more Hindemith music I hear, the bigger a fan I become.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Oehms Recording*

There are two recordings of _Mathis der Mahler_ available.

The classic recording with Fischer-dieskau on EMI: http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=525813

And the new recording on Oehms: http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=220192

There are some reviewers who thing the new Oehms recording is better. There is an excellent review at the Arkive site.

I have also found the following review from Fanfare of the EMI reissue:

Rafael Kubelík: HINDEMITH Mathis der Maler on EMI 
Departments - Hall of Fame 
Sunday, 10 November 2013

"It's always difficult to review a little-known work such as this one, despite its high artistic excellence, just as it is somewhat difficult to claim it to be a "Hall of Fame" performance, but if ever a recording deserved that citation, this is it. A reviewer who shall remain nameless once said that the 2010 Oehms Classics recording conducted by Simone Young was much better than this because it had more life and more dramatic thrust, but after going out of my way to listen to that recording I was left scratching my head as to exactly what this reviewer thought was superior in it. Granted, Young conducts pretty well, but the miking in that live performance had too much "space" around the orchestra, with the result that neither the winds nor the strings had much presence, and without a good orchestral presence Mathis der Maler falls flat. Even worse, baritone Falk Struckmann as Mathis has a perfectly horrid voice: strained, wobbly, throaty, unfocused, he really just sounds as if he's yelling a part that demands the highest sensitivity in a singing-actor.

At the time Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau made this recording (1978), his voice had lost both its luster and its bottom range. I heard him in concert at Carnegie Hall a few years earlier, and although he (thankfully) hadn't picked up a wobble and still sang with great sensitivity, the voice sounded gray and dull, nothing at all like it had sounded from the late 1940s through, say, 1971. But Mathis is a character whose many moods and dramatic changes hinge on word-painting of the type Fischer-Dieskau was a master of, and I for one am happy to have him here. Moreover, soprano Urszula Koszut (Regina) and tenors James King (Albrecht) and Donald Grobe (Sylvester) are miles above their Oehms counterparts in both vocal quality and characterization. Operatic drama isn't all about shouting and sounding excited, particularly in a work such as this. Hindemith worked long and hard to combine his strict neo-classic style with actual German folk songs, with the result that, despite the modern harmonies and melodic lines that never really develop into "tunes," he wrote some truly outstanding music that demands real vocalism and not just histrionic shouting, such as the Don Carlo -like friendship duet between Mathis and the peasant leader Hans Schwalb in the first tableau or the remarkable quartet (Albrecht-Mathis-Ursula-Riedinger) in the second. Thus the dramatic richness of the text is allied to great musical richness, and to give short shrift to the latter is to compromise the former.

And then there is the orchestral writing, which, as I mentioned, is as richly detailed in its own way as anything Wagner or Strauss ever wrote. This music demands a conductor who can make one hear all the varied threads of the orchestra yet keep things moving. Rafael Kubelík was such a conductor, and even as a set-piece his performance of the opera's prelude is outstanding for its richness of color and rhythmic vitality. Mathis has what is surely one of the three or four greatest librettos in operatic history, and yet another quality I admire in all of these singers-even soprano Rose Wagemann as Ursula, whose strained top notes are something of a chore to listen to-is their outstanding diction.

For those unfamiliar with it, Mathis is the story of Matthias Grünewald, a painter who created the Isenheim Alter and other chapel artwork in the 16th century, and his involvement in the Peasants' Revolt. What made Mathis's position so dangerous, and provides the crux of the dramatic argument, was that he worked for Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg, who privately supported the peasants (and Mathis's independent thinking) but publicly had to decry their position because he was too weak to break off from the Catholic Church. Hindemith uses this as well to propel his drama, since one of the things the peasants are revolting against is the stranglehold that the Church, allied with the nobles, has over their lives. The stroke of genius in Mathis is that Hindemith was able to compose a subversive opera suggesting that the people have the right to oust the rulers in power if they are oppressed by them, an allegory to the Germans under Hitler, without tying the opera too closely to the Third Reich. In this way, Mathis der Maler becomes a timeless story of revolt against oppression, whatever the stripe.

Without going too much into detail, I strongly urge any thinking listener to give this opera-and specifically this recording-a try. I guarantee you that the plot and libretto, at least, will not fail to impress you, and the singing and conducting are of such a high order that it's almost impossible not to enjoy at least part of the music on its own terms. My sole complaint of this particular reissue is that, unlike the reissue just before it, it does not include a paper libretto or plot synopsis; rather, they are both on a "bonus" CD-ROM for delightful viewing on your PC or tablet (yeah, right … as if I'm going to read a long and highly literate libretto on my computer screen every time I listen). I recommend that you simply do what I did, which was to print them out for handy use while listening. I cannot recommend this release highly enough, and if you think I was exaggerating regarding its high quality as opposed to Falk Struckmann and company, go ahead and compare them. I think you'll be running back to Kubelík and company before very long. Lynn René Bayley "

The problem with the new Oehms recording is that it comes with a plot synopsis in German and English rather than a complete libretto. The new EMI reissue has a libretto on an accompanying CD-ROM.

I have both recordings and I agree with the observation that both have there strengths and weaknesses. I disagree with James North assessment Fischer-Dieskau (see Arkive review) The Oehms Mathis, Falk Struckmann, is not as strong as Fischer-Dieskau. It appears to me that the ultimate recording would be Fischer-Dieskau with the Oehms cast.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Also available is Keith Warner's 2012 production, conducted by Bertrand de Billy:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...id-version-of-an-unmistakably-political-opera

On CD (Capriccio)
On Blue-ray or DVD (Naxos)

I don't know whether the CD release contains a libretto with or without English translation but I'm assuming that English subtitles are an option on the Blue-ray/DVD release.


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

I actually enjoy this opera a lot. Just got into it recently and still tried out different recordings.


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## ChrisBrewster (Jul 4, 2014)

I'm a long-time fan of Hindemith, and the M.d.M. symphony is one of my favorite works. So I waited long for a good video of the opera and, alas, was disappointed. Can't explain why -- it just didn't come alive for me, with a kind of leaden, earnest quality. Yet I like his "Cardillac".

<digression> The same thing happened with another favorite composer, Carl Nielsen, operas "Saul and David" and "Maskarade". Maybe if I hadn't absorbed his orchestral music so deeply, these would have worked better. He's commonly paired with Sibelius and rightly, I feel. Both present epic, powerful visions of nature. In these two operas, a Bible story and a comedy of manners, I can hear some of his familiar style but it seems out of place with these subjects.


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