Long Christmas Dinner
Sheet Music

SKU: NX.WER-66762

By Elsner, Janowski, Kaune, Kotchinian, Martin, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorcheter Berlin, Wallen, Welch, Ziesak, and von den Steinen. By Paul Hindemith. Listening CD. Wergo #WER 66762. Published by Wergo (NX.WER-66762).

ECHO Klassik 2006 within the category "World Premiere Recording of the Year".



As if in slow motion, librettist Thornton Wilder summarizes a series of Christmas dinners celebrated by the Bayard family over a period of ninety years and fuses them into a single long meal. The concentration of the characters and their standardization are all things that Hindemith's setting picks up on: he counterbalanced them musically by means of development, individualization, and variation - thus designing a kind of music that expresses contingency - significant coincidence - as an attitude toward life. The view of what Wilder calls the "mill of time" is thus always a view of the future as well - whether we perceive that as misfortune or consolation or both at once.

About Listening CDs

Listening CDs are traditional music recordings. Listening CDs make a great educational supplement - hear exceptional professionals play the music you're learning! Or, just enjoy listening to the music you love.