Traditional Harmony: Book 1 With Emphasis on Exercises And a Minimum of Rules | Music Theory Sheet Music Book for Intermediate to Advanced Students | Classical Harmony Exercises Method for Composers

by Paul Hindemith

Schott

Genres: Music

125 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

German composer, violist, violinist, teacher and conductor. In the 1920s, he became a major advocate of the Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity) style of music.
Notable compositions include his song cycle Das Marienleben (1923), Der Schwanendreher for viola and orchestra (1935), and opera Mathis der Maler (1938). Hindemith's most popular work, both on record and in the concert hall, is likely the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, written in 1943.

Reviews

[David]

Though the more acclaimed pedagogue, Hindemith’s harmony book–despite its much cleaner presentation–is not the equal of Tchaikovsky’s. Hindemith’s book is, of course, fine, and students stand to gain much from the copious and well thought-out exercises. But the extreme concision for which Hindemith aims ends up being the book’s weakness: the explanations are simply too brief, and there are too few illustrative examples. The pedagogy is skewed too far in the direction of “just do it and you’ll get it.” But, again, this is a fine book, and it’s a better buy than the cosmic hundred-dollar harmony textbooks that are the market’s norm.