Paul Hindemith, Fazil Say

Sonata Op. 11

Only two years after composing his three-movement Cello Sonata in 1919, Paul Hindemith undertook a comprehensive revision of the work. Abandoning the two outer movements, he created a new version based on the remaining central movement, which he had originally given the programmatic title Im Schilf. Trauerzug und Bacchanale [In the reeds. Funeral procession and bacchanal]. The movement took its inspiration from a Walt Whitman poem: an impression of Abraham Lincoln's assassination.Hindemith did away with this title in the 1921 version and divided the movement into two sections, expanding each into a new full movement. After the removal of the outer movements from the 1919 Sonata, the original piano part was lost completely.Now, composer and pianist Fazil Say has set himself the delightful challenge of reconstructing the piano accompaniment on the basis of the cello part and the structure of the surviving central movement.