Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) was known as the "Stern German" as you can 
tell from this piece. There is only one recording of this piece 
'Apparebit repentina dies' that I am aware of and I cannot find it, 
anywhere.  This was a challange to perform properly (in *real* life) 
and I know of no other performance and I would challange anyone to 
take it on. The piece is complex, difficult and requries either a 
trained ear or repeated hearings to fully appreciate. Please, listen 
to it many times as the true beauty of it comes out after several 
hearings.

The part presented here is the Passacaglia from the third part of 
four. It is written for a small brass orchestra and choir. For the 
Choir I used rich strings. If you have access to a good MIDI composer, 
have some fun with this by playing only the voices a few times, then 
the orchestra. Try putting different parts together at different times 
since the music lends itself well to this sort of play. There is so 
much going on in here that it's very easy to miss it all(!) upon 
justva play through or two.

Hindemith was a rather prolific composer, very set in the way he felt 
that music should be listened to and performed. No foot tapping or 
head nodding. Pay Attention! And you can see that this piece reflects 
that. But it is intensely beautiful and exciting!

.jmg.
