Paul Hindemith always envisioned composing a series of wind sonatas. As he said in a letter to Willy Strecker, his long-time friend and publisher, “nothing really provocative . . . existed for wind instruments.” Hindemith embarked on his twenty year quest to compose his wind sonatas in 1935 and concluded the entire series with his Tuba Sonata of 1955, thus giving the tuba repertoire one of its first major works by a major composer of the twentieth century. Since that time, Hindemith‟s contribution has become one of the most frequently performed sonatas in the tuba repertoire. In finishing this sonata Hindemith brought to fruition his long-standing goal to create a series of sonatas for wind instruments where nothing substantial had existed before. The composition serves as a landmark piece in the tuba solo repertoire due in part to the reputation of the composer and in part to the place it holds in the lineage of solo repertoire for the instrument; however, it continues to stand today as one of the standards in an ever-increasing solo repertoire for tuba because of the unique musical qualities the composition possesses and the performance opportunities that it provides to performers on the instrument. This examination of Sonate for Bass Tuba and Piano will focus its attention on the sonata‟s connection to Gebrauchsmusik, as well as the theoretical, historical, and stylistic aspects of the composition that make the piece unique among Hindemith‟s wind sonatas. The examination concludes by briefly identifying items in the piece that a performer who is interested playing Sonate for Bass Tuba and Piano should consider when learning the composition, and ultimately making suggestions as to ways to approach those items.
