PAUL HINDEMITH (1895-1963): Tuttifäntchen.

Description: Who'd have thought that in 1922, the year after the premieres of Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen and the rejection on moral grounds of Sancta Susanna, that Hindemith would produce music for a children's Christmas play? Simply wrought, using single woodwinds and a small string section, the 72-minute work in three scenes consists of 19 Worte (spoken word narratives), 13 songs, a duet, two melodramas, two marches, a ballet of wooden puppets and three instrumental preludes. The story? A wood carver's puppet comes alive, tears his daughter's heart out and goes off into the forest to find the fir tree he was carved from (the carver's apprentice gets the heart back and the girl recovers but, jeez!). German-English texts. Bele Kumberger, Nora Lentner (sopranos), Herman Wallén (baritone), Matthias Stier (tenor), Berlin Radio Children's Choir, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; Johannes Zurl.