Text,Culture And Theme:a Study Of Paul Hindemith’s Opera Mathis Der Maler

Paul Hindemith, a German composer, is the foremost German composer of his generation. He was persecuted and exiled, and his works banned. This dissertation takes his opera Mathis der Maler as the subject of study. The research in the structure and style of text (painting and music), combined with the nine motifs reflected in the drama from the thematological approach in comparative literature, explains Hindemith’s view on the society, life, art, religion, thereby exploring the artistic value and ideological implication.There are five chapters in this dissertation. The first chapter is a summary of the social and cultural background, Hindemith’s situation and his dramas. The second chapter is the outline of the opera Mathis der Maler, and explores the text (painting and libretto), analyzing the layout and cultural implication of the historical painter Matthias Grunewald’s life and work, and the elaborate conception in Hindemith’s libretto. The main body of this dissertation is the third and forth chapters. The third chapter analyzes the musical technique and characters, from several aspects of genre, form, harmony, material quotations, chorus and ensemble, orchestra’s dramatic expressions, numeric imagery, etc. and the implication of the opera. The forth chapter emphasizes the cultural and ideological implications, studying the nine motifs of self-doubt, contradiction and struggle, evil nature, religious faith, artistic value, national concept, love, death, catharsis and cosmic harmony, to explain Hindemith’s views on the society, life, art and religion. After discussing every motif’s meaning, I explore the net structure, and come to a conclusion that all the contradiction and evil will turn to harmony through death, as well as the root, responsibility and conscience of the artist. The fifth chapter as a conclusion summarizes the whole thesis, including further analysis of the typical meaning of Matthias Grunewald as an individual and social quality, Hindemith’s harmony concept and evaluation, etc.The discussion and analysis of these nine motifs and the conclusion with the thematological approach are the originality of this dissertation on the study of Mathis der Maler. The music analysis and series of diagrams all are my originality after using for reference and exploring.