Symphony: Mathis der Maler

The symphony was drawn from the opera on the Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald, whose independence of mind in the face of political upheaval gave Hindemith a subject for his own position; he wrote the libretto himself. Furtwängler conducted the symphony in Berlin in March 1934, a year before the opera was finished, and his public defence of the composer cost him his posts. Performances of Hindemith's music were banned soon afterwards as decadent, and the opera reached the stage only in 1938, in Zurich. The three movements are named after panels of the Isenheim Altarpiece.