The Fight For Freedom Concert by Lexington Symphony

Hindemith | Mathis der Maler
Vaughan Williams | Sea Symphony
Aaron Engebreth, baritone
Michelle Trainor, soprano
New World Chorale

All ages

This program focuses on the fight. The Hindemith piece is built around Mathis the Painter’s Fight for Freedom in the 16th Century. One could say it was Hindemith’s thinly veiled protest against what the Nazis were doing in WW2. Hindemith based this work on the triptych painted by Mathias Grunewald in his struggle for artistic freedom in the 16th Century during the repressive policies of the Protestant Reformation. The parallel was all too easily recognized by the Nazis, and Hindemith escaped to the USA with his life. Ralph Vaughan Williams selected verses from American poet, Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” for the first three movements and from his “Passage to India” for the last movement of his Sea Symphony. Whitman uses images of brave sailors exploring the vast oceans as a colorful metaphor for the voyage through life of the human soul.