The opera Die Harmonie der Welt [The Harmony of the World] is without any doubt one of Paul Hindemith's major works based on the work of the astronomer, astrologist, theologian, philosopher and mathematician Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). His textbook was clearly influenced by Kepler's five books of his Harmonices Mundi (1619), demonstrating the plan behind the creation of the world and the cosmos. As early as 1939, Hindemith had conceived the idea of a Kepler opera, to be called Die Harmonie der Welt, with the focus of the opera on Kepler's difficult personal life in a time of dramatic political and social revolution (the Renaissance, Reformation, and Counterreformation). The completion of the full opera score would occupy Hindemith until 30 May 1957 using music from Kepler's time and in particular by Johann Hermann Schein. The writing for brass is particularly fine. The premi鑽e of the opera took place on 11 August 1957 in the Prinzregententheater in Munich, under Hindemith's direction. It was a huge media event, much to Hindemith's distaste, attended by more than 150 critics, conductors like Mitropoulos, Bm, Karajan and Kempe and broadcast all over West Germany as well as radio stations in England, France, Italy, Czechoslovakia and the former German Democratic Republic. Following the performance, Hindemith stood at the centre of stormy ovations, as reported in the M・chner Merkur. Part of the ongoing Wergo Hindemith Edition, Die Harmonie der Welt was recorded for the first time in 2000 by Marek Janowski, internationally renowned soloists, the Rundfunkchor Berlin and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, in cooperation with DeutschlandRadio. Founded in 1923 as the first German radio orchestra, Marek Janowski took over as principal conductor of the orchestra in 2001, and in 2002 this partnership won a Gramophone award with Soile Isokoski for Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs.
