Nobilissima Visione

CONTENT
Franz, a skilled troubadour, is the son of the wealthy textile merchant Bernadone in Assisi. He initially chases away a beggar asking for alms, but then runs after him and gives him some money. An encounter with a knight awakens his interest in a life of adventure. He sets off on his journey with three friends. – Franz experiences soldiers attacking a family before the eyes of the knight whom he has admired so greatly. 
In response to his request that the knight should curb the actions of the soldiers, he is knocked to the ground and his weapons confiscated. – In a vision, Franz encounters the allegorical figures of modesty, chastity and poverty. – During a festive occasion, Franz has little joy in dancing and is unable to sing as expressively as before. The amused guests crown him with a jester’s cap. Franz resists the brunt of their vituperation and distributes food to a group of beggars. A dispute with Bernadone shows him clearly that nothing links him to his previous life. 
He lays aside his fine robes and embarks on a journey, clad only in an old cloth given to him by a beggar. – Franz’s prayer in front of a chapel produces an overwhelming feeling of happiness. When his friends run past in fear when escaping from a dangerous wolf, he tames the animal through playing the violin with two wooden sticks. Watched over by his friends, Franz lies down to sleep on the bare earth. When Miss Poverty appears, he awakes, goes to her, embraces her and celebrates marriage with her. After the wedding feast consisting of bread and water, Franz begins to dance. His ecstasy spirals up into divine inspiration of the Hymn to the Sun whose symbolic images pass by in a great procession. The three friends venerate the new couple: Franz and Miss Poverty.

COMMENTARY
In October 1936, the dancer and choreographer Léonide Massine encouraged Hindemith to collaborate with him on a ballet project. During a meeting in Florence in May 1937, Hindemith visited the San Francesco frescoes in the church of Santa Croce which inspired him to select the life of Francis of Assisi as his subject. Massine and Hindemith worked together on the plan of the ballet in September 1937 and the composition was completed by 4 February 1938. Nobilissima Visione reveals the stylistic features which were already characteristic for the opera Mathis der Maler: an orchestral texture dominated by strings, a tonal focus and the integration of pre-existing music into his own works; the wellknown mediaeval troubadour song “Ce fut en mai” serves as the core substance of the composition. Hindemith creates the final movement in the form of a passacaglia on a six-bar theme introduced on the brass instruments.  Massine wrote in his memoirs: ‘Nobilissima Visione was in reality not a ballet, but a dramatic and choreographic representation of the life of St Francis in which Hindemith, Tcheliechev and I attempted to create and capture an atmosphere of mystical elevation.’ Hindemith compiled a selection of fi ve out of the eleven movements of the ballet which were performed as an orchestral suite in Venice in September 1938. Unlike this orchestral suite which has been long established in orchestral repertoire, the complete ballet music is seldom heard. (S. Sch.-G.)