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As if in slow motion, librettist Thornton Wilder summarizes a series of Christmas dinners celebrated by the Bayard family over a period of ninety years and fuses them into a single long meal. The concentration of the characters and their standardization are all things that Hindemith's setting picks up on he counterbalanced them musically by means of development, individualization, and variation - thus designing a kind of music that expresses contingency - significant coincidence - as an attitude toward life. The view of what Wilder calls the Inchmill of timeInch is thus always a view of the future as well - whether we perceive that as misfortune or consolation or both at once. Album Tracks 1. Einleitung (Introduction), (God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen / Weihnachtslied) 2. Szene 1 (Scene 1) 3. Szenen 2 Und 3 (Scens 2 and 3) 4. Szene 4, Anfung Von Szene 5 (Scene 4, Beginning of Scene 5) 5. Szene 5 Wie War Denn Gestern Abend Der Ball? (Scene 5 Did You Enjoy Yourselves at the Ball?) 6. Szenen 6 Und 7 (Scenes 6 and 7) 7. Szene 8 (Scene 8) 8. Szene 9 (Scene 9) 9. Szene 10 (Scene 10) 10. Szenen 11 Und 12 (Scenes 11 and 12)
