The third volume of Siegfried Mauser's complete survey of Paul Hindemith's piano music for Wergo gathers pieces written over a good twenty years, from 1920 to 1941. The large Third Sonata of 1936 stands beside early character pieces and sets of easy pieces, and the selection shows how many sides Hindemith's piano writing had.

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) is heard here through the pianist Siegfried Mauser, who began the series in 1990 with a first volume announced as part of a complete recording on five discs. The production and engineering are credited to Teije van Geest, in whose studio in Sandhausen the following volume was recorded, and the editing to Riri Nagaosa.

The Dritte Sonate für Klavier in B flat opens the disc and is its longest work, almost nineteen minutes in four movements: Ruhig bewegt, Sehr lebhaft, Mäßig schnell and a closing Fuga. Hindemith wrote it in July and August 1936, and the pianist Jesús María Sanromá gave the first performance in Washington on 10 April 1937. The early 1920s are represented by the Stretta (1920), a Lied für Klavier and a Berceuse für Klavierpianoforte (both 1921) and Tanz der Holzpuppen (1922). From 1929 come a Klavierstück and the Kleine Klaviermusik op. 45 no. 4, twelve easy five-note pieces, most of them under a minute. The disc closes with the first movement, Allegro, of a piano sonata from 1941.

Wir bauen eine Stadt (We Are Building a Town) began as a play for children, for voices, melody instruments and percussion, to a text by Robert Seitz. Hindemith wrote it in Berlin in March 1930, and Berlin schoolchildren gave the first performance on 21 June 1930 at the festival Neue Musik Berlin 1930. The six piano pieces heard here are his own arrangement, published by Schott in 1931. They follow the game: a march, a song about building the new town, a piece in which newcomers are shown round, a ticket collector's song, a game of visiting, and the thieves who come in the night. The whole set lasts about four minutes and the twelve five-note pieces under seven. Next to them the sonata, with its closing fugue, sets the scale of the programme.

CD, Wergo WER 6214 2, released in 1993, volume III of Das Klavierwerk in the Edition Paul Hindemith. Playing time 46:49.