Music: The Compleat Musician

The stubby little man stood firmly on the stage, drawing music with shaking, clenched fists from the choirs ranged on either side of a horseshoe balcony. Later, he picked up a three-string vielle (old-style fiddle) and joined two other instrumentalists and a singer in an expert per" formance of four songs by Guillaume de Machaut (circa 1300-77). Then he sat down and. listened to the world premiere of his own new work—Motets for Tenor and Piano. Thus in a single evening last week, during the Berlin Festival, Paul Hindemith, 64, got a rare chance...