Now that I have spent a month since I first started researching Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler for my second podcast, I am now moving on to my final project and am continuing my work for the final paper. I have come across a number of problems with this paper that I have not always had in the past. I have mostly struggled with trying to clear my argument from other authors that have written about Hindemith’s opera, and also trying to distinguish my argument that the religious implications of the work are separate from the political ones that have so often been talked about in terms of the work. I have found that it is easy to find myself writing and working in such a way that I think I am making a point about the religious implications, but it ends up sounding like an argument in favor of the opposing thesis almost as much. This is probably why so many authors have for so long talked solely about the political context and implications of the work.

I am trying not to let this discourage me too much however. Now that I have more space with which to work within the paper I am going to aim to add more religious background which is actually going to be redirect me back away from the musical side of the paper for a bit before returning to it. When I wrote my second draft of the shorter paper on this subject I was able to, I think more successfully, add to the musical and dramatic evidence for my argument and situate the argument in the context of the opera itself. But now I need to re-situate the work in the broader religious context of both Reformation and 1930s Germany. I am a bit worried about the latter because I think it may be difficult to successfully provide an appropriate background to the religious context for a work like this. It seems it may be a bit difficult to prove or directly link the opera to the religious background of the time with any certainty. Hopefully though, if I am able to achieve this, I will be able to successfully build a more coherent argument that fully supports the possibility that there is religious importance and meaning to the work that is completely separate from the political implications.