Paul Hindemith’s Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, composed in 1949, is complex and challenging.  The first and third movements exemplify this with their shifting meters and some difficult rhythms.  These meters and their rhythms create a mysterious, yet playful mood in the first movement.  The second movement, marked, sehr schnell or very fast, is decidedly more direct.  The rhythms are straightforward, but even here Hindemith’s writing makes it so that the strong beats of the meter, which does not change, are obscured.  The third movement is the longest of the work.  It is comprised of several sections including a slow introduction and ending, a fast section, and a recitative.  It is loosely structured as a variation on two different themes, making the formal structure A-B-A’-Recitative-B’-A’’.1