Fans of Unterweisung im Tonsatz everywhere received some incredible news this week when John Man, cardboard collector and wunderkind, discovered an unpublished manuscript by the composer Paul Hindemith.

“It’s another sonata!” he said breathlessly. “I found it in a box.”

Man was overjoyed to discover the manuscript, as it fills a great void in the Hindemith canon. “There was always the great unanswered question in Hindemith scholarship regarding his lack of instrumental music between the viola sonata and the seven pieces for three trautoniums,” he said. “Now we know that he wrote this magical little sonata for elliptical transverse crumhorn.”

Man said that after a studying the score in detail he was pleased that it was exactly what he expected. “It’s possibly the most typical example yet of exactly the same sort of shit he always wrote,” he said. “As I flipped through the score I dared to wonder: ‘will there be a fourth voice in this one?’ But of course there wasn’t.”

Man showed us his collections of Hindemith scores and rare cardboards. “I have the most varied array of cardboards ever gathered under one roof,” he said, sprinkling some salt into his Lapsang souchong tea. “Sometimes I chew on them.”

Man looks forward to a wonderful musical future full of even more Hindemith. “I can’t wait for two relatively unknown musicians to make a serviceable recording of it,” he said. “Then I will be able to put another CD on my shelf and look at it.”

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