As principal cellist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Ariel Barnes sees his share of the spotlight, but in that context he’s rarely as exposed as he will be this weekend. Donning his chamber-music hat, he’ll open the Turning Point Ensemble’s Carnival program with the unaccompanied, Balkan-inspired strains of Montreal composer Ana Sokolović’s Vez; later on, he’ll portray the Swan in Camille Saint-Saëns’s antic Carnival of the Animals. But the piece he’s most excited about playing is an almost century-old work by a composer he’s only recently discovered: Kammermusik No. 3 by Paul Hindemith.

Hindemith, many would argue, is one of the 20th century’s most overlooked composers—not because his music makes for difficult listening, but because he was something of a conservative during a time of explosive innovation.

“Being someone who’s relatively new to the music of Hindemith, I would say that these [Kammermusik] pieces are a development and a continuation of the German tradition of tonality,” says Barnes, speaking to the Straight from his Vancouver home. “At the time he was active, you have music written by Igor Stravinsky which starts to employ polytonality, and you have Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern starting to branch away from the tonal system that had existed for centuries, branching away from the tradition and attempting to create something entirely fresh and new. But I think Hindemith felt deeply connected to the music of J.S. Bach, for example, and he uses those wonderful fugal and contrapuntal ideas in a way that is very much in line with that direct tradition, while still having a very unique and fresh voice.”

Hindemith’s innovative side is evident in the way that he anticipates the skewed, astringent harmonies that Kurt Weill would later use to accompany the politically charged scripts of playwright Bertolt Brecht. Kammermusik No. 3 is a strictly instrumental score, but the 1925 work speaks volumes about cultural conditions under the Weimar Republic.

“I don’t have any doubt that he’s expressing the sociopolitical landscape of the time,” says Barnes. “I definitely get that from the music.…It’s almost like he’s prefiguring the Third Reich, a little bit. That’s very much present. It’s very interesting how the second movement, in particular, morphs from this happy, carefree, ebullient spirit into this dark, threatening, overwhelming energy‚ and then snaps right back.”

Those interested in history, musical and otherwise, should note that Kammermusik No. 3 and Carnival of the Animals will be joined in the Turning Point lineup by Claude Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, a gorgeous tone poem that’s barely aged a day since its 1894 debut. On the more modern side, there’s the Sokolović piece, plus the premiere of Luft, a new suite from VSO resident composer Jocelyn Morlock.

“Placing these works of approximately a century ago next to pieces that are composed today helps us put into context what those works mean,” says Barnes. “For me, I find myself always constantly surprised by how unbelievably creative and inventive the music of the early 20th century was, and how relevant it still sounds today.”

The Turning Point Ensemble presents Carnival at Simon Fraser University’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts on Friday and Saturday (March 13 and 14).