Franz Lachner's symphonies in all but name

[Balapoel]

Has anyone discussed why Lachner stopped his symphonic cycle and started his suite cycle? His 8 symphonies date between 1828-1851 (25 to 48 years old), there's a gap of ten years, and then he composed 8 suites betwen 1861-1881 (58-78 years old). Some of them are suite-like, for sure (short introductions, 5-6 movements), but some have symphonic porportions, like Suite No. 7 and perhaps Suite no. 4. I haven't seen the score for suite no. 5. Was this shift in name relating to his interests in more baroque and classical forms?

[eschiss1]

Possibly. Could be that the "Curse of the Ninth" was already beginning to settle in by 1861 (date of the 1st suite), too? (Besides Spohr, maybe Krommer - what contemporaries/post-Beethoven symphonists (not pre-Beethoven) would Lachner have known who wrote 9 or more symphonies? Not many. (_Not_ Schubert I suspect - even assuming the least conservative estimate during the 19th century by 1861 by a friend of the composer who knew of the early symphonies (not published until 1884) wouldn't have included the E major sketch now called the 7th but not some of the other sketches; arbitrary 20th century reasoning pushed back on the 19th c., that - so 8 at most, but most likely 1 or 2, attributed to his friend Schubert, and the most attributed to Spohr, Ries and Beethoven among contemporary composers - Beethoven with 9 (or 10 if one included _every_ "symphony", but most wouldn't count the Wellington, I think...)), 9 for Spohr, 6-8 for Ries (not sure what was known in 1861 - if anything was still known of his symphonies at that point.)) (Gade 7 and 8 had not yet been composed, remember; no hindsight.)

Several libraries have the full score of the 5th (in 5 movements, Op.135). Hopefully one of them engages (or will...) in scanning. Or someone who owns the score

(actually- hrm...--a Danish Library has Leo Grill's piano 4h reduction of the score- and one of those libraries- the Royal Library I think- does free scanning-on-demand for people- if it's that library, then I or someone else should request that, and then there will be a copy of the score as digital images on their site ; not the full orchestral score, but at least _something_; a (good) arrangement is better than nothing, I say. (Same Grill one of whose two string quartets can be found in music and recording (thanks to Matesic, again) @ IMSLP.))
(Ah. No, it's not in the Danish Royal Library... hrm. Wonder if the other system libraries there also have on-demand digitization? Will try to find out soon...

Also, there are two copies of the full score of this at Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (not yet scanned in by them, though this is the one library I've found of the ones I know of so far that have the full score- the three mentioned on Worldcat don't, I _think_  - that has a regular digitization site/process/etc., and a big one.)