Hiller: Symphonies in E minor & F minor

[eschiss1]

I started typesetting the F minor, but gave up, alas. I'm glad firstly that you went ahead and secondly that there will be a cpo recording to look forward to...
Re A minor concerto: I goofed. I was completely misremembering this from the description of the F minor piano concerto at Hyperion: "The work was first performed at the Paris Conservatoire on 4 December 1831 at a concert in which his Symphony No 2 in A minor and a Faust Overture were also performed."

[eschiss1]

The E minor symphony Op.67 was, I think, mentioned by Schumann in a letter (I think he mentions the motto, so it's not the earlier E minor symphony?) so it was premiered well before 1865- indeed the motto is a reference to the events of 1848.

[Alan Howe]

The C-major symphony to which a manuscript survives, the same one published by R&E, must be the 1870s one. The handwriting, style of orchestration (and manuscript paper) used in this working manuscript is from Hiller's late period and couldn't have been composed in the 1830s. I think Howard Griffiths is mistaken in calling the C-major symphony a ca. 1829–34 work...

So we should be able to hear a clear development in style if the C major Symphony dates from the 1870s. The Symphony Op.67 is obviously in a later style.

The orchestration of the C major Symphony (according to the Ries & Erler score) features 4 horns, 2 trumpets and 3 trombones: does this tell us anything as the E minor and F minor Symphonies (assumed to be early) do not feature trombones? (Also: Op.67, which we know to be later, features 3 trombones.)

[Alan Howe]

Here's a reminder of Hiller's E minor Symphony, Op.67 (first movement only):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc7VMLY6xY0&list=RDjc7VMLY6xY0&start_radio=1

IMSLP suggests a composition date of 1848. What do members make of the idiom in its historic context?

[eschiss1]

By comparison Hiller's piano concertos seem to date from around 1831, 1843 and 1875 or so. His symphony Op.67 was first performed 15 March 1849 (Fifield notes that the title of the symphony is a quote from a poem by Geibel.) (and was definitely conducted by Liszt in 1852), and may if I am right have some features in common with the piano concerto no.2 Op.69 premiered 6 years before that date.