Ferdinand Hiller: Symphonies (vol.1)

[Alan Howe]

This recording shows him as someone capable of displaying true depth though, particularly in the E minor symphony.

Quite right! It's a superb work, powerful too.

[semloh]

Pure personally, Hiller is one of those composers who could always put a smile on my face.

I agree wholeheartedly. The symphonies at last on CPO is a happy thought.

[Ilja]

By the way, I don't mean to imply that the F minor is anything less accomplished, it's just a different work in terms of ambition, I think, and radiates an altogether different energy and vigor. It's even a more cohesive work than the E minor, whose Adagio perhaps doesn't quite reach the pinnacle of the other movements.

[Alan Howe]

I don't think the F minor is as memorable as the E minor here. Who can forget the latter's scowl of an opening?

[Alan Howe]

Here is the entire E minor Symphony, Op.67:
(i) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXKY0nhNIiI
(ii) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD7z97ObzDQ
(iii) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXCnt1OJ93c
(iv) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi5j5T957iA

I'd say that this is one of the most important neglected symphonies from the first half of the nineteenth century. And Howard Griffiths has done it proud in this new recording.

[Alan Howe]

And here is the entire F minor Symphony:
(i) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfSCsLRlQMk
(ii) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuIyb9oeSZk
(iii) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrNsaMN4xiQ
(iv) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MhWzTuddK8

[Alan Howe]

Jed Distler wrote this at ClassicsToday.com on Ronald Lau's piano arrangement of Op.67:

<<Then again, I don't see other pianists lining up to record Lau's effective arrangement, nor any orchestral performances of the symphony on the horizon.>>
https://www.classicstoday.com/review/schumann-and-hiller-de-orchestrated/?search=1

How wrong he was! cpo surprises us all...

[Alan Howe]

I've probably made this point before, but it's worth comparing Hiller's F minor Symphony (1832/33) with Mendelssohn's Symphony No.1 in C minor (1824). The kinship is pretty obvious. However, Hiller's music has considerably greater rhythmic variety and freedom which, to my mind, link him just as clearly to Beethoven.