Ferdinand Hiller: Symphonies (vol.2)

[Alan Howe]

Following the release by cpo of volume 1, volume 2 will contain:

Symphony in E minor (HW 2.4.3): 1829, revised 1830/31 - first version lost.
Symphony in C major (HW 2.4.6): 1876/77

Fellow-member tpaloj posted this about the C major Symphony back in May 2020:

I'd like to present another forgotten treasure here, the splendid C major symphony by Ferdinand Hiller – realized with Noteperformer! The dating of this work is not entirely certain: it was performed several times between 1877 and 1880 (according to dates and signatures from the musicians in the manuscript parts), but Goethe Universität gives circa 1830-31 for the actual composition year. Anyway, its premiere seems most certainly have been at the 54th Lower Rhenish Music Festival at Cologne in 1877.
   The first movement alone is, in my mind, a genuine masterpiece. Note the initial 2 minutes spent exploring distant keys & the unusually syncopated treatment of the material, before settling for the first time in majestic C major... – the inner movements I'm less enthusiastic about, but the energetic Finale rounds the work up on a high note. Hiller's writing is so full of delightful details that by just typing up this one score I feel like having learnt a year's worth of lessons in orchestration.
   It's long, though: manuscript full score's some 250 pages (!) I can promise you it was meticulous work. Unfortunately I had no means to study the undigitized manuscript parts, which would go a long way in proofing the score (Hiller writes messily it seems always when it's crucial of him not to be doing so). Hopefully I've been able to do Hiller even a little deserved justice with this – his voluminous legacy is, after all, still largely forgotten and unrecorded.

https://youtu.be/XY22op-F0bc

As an interesting aside, writing on some of the handwritten parts indicate this Symphony was performed at a "music festival" in Düsseldorf in 1880. However the Wikipedia listing for Lower Rhenish Music Festival tells that the 1880 festival was held at Cologne. Either the wiki info is wrong, or some other festival than LRMF was held in Düsseldorf that year....

Tuomas adds these details in his video description:

Ferdinand Hiller's unrecorded and unpublished Symphony in C major. The manuscript is undated, but it dates with near certainty to the 1860-70s. Some sources say 1831-32, but this, is false for several reasons, such as the type of autograph paper used, style, instrumentation etc.

[Alan Howe]

Listening to the C major work again, my strong sense now is that this is a later work rather than an early one. It's something to do with the way the opening movement moves at a less frenetic pace than in the early works - and the same applies to the finale. Very interesting.

PS: All other symphonies by Hiller are LOST.

[tpaloj]

Has it really been 5 years since I created the transcription of the C major symphony? I'm very excited to hear Mr. Griffiths's recording once it becomes available. In the still very minuscule corner of musicology known as Ferdinand Hiller scholarship, it's a very precious event to finally hear this stunning symphony as it is meant to be heard: in the hands of an excellent conductor and orchestra!

In the years since creating the video, I've had the leisure opportunity to study many more scores by Mr. Hiller, and while initially I had mere doubts about the matter, I've grown to be adamant about the symphony having been composed in the 1860-70s. Given Alan's preliminary details about the upcoming volume in the series, CPO seems to agree with this theory, doesn't it?

PS: All other symphonies by Hiller are LOST.

For the record, aside from the lost earlier version of the E minor symphony, the lost symphonies are:

• Simphonie de Victoire à grand orchestre et un quatre parties. (incipits for all four movements listed in Hiller's diary dated 31 October, 1830)
• Symphony in G minor "Im freien", performed in England in the 1850s.

[eschiss1]

Thought "Im freien" was in G major, but it's not like we can consult the material to check!

[Alan Howe]

The lost Symphony 'Im Freien' (HW 2.4.11) is listed in the cpo booklet of vol.1 as being in G major and dating from 1851/52.

[Alan Howe]

I've grown to be adamant about the symphony having been composed in the 1860-70s. Given Alan's preliminary details about the upcoming volume in the series, CPO seems to agree with this theory, doesn't it?

Apparently so, yes.

[tpaloj]

You're correct, it's G major, a slip of my "pen"! 

[Alan Howe]

Easily done. Shame the work is lost: it would be the second of Hiller's two middle-period symphonies, along with Op.67.
To summarise: three early symphonies (one lost); two middle-period (one lost); one late.

[Alan Howe]

Brahms wrote this in 1873; please listen from 9:30 in and tell me he hadn't heard the finale of Hiller's C major Symphony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwxt3WcodUw

[tpaloj]

Brahms wrote this in 1873; please listen from 9:30 in and tell me he hadn't heard the finale of Hiller's C major Symphony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwxt3WcodUw

You're quite right, it's similar isn't it?!

However, while Hiller might just as well have copied the ostinato from Brahms for his Symphony, perhaps it's more the case that he was (conciously or unconciously) copying himself: the 4-note ostinato also appears earlier in the beginning of the final scene to the first act of his 1862 opera "Die Katakomben". Take a look at this short sample I put together, you'll see the motif appear there (though here it's in a minor key instead):

Youtube link

[Alan Howe]

Yes, that's very evident, isn't it? In which case it must have been Brahms who took from Hiller, no?

[jasthill]

Side Note:  looking at the Youtube video of the Brahms Haydn Variations with Herbert Blomstedt I can't be more impressed with what a masterful conductor he is - wish that his stated Berwald symphony re-study comes to fruition.

[Gareth Vaughan]

He is indeed a magnificent conductor IMHO.