Ferdinand Hiller's Symphony in C major

[Mark Thomas]

The answer seems to be the Werkverzeichnis contained in Gehlmann's book, which looks to be extremely comprehensive. The book itself is also hugely expensive, so I wonder if we can prevail on Wheesht's kind offer and ask if he can borrow the book from his library?

[tpaloj]

Google Books also has an online preview of Gehlmann's book, but as usual for them most pages cannot be previewed.

One further small point on the dating of the C major symphony... while the other early Hiller symphonies appear to be scored for natural horns, the C major Symphony certainly uses valved horns: a couple of very rapid crook changes appear in the 2nd movement, which would be impossible to execute on natural horns. Valved horns were only introduced in Paris relatively late by around 1826-1828 (the first Paris Conservatoire class on the use of valved horn was held in 1833). The use of valved horns was shunned in Paris well into early 1840s. It would appear counter-intuitive for Hiller to use valved horns in a 1830-31 work while the Symphony in F (1832-33) returns back to the use of natural horns.

[Wheesht]

The book is on order from my library, I should get it by Monday or even before.

[Mark Thomas]

Terrific. Thanks Thomas.

[tpaloj]

The book is on order from my library, I should get it by Monday or even before.

Thanks, that's great!

We only have one source for the symphony "Im Freien", and no reason to suppose it wasn't a typo for something else, so I'd probably put a question mark next to it. (Misreadings of E minor works as G major works (and similar mistransposition) were astonishingly - given the education level of the writers - common in journals, worklists, HMB, etc. etc. etc. of the time, and it wouldn't surprise me to see one motto confused with another, either.)

All valid points. I haven't located the actual article or source that the info about this mysterious 1852 "Im Freien" Symphony is based on. Revues Musicales and AMZ databases are easily found online for study, but I don't know much about British music journals of that time period.

[eschiss1]

I thought I read it (the source of the 1852 claim) myself at one point, but it wasn't a primary source at all.

Proportio artificiosa says a lot about it... including mentioning that it was in fact performed at least three times, 1852, 1854 and 1855.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I haven't seen a primary source, but it is repeated in Grove and a number of other works of music reference.

[gprengel]

"It's also worth mentioning that the Hiller manuscripts in the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt Library have been catalogued in extensive detail by Christine Ihl."
How funny, I know Christne Ihl very well,  she is a friend of mine... Now as I read this I remembere that years ago she was telling me about her work on Hiller..

Gerd