Hiller: Symphony op. 67

Ferdinand Hiller was the son of a wealthy industrialist from Frankfurt am Main, studied with Johann Nepomuk Hummel in Weimar at the age of ten, lived in Paris for several years and finally arrived in Cologne in 1850. He took over the direction of the Gürzenich Orchestra and the city's conservatory, organized twelve of the Lower Rhine Music Festivals and played a prominent role in the cathedral city's music scene. Nevertheless, the oeuvre of the early gifted composer Ferdinand Hiller still requires careful examination and evaluation, for which the two symphonies in F minor (1832) and E minor (1848) published here provide revealing aids - two glowing, dramatic works by a sanguine temperament who took audible pleasure in forcing his ideas into classical forms and rejoicing in the fact that they audibly touched the boundaries.