Hiller: Piano Concertos 1-3

Brilliant

This entry in Howard Shelley's investigation of the 19th Century piano concerto is one of the highlights of the series. These works by Ferdinand Hiller provide absorbing listening. The first concerto is an early work, with lots of shimmering moments in the fluid piano part. The last movement is especially fetching. The 2nd and 3rd concertos are more intense creations, with a fully involved orchestral part matching the dramatic explorations of the soloist. The 3rd seems influenced by Schumann, especially the more ambiguous later works. This might seem unusual in a piece premiered in 1874, but Hiller was a musical conservative, and he certainly was true to his muse in this concerto. The performances are marvelous. Howard Shelley always plays with fluency, but also with passion when required. Just as sheer piano pyrotechnics, this is a superb album. The orchestra plays well, and how Shelley manages to keep them together with him despite all the difficult piano writing is a mystery to me. The sound engineering, by the former Chandos producer Ben Connellan, is excellent. If, like me, you are collecting Howard Shelley's discs on Hyperion, this will be an essential purchase. August 26, 2008

Beautiful piece

Thanks to Hyperion bringing us another great piece of piano concerto works. If you collect piano concertos, this is a must have! July 22, 2008

Hiller Concertos

Alnaes/Sinding, Melcer Concertos and now the Hiller Concertos. All superior. The Hiller concertos are great, especially the number 2. A good buy. Don't pass it up if you like this series. June 29, 2008

A Beautiful CD from Howard Shelley

Ferdinand Hiller was a talented musician who began as a child prodigy making his concert debut at age 10. He was a pupil of Hummel and teacher to Max Bruch and Engelbert Humperdinck, and a close friend of Chopin and Liszt. Hiller was a renown performed and conductor, founding an orchestra and music festival while Kapellmeister in Cologne. He was conservative in his approach to music and was an authority on Bach Mozart and Beethoven. Yet within 20 years of his death in 1885 Hiller had been forgotten and remains so up to today.

The three piano concerti that Hiller wrote come from various periods of his career. The First Concerto (1829 - 31) was written during his time in Paris and is dedicated to Moscelles. The concerto has a brilliant piano part written to show off Hiller's keyboard brilliance and shows the influence of Chopin. The orchestral parts are nicely written but the piano is the instrument that really shines. The Second Concerto (1843) is much more dramatic with the piano opening the work with an energetic passage before the orchestra joins. The movement is very engaging with the soloist and orchestra engaging is a spirited dialogue and carried into the slow movement without pause. The slow movement is an eloquent showpiece for the soloist and the finale is an exuberant movement beginning with a dance-like melody paired with a lyrical second subject with plenty of fireworks for the soloist.

The Third Concerto is a late work (1874 - 75) and carries the subtitle "Concerto espressivo." The first movement finds the soloist and orchestra about equally involved in the development of the music: the orchestra introduces the first theme and the soloist the second. The music alternates between the exuberant and lyrical themes. The slow movement also has much more interaction between soloist and orchestra in the development of the music, and the piano has some magnificent unaccompanied passages. The orchestra sets off the finale followed by the soloist but the piano does not have long brilliant flourishes and interacts more with the orchestra introducing themes that are developed by both. The Third Concerto was presumed in the 1920's to be lost until the score and parts were found.

This set of piano concerti is very engaging and beautifully performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra with Howard Shelly directing and as soloist. Mr. Shelley has been making an impressive reputation for the Tasmanians and this is yet another fine example.
June 19, 2008

Arguably the best volume of a single composer in the series

I have never held a very high regard or was very fond of the piano concertos by the three great Romantics - namely Schumann, Liszt and Chopin. While their genius and originality shone indelibly through their solo masterworks, somehow their works for their chosen instrument with the orchestra always seem to leave something more to be desired.

Since hearing concertos by their older contemporaries like Ignaz Moscheles (who was never given to frivolity and mere showmanship), my view was somewhat reinforced. The three piano concertos of Ferdinand Hiller served only to augment that opinion.

It is ironic that Hiller, up to the point of this volume's release, was known (do any search online) only vis-a-vis Schumann's piano concerto as its dedicatee. What a shame!

For what reasons the highly attractive and effective Concerto in f minor, Op. 5 was not recorded and commercially released hitherto I cannot fathom. It has the makings of all that is imaginative and desirable as an example par excellence of an Early Romantic Concerto (c. 1830). In the introduction, the trombones majestically announce a motif not unlike the "fate" of Beethoven's Fifth symphony; yet the mood is not one of despair or anguish, but one of ebullience, an early example of a mood characterization that moves away from the classical "sturm and drang" treatment of minor keys. Schumann's acute observation that Hiller's music was never given to fluff unlike contemporaries like Herz or Thalberg is well-founded even in this early concerto. Written as a vehicle for his piano technique, all its displays are carefully subsumed under a cohesive and engaging musical structure. Hiller's affinity for Beethoven (being present at his deathbed with his teacher Hummel) is further evident in the ethereal second movement, where the "question and answer" mode uncannily reminds one of the second movement of Beethoven's own Fourth piano concerto that depicts a dialogue between Orpheus and the Furies.

The second concerto had been recorded years back by Michael Ponti, who had done the honour of letting listeners re-discover neglected piano concerto masterpieces of composers unjustly forgotten by music's historical discourse. The most passionate of the three that fits well into the genre of mid-Romanticism, it is little surprise why listeners accustomed to full-blown Romanticism became most familiar with the work. Hiller's genius and gift for melody and harmonic modulation shines through and through in this piece, expecially so in the slow movement. The third movement ends the work in a capriciously good mood.

The third concerto is altogether quite different from its predecessors, showing how inventive a composer Hiller could be. The opening of the first movement is imbued with a warm lyricism and yearning of spring not unlike Bartok's own third concerto (I would not be surprised if the composer was himself acquainted with the piece before writing his own). The woodwinds announce a question that seem to beckon the piano's entry as the harbinger of spring. After some figurations that seem to mimic the sounds of birds in spring, the piano then states the lyrical theme first announced by the strings in the first few bars. The theme undergoes some variations in a clever interplay between the orchestra and the piano, demonstrating in the process the composer's maturity in the treatment of the form since his First concerto. The second movement offers a contrast in mood from the first with the woodwinds announcing a mystical theme that seems to hark back to more ancient times, a melody reminiscent of Rachmaninov's piano solo theme in his Third piano concerto as well as his favourite Russian "Dies Irae" motif). Trills rapture in the middle of the movement, uncovering the undulating emotions beneath. The mystical theme recapitulates with a brief mouvement perpetuel left hand accompaniment in chromaticism that again, looks forward to Rachmaninov. The third movement ensues in high spirits with some very unique piano figurations that again like in the first movement, resemble the call of birds. Hiller builds up the feeling of victory effectively, letting up in moments only as a way to diffuse the tension and to build a bigger climax at the very end.

Howard Shelley mesmerizes his audience once again as the impeccable and irreproachable champion of neglected Romantic piano concerti masterworks.

Arguably the best volume of a single composer in the series. June 11, 2008

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