The German composer Ferdinand Hiller (1811-1885) was a witness to history: a student of Hummel (with whom he visited Beethoven on his deathbed and heard Schubert accompany Johann Michael Vogl in Winterreise); a close friend of Mendelssohn; an assistant to Wagner (staging Tannhäuser in Dresden); and the teacher of Max Bruch. Hiller is best known today as the dedicatee of Schumann’s Piano Concerto and Chopin’s Op. 15 Nocturnes rather than for his large and mostly forgotten compositional output. Yet the tides have turned somewhat. Hyperion recorded his three Piano Concertos for its Romantic Piano Concerto series, and now Alexandra Oehler offers a recital of his solo piano works.
A fervent temperament and genuine creative impulse governs Hiller’s musical language and keyboard idiom, which owes a lot to Mendelssohn’s melodic charm and Schumann’s dramatic contrasts. A good example of this can be found in the second of the Op. 81 Vermischte Klavierstücke, which might be described as one of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke grafted on to a Mendelssohn Song Without Words. The same analogy befits the Second sonata’s opening theme. Its sunny tunefulness is pure Mendelssohn, yet the octave doublings and volatile dynamics are nothing if not Schumannesque.
Unpredictable rhythmic patterns, sudden silences, and surprising harmonic twists lend considerable interest to the impassioned and imaginative three-movement Third sonata in G minor, while the gentler, wispy Ghasel Op. 130 No. 5 is not quite so “salon-ish” as it appears on its surface. If only the performances were more consistent.
To be fair, the dry and tubby ambience underlines the drab, heavy impression that Oehler’s pianism often conveys. For example, livlier tempos and more incisive chord playing would help unleash the pent-up fury in the Third sonata’s Allegro energico e con fuoco finale. The Schubertian Idylle Op. 130 No. 2 is well played but needs more charm and delicacy. Conversely, Oehler’s energetic treatment of the Second sonata finale’s rapid alternating-hands passages and shapely legato phrasing and her sensitive inflections in the Ballade Op. 130 No. 1 are on par with her excellent (and far better engineered) CPO Ignaz Brüll solo release and her earlier Ars Musici disc devoted to Eugen D’Albert’s compositions. This disc could have–indeed, should have–been better.
