A Vindication of Ferdinand Hiller

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe personal attacks made against Ferdinand Hiller, director of the Cologne conservatory from 1850 to 1884, by members of the circle surrounding Franz Liszt need to be reexamined in the light of anti-Semitism in nineteenth-century music. Hiller’s review of the Aachen music festival (1857) includes a report on Liszt’s conducting that is partly—but not exclusively—critical, corresponding to other reviews about the pianist’s conducting on this and other occasions. Because of this criticism, Hiller’s review was the subject of false accusations that became the pretext for defamatory attacks, made particularly by Liszt followers Hans von Bülow and Hans von Bronsart. Hiller eventually won a libel lawsuit against Otto Lessmann, who had to print a retraction in the Allgemeine deutsche Musik-Zeitung (Berlin). Nevertheless, Lina Ramann’s 1894 biography of Liszt repeats an embellished version of the libelous charge, which has—unfortunately—become the basis of our modern perception of Hiller’s character.