Ferdinand Ries was a confidant of Beethoven and a composer and pianist who followed him rather slavishly. Well known during his lifetime, he was gradually forgotten after his death. This isn't hard to understand, for his works are on balance imitative; other composers of the era understood Beethoven's example better by either avoiding it (Schubert) or trying to match its extremity (Mendelssohn, in the Symphony No. 2). Yet the revival of Ries' works helps modern listeners understand how Beethoven's contemporaries heard his ...
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Ferdinand Ries was a confidant of Beethoven and a composer and pianist who followed him rather slavishly. Well known during his lifetime, he was gradually forgotten after his death. This isn't hard to understand, for his works are on balance imitative; other composers of the era understood Beethoven's example better by either avoiding it (Schubert) or trying to match its extremity (Mendelssohn, in the Symphony No. 2). Yet the revival of Ries' works helps modern listeners understand how Beethoven's contemporaries heard his music. This disc, part of a series on the Naxos label devoted to Ries' piano concertos, contains a pair of works that gives a good impression of his music. The Piano Concerto in C minor, Op. 115, is a warmed-over version of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37. More interesting for general listeners is the Concerto Pastoral in D major, Op. 120, whose first movement mashes up the conventions used by Beethoven in the Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, "Pastoral," with a...
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Add this copy of Hinterhuber/Bourn So/Grodd-Ries: Piano Concertos Vol.4 to cart. $58.93, new condition, Sold by Griffin Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Stamford, CT, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Naxos.
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