Ferdinand

It is usually the big nineteenth-century opera sets that are bought for their singers; but with a line-up of principals such as we have here Handel too is swept into the golden net. Lucia Popp, two years into her career after her Vienna debut, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Walter Berry: that is a quartet which in its time may have seemed no more than standard stuff, but at this date looks starry indeed. […] The Orfeo, for one thing, is sung in German instead of Italian; it has cuts, though many fewer than the Mackerras recording in English with Dame Janet Baker; it has the solo voices recorded very close indeed (those that are supposedly off-stage are just about where many modern recordings would have them except when off-stage); and the orchestra sounds, to our re-trained ears, big and thick, with the heavy bass-line that used to seem as proper to Handel as gravy from the roast was to Yorkshire pudding.

Die zweite Folge unserer Quartett-Einspielung mit dem Schuppanzigh-Quartett präsentiert ausgewählte Werke von Ries, die die große Bedeutung des Komponisten unterstreichen! Ries zeigt sich erneut als Meister und im Nachhinein als wegweisender Komponist, dessen Entdeckung sich lohnt. Zeit seines Lebens hat sich der Beethoven-Schüler Ries mit der Kompositionen von Streichquartetten beschäftigt, aber erst 1816 trat er mit seinem drei Werke umfassenden op. 70 erstmals an die Öffentlichkeit, wovon das hier eingespielte Quartett op. 70, 2 das am stärksten an der Tradition orientierte in klassizistisch-heiterem Tonfall ist.

Eine weitere ausgewählte Kammermusik von Ries, die dem Komponisten wieder eine neue Bewertung seitens cpo sichert! Jetzt starten wir eine Edition mit seinen Streichquartetten – eine Gattung, die im Werk von Ries eine einzigartige Stellung einnimmt. Er komponierte 26 Quartette, von denen er allerdings nur elf drucken ließ, die übrigen 15 blieben ungedruckt, wobei die beiden jetzt eingespielten Quartette zu den ungedruckten gehören. Das ältere WoO 10 entstand gegen Ende von Ries' Wiener Lehrzeit bei Beethoven, jedoch sind in der Komposition keine Einflüsse von Beethoven mehr spürbar, das zweite Quartettt WoO 37 entstand 1827, im ersten Jahr seines Frankfurter Aufenthaltes, es ist das drittletzte seiner Quartette.

Beethoven’s gifted pupil Ferdinand Ries was never entirely forgotten, but it is only in recent years that CPO and Hermann Max have dedicated themselves with great success to the rediscovery of this spirited late classicist and romanticist. Ries’ oratorio Der Sieg des Glaubens (The Triumph of Faith), is heard here for the first time since 1829 where is was written in response to a commission for the Lower Rhine Music Festival in Aachen. The work develops a philosophical discourse dealing with the power of faith and the grace of God.

If the number of compositions written for a specific instrument is any indication of a predilection, then Ferdinand Ries did indeed have a soft place in his heart for the flute. He penned no fewer than six quartets for flute and string trio, a quintet for flute, violin, two violas, and violoncello, a trio for piano, flute and violoncello, and many works for flute and piano - more works than for any other wind instrument. His first Flute Quartet presents itself as a grand, imposing quartet in the affirmative key of C major and contains many surprising elements. Here too, as already in his symphonies and string quartets, Ries proves to be an entirely independent and original composer - despite his close association with Beethoven.

It is our good fortune that Ferdinand Ries bequeathed to posterity six remarkably beautiful Quartets for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Violoncello. These compositions sparkle like gems in the early Romantic chamber literature including the flute. On the present release, Vol. 2 of our complete recording, his Quartets in G major WoO 35, 2 and E minor op. 145, 2 as well as his remarkable String Trio in E minor WoO 70, 2 are heard. On the one hand, conventional elements verging on practically Baroque sequential processes stand out in the trio. On the other hand, here we also find innovative musical surprises and full-fledged, motivically organized development sections, above all in the fourth movement.

This is a rather exuberant collection of cello sonatas by Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838), a student of Beethoven and, along with Beethoven, an innovator of the cello/piano sonata form. Neither Mozart nor Haydn composed cello sonatas; for their more intimate music they preferred the trio or even the string quartet where, in either case, the cello's role always remains submerged. Ries gave the cello a greater and more melodic role (which he learned from Beethoven), and the genre is all the more enriched because of it. But you won't hear Beethoven in any of Ries' works.