Ries: Piano Sonatas and Sonatinas, Vol. 5

Featuring

Susan Kagan
Ferdinand Ries

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Composer Biography

Ferdinand Ries studied piano with Beethoven in Vienna around 1803 and also took composition lessons with the noted theorist-composer Johann Albrechtsberger.

Composer Biography

Ferdinand Ries, the composer, was a family friend, piano pupil, and early biographer of Ludwig van Beethoven, having known him since childhood in Bonn.

Performer Biography

Susan Kagan, the pianist on this recording, is an author and educator who holds a Ph.D. and has recorded multiple CDs, including one featuring music by Beethoven and his pupils.

Critical Reception

During his lifetime, Ferdinand Ries's music was widely published and known to the public, despite being overshadowed by Beethoven's presence.

Compositional Technique

Ferdinand Ries's piano sonatas anticipate the styles of early Romantic composers like Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Chopin, who were not yet born or still very young children when Ries was at his peak.

Compositional Technique

Ferdinand Ries's style includes dramatic dynamic contrasts, abrupt changes in tempo and mood, harmonic shifts, and radical use of the sustaining pedal to blur harmonies, many of which became hallmarks of Romanticism.