No less an authority than Robert Schumann praised Beethoven’s close friend and protégé Ferdinand Ries for his ‘remarkable originality’. More recently, pianist Susan Kagan, intrigued by Ries’s Op. 1 piano sonatas went on to record all 14 of his solo piano sonatas and sonatinas, gaining critical acclaim for her eloquent advocacy of these unfairly neglected yet often substantial works. Bridging the divide between the Classical style of Haydn and Mozart and the Romantic impulses of Schubert, Chopin and Mendelssohn, with a healthy dose of Beethoven often in evidence, Ries repays today’s listener’s attention with musical drama, fluent virtuosity and poignant lyrical charm.
