While actual numbers are arbitrary at best—given the wide disconnect between known dates of composition and publication—the present notes seem fairly certain that the work in A minor heard here is Ries’s Seventh Concerto and dates from 1823, the year before he left London. It bears the titleAbschieds-Concert von England (Farewell to England) and clearly shows that Ries at 39 was at the height of his creative powers. It’s clear from the grandeur and brilliance of this noble gesture that Ries wanted to give his adoring public something to remember him by.
Unlike Ries’s other piano concertos, this one opens with a slow introduction, soon cast aside in favor of a confident forward stride centering around a sturdy dotted rhythm (first heard in the horns) that at once commands full attention. This rugged, yet remarkably resilient and expansive opening demands much from the orchestra as well as the soloist and sets up a satisfying give-and-take that unfolds in truly magisterial fashion, capped by a massive cadenza that surely must have held the audience transfixed. But the true centerpiece of the concerto is the Larghetto. The notes aptly tell us it “has a Beethovenian nobility about it”. The driving energy of the rondo finale is draining for listener and players alike; a bit more impish humor would not be amiss.
If the more ephemeral, yet no less extroverted display common to the two sets of variations was intended to entertain Ries’s London audiences, they’re impeccably crafted and highly colored all the same; and they certainly don’t deserve to be dismissed by Colonial pianists merely because they make use of British themes. The Variations on the brightly tripping tune ‘Soldier, Soldier, Will you Marry me?’—unlike the finale of the concerto—has humor to spare even at a bracing clip; though as you might imagine the Liverpool players respond even more enthusiastically to Ries’s inventive and fanciful reimagining of ‘Rule Britannia’, with the full support of the yeoman horns.
Sound is spacious and detailed, and as we reach the halfway point in Christopher Hinterhuber’s survey of the Ries piano concertos we may look ahead with renewed anticipation. You can find scores and parts at www.artaria.com.
Steven J Haller, American Record Guide, July 2009