Ries: Piano Concertos Nos 8 & 9
Piers Lane (piano), The Orchestra Now, Leon Botstein (conductor)
CDA68217
Ferdinand Ries may once have been celebrated as ‘one of the finest piano-performers of the present day’ (the 1820s), but he is now remembered chiefly for his association with Beethoven. Yet the music here is never slavishly imitative: Piers Lane makes a persuasive case for rescuing these works from the pages of musical history.