Ferdinand Ries may still be known almost exclusively to the musical world as Beethoven’s friend, pupil, secretary and first biographer, but Brilliant Classics have done...

Ferdinand Ries may still be known almost exclusively to the musical world as Beethoven’s friend, pupil, secretary and first biographer, but Brilliant Classics have done much to broaden our understanding of this significant figure in the Vienna of the early 19th century with albums of his own compositions, notably his sonatas for violin, cello and flute and his Piano Quintet.

The Op. 28 Clarinet Trio is one of Ries’s best-known pieces, as well it might be for the mellifluous appeal of its writing for all three instruments. The two sonatas for clarinet and piano are much more Romantic-sounding, atmospherically evocative and forward-looking pieces. The Op. 29 work begins with a passionately pleading slow introduction, which segues masterfully into a main Allegro of positively Schubertian vitality. After a brief but deeply felt slow movement, the finale mirrors the first movement’s form and intensifies the tempestuous, troubled expression of the sonata as a whole. The E flat major Sonata Op. 129 is all sunshine compared to Op. 29’s storm and thunder: a delight from start to finish, inflected by the kind of Italianate drama and cantabile that began to make its mark on German and Austrian composers in the 1810s and 20s,

As one of Belgium’s foremost clarinettists, Vlad Weverbergh has his own big band and klezmer group, but he is also a member of I Solisti del Vento, the wind ensemble uniting the finest Belgian wind players. He has made a specialty of reviving, performing, and recording lesser-known treasures of the clarinet repertoire, as well as collecting and playing instruments from the rich history of the clarinet, such as the unusual clarinetto d’amore which he uses on this recording.