Ferdinand Ries: Die Könige in Israel (Oratorio)

At the age of eighteen Ferdinand Ries traveled to Vienna to study with Ludwig van Beethoven. On his arrival Beethoven was putting the finishing touches on the oratorio Christus am Oelberge, and so the first services rendered by Ries to his teacher for the free instruction he received from him involved the copying out of the parts for the oratorio and the preparations for its premiere. Ries spent four years in Vienna, and his »oratorio assistantship« left a permanent impression on him. Although he did not himself turn to this genre until quite late in his life, the two most important works of his old age were oratorios. He composed the first, Sieg des Glaubens, in 1829 as a commissioned work for the Music Festival of Lower Saxony in Aachen. Since 1825 he had served as guest conductor and director of this music festival held at Pentecost in Aachen, Düsseldorf, or Cologne. After Mendelssohn had scored a major triumph with his Paulus composed for the 1836 festival, Ries once again was called on to write the festival oratorio. As he reported to a friend, he was writing »a new oratorio, about the length of Beethoven’s « Die Koenige in Israel (The Kings in Israel) was a great success – and rightly so, with its magnificent choruses, dramatic arias, and finely crafted ensembles.

The sonorous orchestrations – often with rich brass and woodwind, and even two harps I the penultimate number – are superbly played, and the chorus relish music that varies from David’s heroic warriors to the bragging Philistines. CPO has produced a high-quality recording of a fascinating work. — Gramophone Magazine, September 2008