Ferdinand Ries – who’s that? The concertos of this composer, largely forgotten today, were among the most popular works of the 19th century! Boundless ideas, deep spiritualism and Beethovenesque effects are the defining characteristics of Ries’s Third Piano Concerto, composed in 1812 in Russia. Music as force of nature: a highly virtuosic work that demands an adventurous soloist such as the Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu. Nature remains in the foreground as the Tonkunstler Orchestra and conductor Ruth Reinhardt take on the Overture to Jacques Offenbach’s «Rheinfeen» and the bracing stroll through the Bohemian countryside that is Antonin Dvořák’s Fifth Symphony in F major.