A History of the Ferdinand Ries Society

2008	Founding in Bonn and launch of the society’s website.
2009	Unveiling of a commemorative plaque at the Ries House in Kurfürstenallee in Bad Godesberg. Concert marking the 225th anniversary of Ferdinand Ries’s birth in the Chamber Music Hall of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, presenting Anton Steck and the Schuppanzigh Quartet.
2010	Organisation of the Great Ries Concert in the auditorium of the University of Bonn – a revival of the concert given by Franz Anton Ries and his son Ferdinand Ries in Bonn on 15 December 1810. Featuring Anton Steck (violin) and Tom Beghin (piano) with the Munich Baroque Orchestra L’arpa festante, and presented by Konrad Beikircher.
2011	Publication of the 1st issue of the RIES JOURNAL, highlighting an important autobiographical letter by Ferdinand Ries dated 1830, which had been considered lost since the Second World War (author: Barbara Mülhens-Molderings).
2012	Publication of a new collector’s edition of the Biographical Notes on Ludwig van Beethoven by Ferdinand Ries and Franz Gerhard Wegeler, in collaboration with the Julius Wegeler Family Foundation and the Rhineland Regional Council. Chamber music concert Ferdinand Ries – Beethoven’s only pupil on 1 October at La Redoute in Bad Godesberg, performed by Sabine Kessel and the Ensemble van Beethoven. Subsequently repeated, with the support of the Ferdinand Ries Society, as part of the ‘Klassik in der Scheune’ series at the Klosterscheune in Heisterbach Publication of the 2nd RIES JOURNAL on the subject of ‘Ferdinand Ries and the Lower Rhine Music Festivals’ and an overview of 27 unpublished letters from Ries to the Bureau de Musique in Leipzig (authors: Klaus W. Niemöller, Axel Beer)
2014	Publication of the 3rd RIES JOURNAL on the musicians’ relief at the Heumarkt monument in Cologne (Authors: Klaus Wolfgang Niemöller, Barbara Mülhens-Molderings)

2015	A joint concert with the Beethoven Haus Bonn, featuring works by Beethoven and Ries, on 22 November in the Chamber Music Hall of the Beethoven-Haus – a highlight: Beethoven’s Sinfonia Eroica arranged for piano quartet by Ferdinand Ries, performed by the van Swieten Society from the Netherlands.
2016	Publication of the 4th RIES JOURNAL, for the first time in German and English, in which Anders Gabriel Sundström, a Swedish pianist and musicologist, provides a detailed account of Ferdinand Ries’s concert tour of Scandinavia and Russia between 1811 and 1813.
2017	A new edition of the collector’s edition of the Biographical Notes on Ludwig van Beethoven, in collaboration with the Julius Wegeler Family Foundation.
2018	Concert: An afternoon with Franz Gerhard Wegeler and Ferdinand Ries in words and music – introducing pianist Knut Hanßen. A joint event organised by the Beethoven-Haus Bonn and the Bonner Lese- und Erholungsgesellschaft to mark the 180th anniversary of Ferdinand Ries’s death on 13 January 2018. Publication of the 5th RIES JOURNAL, dedicated to the life and work of the Viennese piano maker Joseph Franz Ries, the younger brother of Ferdinand Ries. (Authors: Sabine K. Klaus, Rita Steblin). Concert to mark the 10th anniversary of the Ferdinand Ries Society on 8 November in the Chamber Music Hall of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, as part of an academic conference on ‘Beethoven and Rossini’ and the two composers Ferdinand Ries and Archduke Rudolph, who were part of Beethoven’s inner circle.
2020	Publication of the 6th RIES JOURNAL, in which Ingrid Fuchs, Deputy Director of the Archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, presents for the first time fourteen previously unpublished letters by Ferdinand Ries from the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde’s collection in Vienna.
2021	The “Ferdinand Ries Prize” is established and awarded to the Egmont Trio in connection with the international competition “Beethoven in his Time – Historical Performance Practice”, held from 15 to 18 October 2020 in Siegburg (as part of BTHVN 2020). Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the competition and the award ceremony were postponed into 2021.

2023	Beethoven & Ries – New Year’s Concert organised by the Ferdinand Ries Society in collaboration with the Lese- und Erholungsgesellschaft Bonn on 8 January 2023 in Bonn. The performers were the Egmont Trio, winners of the Ferdinand Ries Prize. Publication of the 7th RIES JOURNAL, in which musicologist Philipp Leibbrandt offers a fresh perspective on Ferdinand Ries’s chamber music.
2024	Birthday concert in honour of two famous Bonn natives: „Ferdinand Ries and Peter Joseph Lenné“ on 11 October 2024 at the former Electoral Theatre in Bad Godesberg, featuring the Yaron Quartet.

Bildquellen:

1. The music Relief on the Northern side of the monument for Friedrich Wilhelm III. In Colognes Haymarket at the end of the 19th century, Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.
2. The CD of Trio Egmont, the prize winners.
3. Concert at the former Electoral Theatre in Bad Godesberg, private collection.