Joseph Victor Marie Ryelandt (1870-1965)
Piano Sonatas I
Piano Sonata No.3 in F Major Op.50 (1911)
Piano Sonata No.5 in B Flat Major Op.58 (1915/1923)
Piano Sonata No.6 in A Minor Op.61 (1915)
Piano Sonata No.8 in G Major Op.76 (1920)
Adagio et Moderato Op.101 from Sonate inachevée No.9 (1930)
Josef de Beenhouwer (piano)
rec. 2022, Blauwe Zaal deSingel, Antwerp, Belgium
Antarctica Records AR066 [75]
Belgian composer Joseph Ryelandt was born into a wealthy family in neo-Gothic Bruges, a city for which he had a lifelong affection. He studied philosophy and law; his only serious musical training was through private tuition with Edgar Tinel (1854-1912) who had been a pupil of Louis Brassin and François Auguste Gevaert. Being independently wealthy meant Ryelandt could devote himself to composition and despite the lack of any conservatory study he became director of the Bruges Conservatory in 1924 and taught at the Ghent Royal Conservatoire until 1939. His output includes five extant symphonies, many sacred choral works, chamber music and, since Ryelandt was a gifted pianist, a good deal of piano music including twelve Sonatas – thirteen if the sonata in E minor of 1894 still exists. Ryelandt did have some measure of success but it was with his sacred choral music, the five oratorios, masses and cantatas rather than the symphonic and instrumental music in his large output. As a deeply religious individual who considered making music and, above all, beautiful music with personality to be an almost spiritual duty he was content with the act of composing itself; as he wrote I have not been a useless servant of art. I have done what I could. The future will decide if anything of this work will survive me to the greater glory of God.
The music here is all staunchly romantic; hints of Fauré can be found in the later works but as the booklet observes he let modernity pass him by. This could go some way toward explaining his neglect outside his homeland. Four of the symphonies and some vocal music have been recorded and Beenhouwer himself recorded three of the sonatas, nos 2, 4 and 7 with some other piano works back in 1986 for the Gaily label (CD87001) but this is not exactly easy to track down. He now returns to this music to bring us the first volume of the complete sonatas, most of which apparently remain in manuscript including four of the five on this disc; only the third sonata that opens this recital appears to have been published. It has four movements that have thematic links, especially the flowing opening melody, quite barcarolle like though the booklet likens it to a folk melody. This infuses the whole movement and continues into the second movement allegretto, hesitantly at first but growing in confidence with each iteration growing more assertive though the agitated result of its third appearance is brief and the movement has a subdued ending. A new motif appears in the adagio and decides to show itself in seemingly every bar though Ryelandt is skilled enough to mould its accompanying figures so that there is no sense of boredom in its repetition. The finale brings a bright optimism that has been otherwise missing with its conversion of the slow movement’s theme into a jolly dance and its grand triumphant close.
Ryelandt began his fifth sonata in the early months of the first World War but difficulties with the final movement – he wrote I have started the finale from scratch several times – meant that it was 1923 before it was completed. The first eight bars provide all the material for the first movement, a rolling chordal figure and a two bar theme first played simply, unaccompanied in single notes. Ryelandt weaves these into a rather attractive whole. The adagio opens in elegiac mood, something like a choral prelude and though the central section moves to the major key the mood remains reflective even in its most fervent moments. The finale that caused Ryelandt so much trouble opens with a fanfare like repeated chord motif that goes on to accompany the themes that appear along the way. The themes from the first movement rise out of these chord patterns to bring the sonata to a close, neatly tying the sonata together.
The sixth sonata appears to have given the composer a lot less trouble as although he began it in November 1915, just a couple of months after he started the fifth, it was completed by before Christmas of that year. The opening is part declamatory and part cadenza which gives way to dramatic writing that is both more flamboyant than anything we have heard yet and has more contrast of moods within a single movement. The short andante has the feel of a nostalgic and delicate folk song that reappears at the end of the flowing and pastoral finale to bring it to a rather sad close.
Beenhouwer bypasses the seventh sonata to play the eighth which once again proved difficult for Ryelandt though this time it was because he really wanted to be working on his oratorio Christus Rex. That work was completed in 1922 and was the piece that Ryelandt considered his masterpiece; the eighth sonata meanwhile was finished in the early months of 1920. He described is as a very simple sonata and there is an element of classical writing though one repeating harmonic turn takes me straight to Grieg’s Morning and this is where I first hear the influence of Fauré in his tonality. This tonality is pushed as far as we have so far heard in the andantino with its curiously exploratory melody and rather obsessive accompaniment though Ryelandt really only skirts the edges of chromatic harmony. A rather novel fluttering section, a flighty scherzino, interrupts before the opening returns. The finale is a breezy affair, a sweeping concert waltz, full of delicate arabesques that would make a welcome encore piece in its own right. The ninth sonata is a huge contrast to its predecessor and it mirrored Ryelandt’s difficulty over the fifth; he completed the first two movements then struggled with the finale, even discarding a completed one as unsuitable. In the end he reversed the order of the two movements he had finished and decided to call it his unfinished sonata. The adagio is rather sombre with a melody that just keeps on going, slowly pulling the almost contrapuntal writing inexorably up the keyboard. The harmony has a strong modal element that brings some dissonance along the way, colouring some of the more tragic turns of phrase rather than being a feature of the movement. The lighter natured allegro moderato seems to be another contrapuntal work though the polyphonic style comes and goes, seamlessly becoming a flowing accompaniment to a Fauré-like song without words.
Beenhouwer is a wonderful advocate for this music and after listening through this disc a couple of times I found myself looking forward to hearing future volumes. Ryelandt does not seek to startle and was happy to place his sure feet on paths that had already been laid down but in its quiet way this is music with heart.
Rob Challinor
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