CARL FRIEDRICH ABEL (1723–1787)

Mr Abel’s Fine Airs

Music for solo viola da gamba

 

1 Adagio WKO189 [1'57]

2 Vivace WKO190 [4'46]

3 [Allegro] WKO192 [4'27]

4 Tempo minuetto WKO154 [2'59]

5 Adagio WKO209 [3'36]

6 [Arpeggio] WKO205 [2'48]

7 [Tempo di menuet con variazioni] WKO203 & WKO204 [3'40]

8 [Moderato] WKO208 [5'47]

9 [Adagio] WKO187 [4'18]

10 Fuga WKO196 [2'28]

Sonata in G major Viola da Gamba Solo senzza Basso [7'48]

11 Adagio WKO155 NO 1 [2'03] 12 Allegro WKO155 NO 2 [2'49]

13 Tempo di menuet WKO153 [1'29] 14 Adagio [NOT IN WKO] [1'25]

15 Allegro WKO198 [3'59]

16 Tempo di menuet WKO202 [3'29]

17 Andante WKO191 [4'20]

18 [Arpeggio] WKO194 [2'32]

19 Allegro WKO207 [3'52]

20 Tempo di menuet WKO188 [1'31]

21 [Andante] WKO199 [2'26]

22 [Allegro] WKO195 [3'00]

23 Allegretto WKO211 [6'20]

24 Allegro WKO212 [1'32]

 

Susanne Heinrich - viola da gamba

 

Carl Friedrich Abel (1723–1787) was a contemporary of J C Bach, and a fashionable performer and promoter in London in the eighteenth century. By that time the viola da gamba was a rarity, but Abel’s performances sparked a revival of interest among performers and audiences. The works recorded on this disc (six of which have never been previously recorded) can be seen as musical expositions of sensibility, inhabiting the same tragic world as the gamba solos in J S Bach’s Passions. Abel’s contemporary Charles Burney commented on the musician’s ability to ‘breathe’ the notes as he played them, and this extraordinary sensitivity is present too in the beautiful playing of Susanne Heinrich.

 

Hyperion CDA67628