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.

The first time I put this disc in my player, I wasn’t in the mood. I tried again a few days later and was absolutely entranced. Carl Friedrich Abel was a pupil of Bach’s and the influence shows, but the younger composer’s own breadth of invention is breathtaking. As are the dark, velvety colours that viola da gamba player Susanne Heinrich finds in his long lines. A really special album, this. - Gramophone Magazine

“Susanne Heinrich rises ably to the challenge of understanding this 18th-century Jekyll-and-Hyde figure, heightening to fine effect the music's light and shade, energy and indolence. Her readings are effortlessly poised and imbued with an almost vocal lyricism...” BBC Music Magazine, February 2008 ****

“Heinrich brings… exactly the right blend of emotional involvement and earnest good taste, and find pleasing resonance and smoothness in her instrument… An unsuspected and atmospheric gem…” Gramophone Magazine, Janurary 2008

Gramophone Awards 2008