Mr Abel’s Fine Airs: Music for solo viola da gamba

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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... — BBC Music Magazine, February 2008, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 1st Oct 2007
Catalogue No: CDA67628
Label: Hyperion
Length: 77 minutes

Gramophone Awards

2008

Finalist - Baroque Instrumental
Gramophone Magazine

January 2008

Editor's Choice
Gramophone Awards

2008

Editor's Choice

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Abel, C F: Adagio WKO189

Work length1:57

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Vivace WKO190

Work length4:46

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: [Allegro], WKO192

Work length4:27

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Tempo minuetto WKO154

Work length2:59

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Adagio WKO209

Work length3:36

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: [Arpeggio] WKO205

Work length2:48

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: [Tempo di menuet con variazioni] WKO203 & WKO204

Work length3:40

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: [Moderato] WKO208

Work length5:47

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: [Adagio] WKO187

Work length4:18

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Fuga WKO196

Work length2:28

$1.10

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Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Sonata in G major

Work length7:46

$4.40

$6.00

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

I. Adagio, WKO155 No 1

Track length2:03

$1.10

$1.50

II. Allegro, WKO155 No 2

Track length2:49

$1.10

$1.50

III. Tempo di menuet, WKO153

Track length1:29

$1.10

$1.50

IV. Adagio

Track length1:25

$1.10

$1.50

Abel, C F: Allegro WKO198

Work length3:59

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Tempo di menuet WKO202

Work length3:29

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Andante WKO191

Work length4:20

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: [Arpeggio] WKO194

Work length2:32

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Allegro WKO207

Work length3:52

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Tempo di menuet WKO188

Work length1:31

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: [Andante] WKO199

Work length2:26

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: [Allegro] WKO195

Work length3:00

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Allegretto WKO211

Work length6:20

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

Abel, C F: Allegro WKO212

Work length1:32

$1.10

$1.50

Susanne Heinrich (viola da gamba)

About
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About

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.

Reviews

February 2008

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...

5th October 2007

Abel’s pieces are reminiscent of J S Bach’s solo cello suites, so if you like them then you’ll like these...Sensibility, or the practise of articulating direct and strong emotions, was all the rage in the arts world at the time, and Suzanne Heinrich beautifully draws this out of Abel’s writing.

2010

Carl Friedrich Abel is usually thought of as a genial symphonist much in the mould of his London concert-promoting business partner JC Bach, but this delightful release shows that anyone considering on that basis not to delve further into Abel's output is missing not only an important side of the man, but indeed his very core. Abel was one of the last masters of the viola da gamba, and in these unaccompanied pieces he reveals an intimate art which instantly makes sense of the affection and reverence in which he was held by his friends, they being the ones who got to hear him improvising at home in front of the fire and left touching accounts of his power to stir their emotions. 'He was the Sterne of music' is how one described him, which is saying something.
Susanne Heinrich has chosen 24 solo gamba pieces from the 30 contained in a manuscript in the New York Public Library which surely represent the kind of music Abel played in those domestic musical occasions. Unencumbered by showy virtuosity, they are never less than supremely elegant, yet at their best exhibit profound sentiment in the word's exquisite 18thcentury sense. Four of the pieces are grouped together to make a sonata, but the others are free-standing and range from deeply felt adagios to lightly arpeggiated preludes, and from suave minuets to the occasional faintly rustic dance. Heinrich brings to them exactly the right blend of emotional involvement and earnest good taste, and finds pleasing resonance and smoothness in her instrument, such that even nearly 80 minutes of solo gamba never tires the ear. An unsuspected and atmospheric gem.

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.

Janurary 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…

Until the release of this new recording the fascinating world of Abel’s gamba music has been pretty much a closed book … Abel inclined towards simplicity and elegance, and Heinrich is always at pains to bring out the singing quality of the melodic lines … from the outset Heinrich confidently
masters the multiple stopping and the wide range of the music … throughout, Heinrich succeeds triumphantly in crafting each piece individually— creating a special atmosphere for each work

Mr Abel’s Fine Airs

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