Abel - Arpeggio for Solo Viola da Gamba WKO194

CARL FRIEDRICH ABEL (1723 - 1797)

[Arpeggio] for solo viola da gamba WKO 194

Performed by Susanne Heinrich

*Carl Friedrich Abel was a German composer of the Classical era. He was a fine player on the viola da gamba, and composed important music for that instrument.

Abel was born in Cöthen, the son of Christian Ferdinand Abel, the principal viola da gamba and cello player in the court orchestra of Johann Sebastian Bach (there is a possiblity that Bach's sonatas for viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord were written for him). There is no proof that Abel studied at Thomasschule Leipzig, but it was on Bach's recommendation that in 1748 he was able to join Johann Adolph Hasse's court orchestra at Dresden where he remained for ten years. In 1759 he went to England and became chamber-musician to Queen Charlotte. He gave a concert of his own compositions in London, performing on various instruments, one of which was a five-string cello known as a pentachord, which had been recently invented by John Joseph Merlin.

In 1762, Johann Christian Bach, the eleventh son of Johann Sebastian Bach, joined him in London, and the friendship between him and Abel led, in 1764 or 1765, to the establishment of the famous Bach-Abel concerts, England's first subscription concerts. In those concerts, many celebrated guest artists appeared, and the works of Haydn received their first English performance.

For ten years the concerts were organized by Mrs. Teresa Cornelys, a retired Venetian opera singer who owned a concert hall at Carlisle House in Soho Square, then the height of fashionable events. In 1775 the concerts became independent of her, to be continued by Abel and Bach until Bach's death in 1782. Abel still remained in great demand as a player on various instruments new and old. He traveled to Germany and France between 1782 and 1785, and upon his return to London, became a leading member of the Grand Professional Concerts at the Hanover Square Rooms in Soho. Throughout his life he had enjoyed excessive living, and his drinking probably hastened his death, which occurred in London on June 20, 1787.

One of the most widely known works of Abel became famous due to a misattribution: in the 19th century, a manuscript symphony in the hand of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was catalogued as his Symphony no. 3 in E flat, K. 18, and was published as such in the first complete edition of Mozart's works by Breitkopf & Härtel. Later, it was discovered that this symphony was actually the work of Abel, copied by the boy Mozart--evidently for study purposes--while he was visiting London in 1764. That symphony was originally published as the concluding work in Abel's Six Symphonies, Op. 7.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• classical
• baroque
• symphony
• string
• quartet
• flute
• concerto
• trio
• sonata

[Montyleeny14]

His music is quite familiar to that of Bach's cello suite; no suprise from the remark since he worked for Bach.

[HARMONICO101]

@Montyleeny14 this type of arpeggio prelude-style composition is actually more common than you would think and didn't start with Bach at all. You'll find it alot in harpsichord compositions for example.

[afreename]

I don't think I've heard this instrument before. I like it.

[dolofonos]

@afreename If you had, it was most likely hidden amongst the continuo. For me, there is no finer-sounding bowed instrument played in solo.

[dolofonos]

@HARMONICO101 The style suits bowed instruments very well in creating a strong, polyphonic texture.

[holyprayerx]

I heard this song when I was about 6, and I really liked it.....and then nearly 6 years later, i heard it6 again in the 6th grade when the classes were going to the band, chorus, and orchestra classes ,and I heard it again. I was just like "Screw everything else I'm playing that instrument!"

[denwa010ko]

Carl Friedrich Abel(1723 - 1787)

Please rewrite it definitely.

[danldunham]

Love the Viola.