These attractive Classical works are played on a reconstructed cello-like instrument with five strings and twelve sympathetic strings which produces a silvery, delicate sound somewhat like the baryton.

Carl Friedrich Abel is one of a number of highly interesting musicians from the second half of the eighteenth century. Their works were unfortunately soon eclipsed by the fame of Viennese classics, but the German specialist label cpo has been doing a marvelous job of making some of them available again in excellent productions on period instruments. Abel was the son of a member of Johann Sebastian Bach's orchestra at Köthen; as a young man he became viola da gamba player and cellist at Dresden under Hasse; and in the turbulences of the Seven Years War he fled via France to London, where he soon teamed up with Bach's youngest son Johann Christian to organise a series of concerts which became known all over Europe. Abel played viola da gamba, cello and harpsichord at these concerts, and it appears that a good deal of music from his own compositional workshop was performed there (symphonies, flute concertos).

For Wilbert Hazelzet’s second disc for Glossa, the stylish Dutch flute player covers a selection of pieces of music by composers who, with varying levels of certainty, can be regarded as having been pupils of Johann Sebastian Bach: Abel, Kirnberger, Krebs, Müthel and Goldberg – whose C major Sonata was for a long time regarded as being by Bach himself (as his BWV 1037). Cellist Jaap ter Linden and harpsichordist Jacques Ogg accompanied Hazelzet on this beautiful recording.

Born in Turin, Felice Giardini since he was young, he manifested a predilection for the violin, but his father sent him to study singing, harpsichord and composition at the Chapel of the Cathedral of Milan. Back in Turin, he went on to study violin with the renowned Giovanni Battista Somis and began to hold positions as a violinist first in Turin and then to Naples, where he later became vice-master of the Teatro San Carlo chapel. Giardini decided to pursue a solo career, he traveled to Europe and after the great successes during the concerts held in Berlin and France, he settled in England, where he remained for more than forty years, supported by the relevant protection families of London. He was Italian opera director throughout his stay in London.

In 1764 a couple of German musicians lodged together in London. They shared a sort of common background, for one was the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, newly arrived in town to write opera, and the other, Carl Friedrich Abel, had been Bach’s student back in Leipzig more than a decade earlier. He was in town to make his living as a composer of instrumental works and as a performer on that now-anachronistic instrument the viola da gamba. The two apparently hit it off quite well, for they soon conspired to develop the famed Bach-Abel concert series that became a fixture in the city for more than a decade and a half. Given that they also contrived to perform as well, it is not surprising that both men created a wide variety of works for their instruments, Bach on the keyboard and Abel on his gamba.

Carl Friedrich Abel (b. December 22, 1723 in Cöthen) was one of the most renowned viola da gamba players of his day. It was probably for Carl's father, Christian Ferdinand Abel, that Johann Sebastian Bach composed his famous solo cello suites.
Following his education at the Thomasschule under J.S. Bach, he initially took a post under Johann Adolf Hasse in the Dresden court orchestra, and remained there for a decade before traveling to London 1759. There he met and eventually shared a room with Johann Christian Bach.

It is a constant source of amazement that to this very day, musical gems even by famous composers often fail to receive the exposure they deserve or have even - despite modern digital access - been unjustly consigned to oblivion. The four works by Carl Friedrich Abel presented here are just such treasures, and two of them - the Sinfonie Concertanti WKO 42 and 43 - are released on record for the very first time to mark the composer's tercentenary in 2023. The reason for this is surely that Abel's activity and fame as a gambist and as a composer for his instrument has obscured the fact that he wrote these four important concertante works for the violoncello. The present recording seeks to help restore the reputation that these works deserve.

Friedrich Abel, geboren 1723 in Köthen, gestorben 1787 in London hat seinen Platz der Musikgeschichte bisher stets als in zweiter Linie genannte Persönlichkeit gefunden. Er wirkt als »Ergänzungskraft«, wenn es gilt, das Bild in Bach- oder Mozart-Biographien abzurunden. Dabei gehört er zu Gruppe der ganz wichtigen Übergangsmusiker vom Barock zu Klassik, denen cpo schon seit geraumer Zeit große Aufmerksamkeit widmet und ohne deren »Pionierarbeit« so manche spätere klassische Großtat kaum möglich gewesen wäre.

The Mozartists present an unprecedented survey of Mozart’s childhood stay in London from 1764-65. The wide-ranging programme includes Mozart’s remarkable first symphony (composed when he was eight years old), along with his two other London symphonies and his first concert aria. The repertoire also explores music that was being performed in London during Mozart’s stay, including works by J. C. Bach, Thomas Arne, Abel, Pescetti, Perez, George Rush and William Bates, many of which have not previously been recorded.

This collection of ten Classical symphonies concertantes was recorded (quadraphonically!) in 1977 and issued as a five-record set by EMI Electrola. Now it has been licensed by CPO and reissued economically on just three CDs.

Today, the five-string cello is treated as an exotic and rarely-played cousin of the standard cello. However, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was simply one of the many instruments used in the family of bass violins, and was particularly important for virtuosic sonatas and solos.

The recently rediscovered, so-called Pembroke collection owned by the Abel-pupil Lady Elizabeth Herbert, Countess of Pembroke and Montgomery (1737-1831), contains 14 previously unknown viol works (ten sonatas and four duos for viola da gamba and cello) by Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-87), which he composed for himself and his talented pupil. Specifically, these expressive pieces are late works that show Abel’s special way of playing. For Coviello, viola da gambist Thomas Fritzsch presents the world premiere recording of these musical jewels.