Karl Kaiser, Michael Schneider, Rainer Zipperling, Nicholas Selo, Harald Hoeren, Susanne Kaiser, La Stagione Frankfurt - Carl Friedrich Abel: Chamber Music

Chamber Music - "For the Pleasure of Performance"

Chamber works, generally, are musical compositions written for a small group of instruments, for a small audience and for a small setting, such as a small hall or a private room. The music can seem more personal, more intimate, almost like a conversation or a musical dialogue. It is music intended to entertain and provide a pleasant repast while sometimes accompanying other activities. It is also not uncommon that chamber works might be performed by musicians for one another or together just for the pure "pleasure of performance" as Walter Knape, the author of the liner notes, surmises of these C. F. Abel trios, sonatas and solos for viola da gamba.

I purchased this disc about a year ago because I wanted to explore some of Abel's compositions for flute. These late baroque/early classical pieces struck me as rather simplistic when I first listened to them and I was somewhat disappointed. I started listening to them again more recently and can now not understand my hesitation, as they strike me as particularly engaging with lovely melodies and a sweetness of tone that is very appealing. They are actually more complex then I originally believed them to be. It also occurs to me that they would be a lot more challenging to the player of the baroque or one-keyed flute (as they are performed here) than they might be to the modern flute player. As the other reviewers have noted, however, the solo pieces for viola da gamba are the real draw here and balance the trios and sonatas, providing a soulfulness and depth of expression to the overall performance.

I wish to speak of the portrait of C. F. Abel (before 1777) by Thomas Gainsborough which appears in the liner notes. Gainsborough was a musician as well as an artist and he counted many musicians among his friends, including C. F. Abel. The portrait of Abel catches the bewigged musician at the point of musical inspiration, his viola da gamba resting against his knee, his pen poised, a bemused smile on his face as he gazes out toward the viewer. His dog, a white Pomeranian, rests at his feet under his desk. (Abel's dog looks a lot like my dog. I have caught her in this same pose many, many times.) It is reported that Abel gave Gainsborough viola da gamba lessons in exchange for this portrait. Gainsborough was also in the habit of giving many of his paintings away and a number of his works hung in Abel's home. According to Kenneth Clark, Animals and men: Their relationship as reflected in Western art from prehistory to the present day(see pp. 188-89), Gainsborough was particularly fond of white Pomeranian dogs ("best watchdog of all . . . absolutely incorruptible") and Pomeranians can be found in several of Gainsborough's paintings. "He is said to have found them [dogs generally] more sympathetic and easier to understand then their owners" (Clark, at page 189).

There is a good article on Gainsborough and the relationship between painting and music on the Early Music World website which I was reading while listening to this music and writing this review. I recommend the music and the article as well as the painting. The original painting is part of the collection of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. March 31, 2008

Enthralling Melodiousness

Carl Friedrich Abel (1723 - 1787), Chamber Music. Performed by members of La Stagione, Frankfurt. Recorded at St. Michael's Church, Michaelshoven, Germany in January 1993. Total time: 61'08". cpo 999 209-2.

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).

The chamber music on this recording was, as the notes point out, not intended primarily for public performance. Abel appears to have written it out of pure joie de vivre, probably for his own use. The style is post-baroque, the main characteristics being mellifluous melodies and a lightness bordering on the naive. This CD contains two sonatas for transverse flute and harpsichord and two trios for two flutes and basso continuo, all four of which are very pleasing to the ear; but, for me, the highlights are definitely the seven short pieces for viola da gamba solo played brilliantly by Rainer Zipperling (just listen to that "Arpeggio"!) and the delightful Sonata for violoncello and basso continuo which concludes the program. This is, of course, not the "serious" music our modern ears have come to expect (cp. the folksy Allegretto of the Trio in G Major!), but I found myself enthralled simply by the melodiousness and grace of it all, enhanced by the lovely acoustics of this recording (cpo's engineers seldom disappoint). Anyone willing to explore the second half of the 18th century should find an hour's superb entertainment here! October 27, 2006

Charming Chamber Compositions

Abel was a close friend of the painter, Thomas Gainsborough. Today, Gainsborough is well-remembered as a painter, but Abel is all but forgotten as a composer. That is indeed unfortunate, for his compositions, such as the six presented on this CD, are worthy of being heard and being enjoyed. It has long been my belief that there is a significant number of composers whose works are underservedly ignored. Abel is such a composer, and this CD is an appropriate vehicle to help lift him from that obscurity. October 12, 2000

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