reviews
REVIEWS of the 'Mr Abel's Fine Airs'
BBC.co.uk by Charlotte Gardner
05 October 2007
When did you last walk into a record store thinking, 'I really fancy buying a disc of viola da gamba music today'? That’s what I thought, which is why I’m so keen to bring this new recording on the Hyperion label to your attention. The viola da gamba isn’t an instrument we naturally associate with solo performance these days, so it’s a particular pleasure to be shown just how deserving it is of the soloist’s spotlight.
For those of you not au fait with early musical instruments, the viola da gamba or 'leg viol' is a six-stringed instrument, played with a bow, and held between the legs. The cello would be its closest match today, and it sounds similar too, but softer and more mellow. Whilst it was all the rage in 16th century England (Henry VIII was a great fan), by the time Carl Friedrich Abel made London his home it was out of fashion and rarely heard. However, Abel’s concerts sparked a revival of the instrument, with notables such as Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Edward Walpole taking up lessons.
This disc comprises twenty four out of Abel’s thirty surviving unaccompanied pieces for viola da gamba, six of which are recorded for the first time ever. Without wanting to resort to lazy comparisons, Abel’s pieces are reminiscent of J S Bach’s solo cello suites, so if you like them then you’ll like these. They are far more than just dance suites though, both in terms of the frequently florid, technically demanding style (listen to the extraordinary multiple stops in the fugue), and in terms of their emotional range. 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. Charles Burney wrote at the time that Abel’s viola da gamba seemed to breathe the notes, and I think he’d be similarly complementary of Heinrich’s playing, were he alive and critiquing today.
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CD Review, BBC
..Charles Burney wrote at the time that Abel's Viola da Gamba seemed to breathe the notes, and I think he'd be similarly complimentary of Heinrich's playing, were he alive and critiquing today.. one of the contemporary sources says that Abel put 'light & shade' into every note. This elusive characteristic is abundant in Susanne Heinrich's honey-tone and directly sentimental playing.
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Abel by name, and certainly able in talent
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 18th-century 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 – I can almost hear the firewood crackling.
Lindsay Kemp - Gramophone, January 2008
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CD Review 2007