Carl Friedrich Abel: Symphonies Op. 10 Nos. 1-6

Friedrich Abel, born in Köthen in 1723 and died in London in 1787, has always found his place in music history as a personality mentioned in second place. He acts as a “supplementary force” when it is necessary to round off the picture in biographies of Bach or Mozart. In this respect, he belongs to the group of very important transitional musicians from the Baroque to the Classical period, to whom cpo has been devoting a great deal of attention for some time now, and without whose “pioneering work” many a later classical feat would scarcely have been possible.

Abel was a viola da gamba virtuoso known throughout Europe and in London, where he had settled from 1759, he was probably, together with Johann Christian Bach, the most important and influential musical personality.

His “Bach-Abel Concerts,” organized with Bach, were nothing less than the foundation of the bourgeois concert business still in force today. Abel was equally innovative as a composer In his instrumental works, Sturm und Drang is expressed in its purest form.

The chamber orchestra “La Stagione”, playing on original instruments and conducted by Michael Schneider, has now recorded truly ravishing works by Abel for cpo. The soloist here is Karl Kaiser, This is more than just gallant light music. This is the listening adventure of a music that strives for new expressive possibilities.