Christian Schneider

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).