London circa 1760 – JC Bach, CF Abel & Friends
La Rêveuse/Florence Bolton, Benjamin Perrot
rec. 2023, Église protestante allemande, Paris
Reviewed as a download
Harmonia Mundi HMM905380 [59]

In recent years the French ensemble La Rêveuse has explored music life in London in the 18th century. This has resulted in two discs, devoted to what was written and performed around 1720 and 1740 respectively (the latter was reviewed here). With the present disc, we are again twenty years further along in history, marking a change in musical aesthetics. Charles Burney expressed it thus: “Content with our former possessions and habits, we went on in the tranquil enjoyment of the production of Corelli, Geminiani, and Handel, at our national theatres, concerts, and public gardens, till the arrival of Giardini, Bach, and Abel; who soon created schism, and at length, with the assistance of [Johann Christian] Fischer, brought about a total revolution in our musical taste.”

One of the features of the London musical scene was the growing importance of public concerts, mostly accessible through subscription. The best-known of these were the so-called Bach-Abel concerts, which started in 1765 at Carlisle House. The first three seasons were organised by Teresa Cornelys, an actress and businesswoman of Venetian origin, who played a major role in the London entertainment scene at the time. After three years Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel took over, and the concerts took place at several venues until 1775, when the series settled at the Hanover Square Rooms.

Abel was the son of Christian Ferdinand, who played the viola da gamba in the court chapel of Prince Leopold I of Anhalt-Cöthen, when Johann Sebastian Bach was appointed Kapellmeister in 1717. They were good friends, and Burney, who knew Carl Friedrich Abel personally, wrote that he went to Leipzig after his father’s death in 1737. In the next years he may have been in regular contact with the Bach family. By 1743 Abel played in the Dresden court chapel when Johann Adolf Hasse was its director. When Frederick the Great destroyed the city Abel left, first for Frankfurt and then for London. There he arrived in 1758 and gave his first public concert the next year. In 1762 Johann Christian Bach settled in London, having studied and worked for several years in Italy.

Abel was one of the last gambists of the 18th century, and undoubtedly the greatest in England. He started to teach members of the aristocracy, and the many pieces for viola da gamba solo by him that have been preserved, in particular in the so-called Drexel manuscript, may be written-out versions of what Abel improvised during public and private concerts. It is known that he also composed concertos for viola da gamba and strings, but none of these has been preserved. In order to give an impression of what they may have sounded like, the programme opens with a reconstruction, based on concertos for cello (an instrument Abel played himself as well) and transverse flute.

Whereas Abel today is almost exclusively known for his music for viola da gamba, his oeuvre is sizeable and varied, including symphonies and chamber music works in various scorings. The present disc includes a quartet for transverse flute, violin, viola da gamba and bass (here played on the harpsichord). This work is a typical specimen of the galant style that was a dominating force across Europe at the time. As with many such works, it consists of only two movements in a fast tempo.

The same is the case with the other quartet, which is part of the Op. 8 by Johann Christian Bach. These quartets are scored for oboe (with transverse flute or violin as alternatives), violin, viola and bass. The performance here, with the flute instead of the oboe in the first part, is based on a manuscript in the Kulukundis Collection, where the viola part is adapted for the viola da gamba, according to the title page. The viola da gamba part is missing, and has been reconstructed by Thomas Fritzsch (more about this in the review of his recording). According to the track-list, the viola da gamba part is played on the viola. However, that cannot be true; the list of players does not mention a viola and Florence Bolton is one of the players here. It also would not make sense; why would they use the reconstructed edition by Thomas Fritzsch if the viola part is available in other printed editions of the 18th century?

Abel was part of a circle of artists, which also included Thomas Erskine, sixth Earl of Kelly, a Scottish composer, who during a Grand Tour had visited Mannheim and Paris, where he studied violin and composition with Johann Stamitz. His trio sonatas from 1769, the sixth of which is played here, are late specimens of a baroque genre that was already something of the past.

The new time also saw the birth of new instruments, one of which was the English guitar. “In the 1750s, the press began to advertise a new instrument for ladies: the English guitar. Easier to learn than the harpsichord, it was ideal for wives who stayed at home because it allowed them to sing while accompanying themselves.” (booklet) It disseminated quickly, as Burney wrote: “There is hardly a private family in a civilized nation without its flute, its fiddle, its harpsichord or guitar.” One of the exponents of the English guitar was Ann Ford, who was from an aristocratic family, but became involved in scandals. She wrote a method for the English guitar. The popularity of the instrument explains why the renowned Italian-born composer Francesco Geminiani wrote some pieces for it. So did Rudolf Straube, like Johann Christian Bach and Abel an immigrant from Germany. He had been a keyboard student of Johann Sebastian Bach and played the lute. He took up the guitar, and his travels brought him to London, where he stayed until his death. He was part of the circle which included Abel and Bach.

Ann Ford also published a method for musical glasses, another instrument that became popular at the time. “This instrument consisted of a set of glasses played with a wet finger, but performance was a tricky exercise because it went out of tune when the water evaporated.” (booklet) Benjamin Franklin solved this problem by developing the glass (h)armonica, for which Mozart composed his Quintet K 617. Ann Ford was also active as a composer, but the only music by her that has been preserved is in her method. Two of her pieces close this disc.

Like the two previous discs, this one is again very interesting from an historical point of view. We know Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel, but only a part of their output. Most of the pieces here are little-known, and the reconstruction of a viola da gamba concerto by Abel is highly instructive, and very well made. The liner-notes are good, as they put the music into its historical and social context. The inclusion of pieces for English guitar and musical glasses is also interesting, and this aspect deserves more attention.

The performances are hard to surpass. Florence Bolton shines in the viola da gamba concerto, which she plays with zest and imagination, adding a nice cadenza in the slow movement. In the pieces for viola da gamba solo she makes sure that the improvisatory traces do not get lost. The quartets are written in the galant idiom, and that style is not always appreciated. It is often much better than its reputation, but in order to reveal its qualities, it needs a performance by top-class artists, which is what we get here. Benjamin Perrot and Sylvain Lemêtre deserve praise for their performances on the English guitar and the musical glasses respectively.

My only complaint is that this disc is a little short; I would have liked to have heard more – which in itself is a compliment to both the music and the performers.

Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen
https://bsky.app/profile/musicadeidonum.bsky.social

Contents
Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787)
Concerto a Viola da Gamba Concertata in G (after WKO 51 & 52) (ed. Thomas Fritzsch/Günter von Zadow)
Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782)
Quartet No. 2 in D (Warb B 52)
Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762)
Pieces for the English Guitar in d minor
Carl Friedrich Abel
Quartet in G (WKO 227)
Thomas Alexander Erskine (1732-1781)
Trio sonata No. 6 in G (CM 5)
Carl Friedrich Abel
Adagio in d minor (A1:30)
Allegro in d minor (A1:28)
Rudolf Straube (1717-1785)
Largo in C
Ann Ford (1737-1824)
An Italian Air (Care luci che regnate)
Duetto (Siciliana)

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