Search - Carl Friedrich Abel, Anthony Halstead, Hanover Band :: Abel: Symphonies, Op. 17, Nos. 1-6

Halstead's Abel resurrection

Molly the Cat | the USA | 06/28/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What a splendid find this disc is! These six late symphonies by Carl Friedrich Abel, a friend and co-laborer of "the London Bach" (Johann Christian), deserve to be better known. The music is everywhere tuneful and clever.

Charles Burney alleges that Abel "loved his bottle" and that excessive drinking put an end to his life; and in the liner notes to this recording, Walter Knape, who published Abel's complete works in sixteen volumes beginning in 1959, in apologizing for the brevity of Op. 17's finales, affirms that Abel's "heavy wine-drinking ended up taking away from his vitality." But I can see no signs of debility or (alcoholic or other) infirmity in any of this music, which is lovingly played by horn virtuoso-turned-harpsichordist/conductor Anthony Halstead and the Hanover Band.

The only oddity about the release is that the sixth symphony is said on the jewel case and track listing to be in the highly-unlikely key (for 18th century music) of "F flat !major"!! However, the music sounds like a symphony in G major, and I confirmed that G major is the true key of the work by consulting a library catalogue listing of Knape's edition of the Abel complete works (it's the last symphony in Vol. 6). A minor point, but I thought I should mention it.

Otherwise, the disc is highly recommended."

More Abel symphonies

Douglas C. Miller MD | Columbia, MO USA | 06/23/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD contains further work in the continuing project to record major works of Karl Friedrich Abel, a contemporary and colleague of JC Bach and others in the middle of the 18th century music scene in London. Like Bach and Handel before him Abel was a German who moved when young to England and made a secure and profitable niche in musical world of England and London contemporary with the young Haydn in Austria and a host of others across Europe, in the great flowering of early classicism which replaced the Baroque in 18th century music. These symphonies are fine works in the same general category of the early and middle Haydn symphonies, those of JC Bach, and even of the young Mozart: smaller scale works than the late symphonies of Haydn and Mozart but not unimportant for that. These are fine performances which are in the tradition of current thoughts on the use of period instruments and period practices as best as we understand them without any overly academic pretentiousness."