A Sentimental Journey Paolo Pandolfo, Amélie Chemin, Andrea Buccarella, Thomas Boysen

• Carl Friedrich Abel (1723 - 1787): Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:67:
• 1Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:67: I. Moderato (Excerpt)01:08
• Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:50:
• 2Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:50: I. Allegro02:37
• 3Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:50: II. Adagio04:13
• 4Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:50: III. Allegro01:57
• Viola da gamba Sonata in A Minor, A2:57a:
• 5Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Minor, A2:57a: I. Allegro03:52
• 6Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Minor, A2:57a: II. Adagio04:10
• 7Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Minor, A2:57a: III. Allegro03:00
• Viola da gamba Sonata in A Major, A2:53:
• 8Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Major, A2:53: I. Adagio04:01
• 9Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Major, A2:53: II. Allegro assai03:22
• 10Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Major, A2:53: III. Vivace02:58
• Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:75:
• 11Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:75: I. Un poco vivace05:37
• 12Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:75: II. Adagio04:11
• 13Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:75: III. Vivace03:11
• Viola da gamba Sonata in G Minor, A2:56a:
• 14Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Minor, A2:56a: I. Allegro04:15
• 15Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Minor, A2:56a: II. Adagio03:23
• 16Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Minor, A2:56a: III. Tempo di minuet02:36
• Viola da gamba Sonata in G Major, A2:72:
• 17Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Major, A2:72: I. Moderato03:14
• 18Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Major, A2:72: II. Adagio03:58
• 19Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Major, A2:72: III. Rondeau02:16
• Paolo Pandolfo (b. 1964): Improvised Prelude:
• 20Pandolfo: Improvised Prelude01:36
• Carl Friedrich Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in E Minor, A2:7:
• 21Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in E Minor, A2:7: I. Siciliano02:57
• 22Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in E Minor, A2:7: II. Allegro02:46
• 23Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in E Minor, A2:7: III. Presto02:02
• 24Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:67: I. Moderato03:54
• Total Runtime01:17:14

Info for A Sentimental Journey

During his lifetime, Carl Friedrich Abel was fêted all over Europe both for his supreme skills as a performer of the viola da gamba as well as for the quality of his compositions, and was responsible (along with J.C. Bach) for setting up arguably the first series of subscription concerts in the history of Western music, the “Bach-Abel-Concerts”. Even the prodigy that was Mozart benefited from Abel’s teachings (and was claimed as the composer of one of Abel’s own symphonies). 12 years after his recording of pieces from the Drexel Manuscript (for solo viola da gamba), Paolo Pandolfo teams up with an exquisite ensemble to record a fine selection of Abel’s sonatas, many of them recently discovered and being recorded here for the first time. Often adding his own cadenzas and ornamentations, Pandolfo and his team offer a breathtaking and colorful display of virtuosity and sensibility. The contemporary painter Thomas Gainsborough wrote that Abel “excelled at feeling upon the instrument”, while the writer of one of his obituaries likened him to Laurence Sterne, famous as the author of Tristram Shandy: “The death of Abel occasions a great loss to the musical world. Sensibility is the prevailing and beautiful characteristic of his compositions. He was the Sterne of Music.” Thus, this recording is aptly entitled A Sentimental Journey– an exploration of the world of feeling paralleling Sterne’s unfinished novel A Sentimental Journey though France and Italy.

Paolo Pandolfo, viola da gamba
Amelie Chemin, cello, viola da gamba
Andrea Buccarella, fortepiano, harpsichord
Thomas Boysen, lute

Paolo Pandolfo
Widely admired as a virtuoso exponent of the viola da gamba through his concert performances and recordings of key composers from Germany, France, Spain, England and his native Italy, Paolo Pandolfo has in recent years been developing the instincts and skills for improvising and composing. He began his research in the field of renaissance and baroque musical idioms around 1979 along with violinist Enrico Gatti and harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini. Studies with Jordi Savall at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland were followed by membership of Savall’s Hespèrion XX between 1982 and 1990. A highly successful recording of the CPE Bach Sonatas for viola da gamba (on Tactus) in 1990 saw Pandolfo nominated as Professor of viola da gamba at his alma mater, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, where he has been concentrating his teaching activities ever since.

Since 1997 all of Paolo Pandolfo’s recordings have appeared on Glossa. The odyssey commenced with the first complete recording of Antoine Forqueray’s Pièces de Viole, followed by discs devoted to the music of Tobias Hume, Marin Marais (Le Labyrinthe et autres histoires was devoted to character music whilst Grand Ballet focused on Marais’ gestures and dance music) and Sainte-Colombe. Pandolfo has regularly ventured beyond the realms of Renaissance and Baroque notated music for his instrument; he achieved a notable success with his own transcription of the six Bach Solo Suites and recorded an unaccompanied recital, A Solo. Travel Notes and Improvisando have further demonstrated Pandolfo’s command of the possibilities of the viola da gamba as a composer himself.

His performing activities have taken him all over the world, playing with artists such as Emma Kirkby, Rolf Lislevand, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Mitzi Meyerson, José Miguel Moreno and many others. He has been described as the Yo Yo Ma of the viol. Since 1992 he has been directing Labyrinto, a group of four or five viola da gambas, which is dedicated to the huge consort music repertoire.

Paolo Pandolfo builds bridges between the past and the present, bringing spontaneous and immediate life in the performance of baroque and renaissance music using medias such as improvisation, transcriptions and composition of modern pieces, being convinced that the patrimony of ancient music can be a powerful inspiration for the future of the western musical tradition.

This album contains no booklet.