The painter Thomas Gainsborough was intensely musical and included many prominent professional musicians in his circle of friends, including Charles Frederick Abel and John Christian Bach, the joint promoters of the most successful and prestigious concert series in London in the 1760s and 70s. In this concert, complementing the current exhibition Carl Friedrich Abel at Gainsborough’s House, we explore music composed by Gainsborough’s friends, much of it performed at the Bach-Abel concerts.

The programme includes orchestral songs and a symphony by J.C. Bach, Mozart’s extraordinarily accomplished first symphony (written at the age of eight when he was in London with his family in 1764-5), and music by Abel featuring the viola da gamba or bass viol, a concerto and the beautiful aria ‘Frena le belle lagrime’, for soprano, gamba and strings. Abel was the last great gamba virtuoso in the eighteenth-century tradition, and his playing inspired Gainsborough to take up the instrument.

‘Silvery voiced, fluent, articulate, agile … she [Philippa Hyde] is a pleasure to hear’ International Record Review
‘Mark Caudle’s viol mesmerizingly alive throughout … exceptional’
Music Web International