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:
• 1 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:67: I. Moderato (Excerpt) 01:08
• Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:50:
• 2 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:50: I. Allegro 02:37
• 3 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:50: II. Adagio 04:13
• 4 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:50: III. Allegro 01:57
• Viola da gamba Sonata in A Minor, A2:57a:
• 5 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Minor, A2:57a: I. Allegro 03:52
• 6 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Minor, A2:57a: II. Adagio 04:10
• 7 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Minor, A2:57a: III. Allegro 03:00
• Viola da gamba Sonata in A Major, A2:53:
• 8 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Major, A2:53: I. Adagio 04:01
• 9 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Major, A2:53: II. Allegro assai 03:22
• 10 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in A Major, A2:53: III. Vivace 02:58
• Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:75:
• 11 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:75: I. Un poco vivace 05:37
• 12 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:75: II. Adagio 04:11
• 13 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:75: III. Vivace 03:11
• Viola da gamba Sonata in G Minor, A2:56a:
• 14 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Minor, A2:56a: I. Allegro 04:15
• 15 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Minor, A2:56a: II. Adagio 03:23
• 16 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Minor, A2:56a: III. Tempo di minuet 02:36
• Viola da gamba Sonata in G Major, A2:72:
• 17 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Major, A2:72: I. Moderato 03:14
• 18 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Major, A2:72: II. Adagio 03:58
• 19 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in G Major, A2:72: III. Rondeau 02:16
• Paolo Pandolfo (b. 1964): Improvised Prelude:
• 20 Pandolfo: Improvised Prelude 01:36
• Carl Friedrich Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in E Minor, A2:7:
• 21 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in E Minor, A2:7: I. Siciliano 02:57
• 22 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in E Minor, A2:7: II. Allegro 02:46
• 23 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in E Minor, A2:7: III. Presto 02:02
• 24 Abel: Viola da gamba Sonata in D Major, A2:67: I. Moderato 03:54
• Total Runtime 01:17:14

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
“…one of the most brilliant and poetic of the instrument’s current exponents…” (Gramophone UK)

He began his research in the field of renaissance and baroque musical idioms around 1979 together with violinist Enrico Gatti and harpsicordist Rinaldo Alessandrini. Studied then with Jordi Savall at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland.

In 1982 he became a member of J.Savall’s ensemble Hesperion XX and played with him until 1990 throughout the world, and making dozens of recordings (among them Bach’s Kunst der Fuge, J.Dowlands Consort music, Neapolitan Renaissance Music , etc. etc.).

In 1990, after the huge success of his first recording as a soloist (C.P.E.Bach’s Sonatas for Viola da Gamba), he was nominated as Professor of viola da gamba at his alma mater, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel.

Since this appointment, he concentrates his teachimg activities in Basel, whilst his performing carrier takes him all over the world, playing with artists such as Emma Kirkby, Rolf Lislevand, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Mitzi Meyerson, Jose’ Miguel Moreno and many others.

Paolo Pandolfo has recorded for radio and television stations world wide, and for record companies such as Astree, Emi, Philips, Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Tactus, Simphonia. Since 1997 all his recordings are by the spanish leading record company GLOSSA. He started his collaboration with them in 1997 recording the first world integrale of A.Forqueray’s “Pieces de Viole“, followed by “The Spirit of Gambo“(music by T.Hume with Labyrinto and Emma Kirkby). His first unaccompained recital, A Solo, was pointed as one of the best releases of the year 1998 by Gramophone . He dedicated two releases to the M.Marais’: “Le Labyrinthe et autres histoires“, dedicated to charachter music by the great french composer and “Le Grand Ballet”, focused on his gestures and dance music. His trancription of J.S.Bach’s six Solo Suites, released in 2000, has been beyond its great success an important musical event and is a “must” in every complete Bach discography. All his recordings have received amazingly positive reviews as well as many awards by the most important musical magazines (Gramophone, Le Monde de La Musique, Goldberg Scherzo, Diapason, etc.). The Abel Cd “The Drexel Manuscript” was nominated in 2010 for the Best Year’s Cd in the category “Instrumental” for the BBC Music Magazine.

Last releases for Glossa have been: -Marais 1689: pieces for one and two viols (with Amélie Chemin) from the first book of M.Marais, including pieces for one viol and two viols

-Kind of Satie: an original project exploring the poetic world of Eric Satie, where he plays a prototype of semiacoustic viola da gamba, with his brother Andrea Pandolfo (trumpets) and Michelangelo Rinaldi (Accordeon, Grandpiano, Toy-Piano)

-G.P.Telemann Fantasias for viola da gamba alone, including the newly discovered 12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba alone, as well as the D major Sonata from the Getreuer Musik Meister.

He is invited to perform an to give masterclasses all over the world.

He has been described as the Paganini of the viola da gamba (Basler Zeitung Nov. 2016).

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

This album contains no booklet.