Saturday 24 October 2009
7.30pm

Join us for this evening performance of Mr Abel's Fine Airs in conjunction with Shandy Hall.

The performance at Harewood House will recreate, for perhaps the first time since the 1760's an improvisation by Susanne Heinrich on the viola da gamba to the reading of The Death of Le Fever by Patrick Wildgust, curator of Shandy Hall.

Susanne Heinrich studied at the Meistersinger Conservatory of Nuremberg, and at the Frankfurt State Academy of Music, where she passed her recital diploma with the highest distinction. She was then granted a prestige scholarship to study with Wieland Kuijken at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. She has performed and recorded with many leading period-instrument ensembles of Europe including the making of over fifteen recordings with the Charivari Agréable.

Since 1994 she has been a member of the Palladian Ensemble (since 2007 the Palladians). Her last position was Professor for Viols and Violone at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. The New Grove Dictionary of Music refers to her as one of the 'leading players' of this generation. Her recording of solo viola da gamba music Mr Abel's Fine Airs received a Gramophone award in 2008. Read the reviews here.

The concert at Harewood will concentrate on the music of Carl Friedrich Abel within a particular context - the unaccompanied private entertainment where pieces were selected appropriate to the occasion.

It is significant that Abel should be associated with Laurence Sterne, the author of A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy and his major work, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.

Abel reportedly used an episode from Volume VI of Tristram Shandy as the theme for improvisation on the viol. This section of the novel features the touching story of Lieutenant Le Fever and the attempts to make his last hours on earth as comfortable as possible. Sterne was a player of the viola da gamba and there are frequent references to music in his works.

Both these men were exponents of sensibility and in one of his obituaries it is recorded: '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 - The one wrote and the other composed to the soul.'

Ticket includes a glass of wine at the performance.

Adult:

£17.50