The Bach-Abel Partnership

Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel were musical partners for nearly 20 years. Together they organized regular concerts for the London music scene, together they partnered each other as performers. As composers, they wrote for themselves, each other, and other performers. However, the instruments they played were fast becoming superseded, the gamba bowing out to the cello, the harpsichord to the piano forte. Abel stuck with his gamba, but Bach adjusted his thinking to the piano forte, composing specifically and idiomatically for it.

Shaun Ng and Diana Weston continue their exploration of this unique partnership, presenting music which has only recently been re-discovered but which entertained finicky and fickle London audiences for a considerable time.

Remarkably, there is a small collection of English early piano fortes residing at St John’s College Sydney University dating between 1792 and 1824. We are absolutely delighted and privileged to be given the use of both the pianos and the gothic spaces of John’s College to present Bach and Abel’s music on the very instruments they could have used.

This concert previews a recording of two collections of sonatas by Bach and Abel, one focussing on the viola da gamba, the other on the shift between harpsichord and piano forte.

Shaun Ng – viola da gamba

Diana Weston – square pianos

May 17 @ 5.30pm at St John’s College Sydney University, 10 Missenden Rd, Camperdown