Although Johann Christian Bach and the violin virtuoso Carl Friedrich Abel lived together in a kind of bachelor living community in London until the marriage...

Although Johann Christian Bach and the violin virtuoso Carl Friedrich Abel lived together in a kind of bachelor living community in London until the marriage of Bach, Bach’s Œuvre for the gamba is surprisingly small. Through the discovery of an old manuscript it was confirmed for the quartets op. 8 what Thomas Fritzsch and others had already assumed: in the first version of the quartets the viola voice was played by Abel on the viola da gamba. Together with other excellent musicians, Fritzsch shows us how the charming quartets in their original version must have sounded. Thomas Fritzsch was born in Zwickau and grew up in the midst of a lively tradition of Saxon church and house music. He received his first cello lesson at the conservatory in his hometown. After studying cello and viola da gamba at the Leipziger Musikhochschule, he began a freelance activity as a specialist for the music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Today he is regarded as one of the world’s most sought-after gambists.