HURLSTONE Park couple Karina Schmitz (viola) and Simon Martyn-Ellis (Theorbo), feature among a select group of chamber musicians performing in an online concert later this month.
Often performing together as ‘Duo Corbetta’, the couple is joining the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra (ARCO), along with Croydon’s Matthew Greco (violin), in a sparkling concert featuring Mozart and Abel.
Though little-known today, Carl Friedrich Abel was renowned as a major musical figure throughout Europe in the mid-to-late 1700s.
He secured a coveted position in the court orchestra at Dresden, moved to England to become chamber-musician to Queen Charlotte and in 1764 or 1765, established with Johann Christian Bach, the Bach-Abel concerts, England’s first subscription concerts.
These pieces represent the huge demand for flute works at that time.
All specialists in historical performance, the Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra will offer further insights into the 18th century music’s transition from Baroque complexity to the melody-driven classical style.
“An interesting aside is that in the 19th century, one of Abel’s symphonies was misattributed to Mozart,” an ARCO spokesperson said.
“A manuscript in Mozart’s handwriting was discovered and catalogued as his Symphony no. 3 in E flat, K. 18 – but it turned out to be a work of Abel’s, copied out by Mozart while a student in London in 1764.”