New Comma Baroque’s Phillip Serna Performs 2 Concertos with the Concord Chamber Orchestra – the Rudolph Dolmetsch Concertino for Viola da Gamba & Small Orchestra, 1941 & U.S. Premiere of the Carl Friedrich Abel Concerto Violo de Gambo in A major, A9:1A from the Ledenburg Collection

New Comma Baroque’s Phillip Serna joins Jamin Hoffman and the Concord Chamber Orchestra in a special collaboration presenting TWO concert works featuring the viol: Rudolph Dolmetsch’s 1941 Concertino for Viola da Gamba and Small Orchestra and Carl Friedrich Abel’s Concerto Violo de Gambo in A major! Rudolph Dolmetsch (1906-1942), second child of Early Music pioneer Arnold Dolmetsch, was regarded as an accomplished composer, keyboardist, and  the first modern viola da gamba virtuoso. Due to his tragic maritime death by German forces in 1942, his Concertino for Viola da Gamba and Small Orchestra wouldn’t receive its world premiere until 1993, later published by PRB Productions in 1995. Often labelled as ‘the last gambist‘ and a 3rd-generation viol performer, Carl Friederich Abel (1723-1787), was son of Christian Ferdinand Abel, performer in court ensembles led by Johann Sebastian Bach. After studies Leipzig and a post to Johann Adolf Hasse’s court orchestra in Dresden, Abel joined the London court of Queen Charlotte where he befriended Bach’s 11th son, Johann Christian Bach, with whom he established the Bach-Abel Concerts. Published by Edition Güntersberg in 2018, Abel’s recently-attributed Concerto Violo de Gambo in A-major is his only surviving work for viola da gamba and orchestra, discovered alongside previously unknown works by Johann Carl Graf zu Hardeck, Anton Milling, and Anton Raetzel. Other works on the program include Balakirev’s Overture on Three Russian Pieces, Harty’s Suite from Handel’s Water Music. Hindemith’s Eight Pieces for Strings, and Riley’s In C.