In conversation with Richard Boothby and Silas Wollston
In this lecture recital Richard Boothby will present his recent work on some of the newly-discovered sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord by 18th century composer and gambist, Carl Friedrich Abel, uncovered in a castle in Poland. Additionally, he will explore some of the wonderful improvisations that Abel wrote down for his friend, the painter Thomas Gainsborough.
Richard Boothby
After studying with David Fallows and Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Salzburg, Richard founded the Purcell Quartet in 1984 and was a founding member of Fretwork in 1985. Since then his career has been bound up with these two groups, with whom he records and tours; and through whom he plays the broadest range of repertory for the viol, from the earliest music to the latest contemporary music.
With the Purcell Quartet he has recorded nearly 50 albums for Hyperion and Chandos, and with Fretwork he recorded over 50 albums for Virgin Classics, Harmonia Mundi USA and currently Signum Classics. His arrangements and recordings of Bach’s keyboard music, including the Goldberg Variations for viol consort, has won particular praise.
Richard is a prime mover in the quest to enrich the viol repertory with new music and has been involved in commissioning music from George Benjamin, Michael Nyman, Alexander Goehr, Orlando Gough and Elvis Costello, among many others.
Silas Wollston
Recognised as a leading early music specialist, Silas Wollston combines performance and academic research in a varied career. He studied the organ with John Scott before taking up an organ scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge. He then went on to study harpsichord and fortepiano at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Conservatoire Royale in Brussels. A longstanding member of the English Baroque Soloists, he played a major role in John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach Cantata cycle in 2000, performing the organ obbligato of BWV146 on the Trost organ in Altenburg.
He also has much experience as a choral director, working as Director of Music at Queens’ College, Cambridge between 2011 and 2015. He has published research on the string music of Locke and Purcell, and on Handel’s compositional process. He is a member of the London Handel Players, the Bach Players, the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, and In Echo.