August Kühnel (1645-c.1700) - Sonata (I) ad due Viole da Gamba (1698)

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Composer: August Kühnel (1645-c.1700)
Work: Sonata (I) ad due Viole da Gamba (1698)
Performers: VioIette de Nuit ensemble

Painting: Gerard van der Kuijl (1604-1673) - Musicerend gezelschap
Image in high resolution: https://flic.kr/p/2kSfrGp

Further info: https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:K%C3%BChnel,_August
Listen free: https://soundcloud.com/mette-due/sonata-ad-due-viole-da-gamba-nr-1

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August Kühnel
(Delmenhorst, 3 August 1645 - c.1700)

German viol player and composer. In 1657 or 1658 he was living at Güstrow with his father, the musician Samuel Kühnel. In 1661 he went as a viol player to the court chapel at Zeitz. He was active there until 1686, with interruptions. During one of these, in 1665, he went to Paris to study, and he later performed at Dresden and elsewhere. In 1669, when he visited Frankfurt, he was described as a ‘musician of the Saxon court’. In 1680–81 he was in Munich, but he decided not to take up an appointment there that would have obliged him to change his religion. He is known to have been in London in 1682 and 1685: the London Gazette for 23 November 1685 announced ‘some performance upon the Barritone, by Mr August Keenell, the Author of this Musick’. In 1686 Kühnel was called from Zeitz to Darmstadt by Landgravine Elisabeth Dorothea to become viol player and director of the instrumentalists under W.C. Briegel, the Kapellmeister, but he had to leave Darmstadt in November 1688 because of the danger of attacks by the French. He is next heard of as director of the instrumentalists at the court at Weimar, and from 1695 to 1699 he was court Kapellmeister at Kassel. His son Johann Michael is also known to have been active as a viol player and as a violinist and lutenist too. Kühnel was a leading performer on the bass viol and composer of music for it. He published a set of 14 attractive Sonate ô partite (Kassel, 1698), six of which are for two viols, and eight for one, all with continuo. #ClassicalMusic