Julia Carin Cavazos

The work group formed by Telemann’s overture suites is regarded as exemplary and even today offers a wealth of discoveries – and the three works presented here in CD recording premieres certainly answer this description. It is difficult to determine the chronological order of Telemann’s extant overture suites because the composer incorporated very different influences into them, not only from French music since the invention of the form by Jean-Baptiste Lully but also from the »Lullists« active in Germany such as Johann Sigismund Kusser, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, and Johann Fischer. And for Telemann’s pronounced tendency to mix existing formal, stylistic, and generic traditions, the overture suite formed an absolutely ideal foil. Here we can find diverse characters, formal combinations, and stylistic interconnections in great supply. The great imagination and spirit at work here are also shown in the plentiful stores of surprising ideas that shine like flashes of brainstorm lightning in various passages.

“Specializing in unknown repertoire, cpo is now serious about uncovering yet another veritable treasure:” this is what klassik-heute wrote of Vol. 1 of our Wind Overtures by Telemann. This master of all musical trades was also active and extremely successful in the field of Harmoniemusik – the compositional genre for wind ensembles entrusted with military, hunting, and table music. The wind version of the work known as the “Alster Overture” heard along with other works on Vol. 2 is regarded as a model example of this artistic philosophy of Telemann’s. However, what is a more important key to the significance of the work is the knowledge that the movements following the overture are practically to be understood as an audio instrumental preview of the serenata composed by Telemann and going along with them. In this overture suite the “musical artist” presents to our ears highly atmospheric sound depictions of Hamburg and what were then its country surroundings, through which the Alster River flowed. Even the singing swans majestically gliding along the Alster are represented in a wonderfully beautiful sarabande.