Ouverture Burlesque

The Augustinus Muziekcentrum in Antwerp is a deconsecrated church repurposed for concerts, especially in the field of early music. The venue may work well for some pieces, but it's bothersome in this program of comic vocal and instrumental music by Telemann, where it's completely inappropriate. The two comic cantatas here presuppose an intimate environment of connoisseurs, but the voice of soprano soloist Dorothee Mields gets lots in the church's vast spaces to such an extent that text intelligibility is a problem, even with the aid of printed texts in German, Dutch, French, and English./quote]

Telemann, with an absolute lack of seriousness, deploys a whole host of Italian operatic mannerisms in this work, and the challenge for the singers who've attempted it (not a large crowd) is to untrack themselves from regimes of discipline enough to be funny, but not to take a grotesque approach; the humor of the piece lies in small details that have to be delivered in a natural Way. Mields carries this off nicely, starting out in a sort of blank state and then adopting a pose of rising emotion. In the cornier and less interesting Der Weiber-Orden, TWV 20:49 (The Order of Women), she sounds entirely different, delivering the music in the intended tone of hearty, folkish humor. The three French-style instrumental overtures have plenty of humor themselves, with the last of them offering a gallery of theatrical figures (Scaramouche, Pierrot), concluding with an unusual "Mezzetin en Turc."

This 29CD set provides a superb introduction to this master of the Barock. He is often suffers in comparison to Bach, Handel and Vivaldi mainly because it is so difficult to know where to start with such a vast body of work. This Brilliant Classics box set makes the Telemann experience all the more enjoyable by making this selection and providing a wonderful window into the world of this great composer.

A broad selection of 33 Overtures (Orchestral Suites) by Georg Philipp Telemann is here collected in one generous 8-CD set. Telemann, one of the most prolific and gifted composers of the 18th century, wrote many charming, graceful suites in the fashion of his time - comprised of a three-part French overture followed by shorter dance movements, chaconnes, character pieces, and more. The historically-informed performance of Collegium Instrumentale Brugense under Patrick Piere shows that these bright, varied works truly rival the suites of Handel and Bach.