Telemann Complete Violin Concertos

With the release of this second disc in violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch's survey of the complete violin concertos of Telemann, one thing is readily apparent: the Hamburg composer wrote a lot of really fine violin concertos. Taken altogether, the seven concertos on the first volume and now these eight concertos on the second volume form a wonderful body of work as remarkable for its consistency and its diversity. That is to say, all the works are not only superbly written to show off the virtuosity of the soloist and the composer, but they are all markedly different from each other.

The fourth volume of CPO’s set of Telemann’s “complete violin concertos” contains three overture-concertos, two works of which kind appeared in a previous volume (in D, TWV 55:D14; in A, TWV 55: colla parte , but woodwind highlights don’t distract from the sometimes brilliant solos that emerge not only in the fast sections of the first movements (ouvertures), but in the jaunty movements like the G-Major Concerto’s Bourée (these concertos usually consist of an ouverture followed by sets of dances, including entrées, bourées, loures, menuets, siciliennes, gigues, and rondeaus, mixed in various orders).

In this, the first disc in a series covering the violin concertos of Telemann (of which there are twenty), we have cause for rejoicing. These performances are so fine, and this music so appealing and elegant, that I immediately listened to the entire disc through a second time…. rare praise indeed.

…this is the third instalment of a very fine series. The best work is the Concerto in D, which has movement titles like Badinage and is wonderfully inventive…Wallfisch is joined by Susan Carpenter-Jacobs for some very elegant duetting.

Iona Brown, violinist and sometime conductor of the Academy of St. Martin and the fields, clearly understood how different Telemann was from other baroque composers - and what was needed to really bring out his special qualities. Unlike J.S. Bach and Handel, who were keyboard virtuosi, Telemann, who had unusual interest in and an especially keen ear for instrumental sonorities, spent his early years (secretly) learning to play all the instruments available in his time. Despite his prodigious musical gifts, his upper middle class family did not want him pursuing what was then the low occupation of musician.

Telemann wrote instrumental concertos for all the wind instruments of his epoch – for example, for oboe and oboe d’amore and for transverse flute, recorder, and flauto pastorale. Since he could play most of these instruments, he wrote extremely idiomatic parts showing each instrument in a favourable light and simultaneously appealing to the instrumentalist. The concertos exhibit a wealth of varied (and often unusual) ensemble formations, concerto practices and forms. A one-of-kind cosmos of performance joy and fantasy spreads out in the Italian, French, German, and Polish styles, and it was because of its uniqueness that cpo set out on the adventure of a complete recording of Telemann’s wind concertos with La Stagione and the Camerata Köln.

75 CD box set (with original jackets) is the first complete collection comprising all of Reinhard Goebel's recordings on Archiv Produktion. It shows Reinhard Goebel as a violinist, conductor, music scholar, and founder of his celebrated ensemble Musica Antiqua Koln. Featuring almost 30 years of recording history from the Neapolitan Recorder Concertos from 1978 to Telemann's Flute Quartets recorded in 2005.