Telemann Camerata

…The Camerata - an offshoot of Bruggen's Orchestra of the 18th Century - use only a single instrument to a part…the characterful immediacy of the individual playing translates into a corporate band capable of superb buoyancy and vigour. Flautist Konrad Hunteler directs with a twinkling eye rather than a dictatorial stick…The music's charm lies in a complex amalgam of innocence and sophistication which Hunteler judges to perfection…

Georg Philipp Telemann's Fortsetzung des Harmonisches Gottesdienstes is a sprawling published collection of sacred cantatas, one cantata for every Sunday and feast day in the church calendar, 72 cantatas in all. This colossal project made its bow in 1731, and is actually a sequel to an equally huge collection that Telemann published in 1725, Harmonischer Gottesdienst. About the only small thing in Fortsetzung are the performance dimensions of the individual cantatas, scored for solo voice, an instrument or two, and continuo.

Copenhagen-based early music ensemble Camerata Øresund takes a musical voyage throughout baroque Europe on their debut recording Pas de bourrée . Suites of dances by Campra, Roman and Purcell alternate with concertos by Bach and Vivaldi and a programme work by Telemann. A theme of travel and journeying unites these pieces. Camerata Øresund cannot keep their feet still even in the most virtuoso of concertos. They dance an energetic "pas de bourrée" to the Allegro of Bach's Harpsichord Concerto, whilst the slow movement from Vivaldi's L’estro armonico is transformed into a hypnotic Sarabande. Pas de bourrée is a colourful kaleidoscope of moods, emotions, characters and stories. Camerata Øresund remains true to their promise that everything they touch will turn into a dance.

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.

Georg Philipp Telemann's chamber oeuvre has always had a significant place in the repertoire of the Camerata Köln. The ensembles contributions to this field have included complete recordings of magnificent cyclical work groups such as his Essercizii musici, Trios of 1718, Six Concerts et Suites, Die kleine Kammermusik, and Der getreue Music-Meister. The present release rounds off the complete recording of Telemanns concertos with wind instruments on a total of 16 CDs on cpo. The Baroque orchestra La Stagione Frankfurt led by Michael Schneider performed the orchestral compositions, and the Camerata Köln was responsible for the chamber works and the wind soloists of the two ensembles are identical. The second release of the Concerti da Camera once again contains chamber masterpieces by Telemann featuring a complex texture of parts in a concerto style in which each of the concertizing instruments is allowed to come forward with thematic material as well as with figurations.

The ensemble Cologne Camerata — Camerata Köln is one of the most long-loved chamber music ensembles for early music in the world. Under the name of Camerata Köln a handful of music students founded the ensemble in 1979 at the music conservatoire in Cologne. Ever since then, enthusiasm for the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the desire and imagination to pursue wholly new sounds and forms of interpretation, artistic approaches and stage presence in combination with a great deal of research and spontaneous desire for music making have marked the work of the ensemble and their international concerts.

The ensemble Cologne Camerata — Camerata Köln is one of the most long-loved chamber music ensembles for early music in the world. Under the name of Camerata Köln a handful of music students founded the ensemble in 1979 at the music conservatoire in Cologne. Ever since then, enthusiasm for the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the desire and imagination to pursue wholly new sounds and forms of interpretation, artistic approaches and stage presence in combination with a great deal of research and spontaneous desire for music making have marked the work of the ensemble and their international concerts.

1716 veröffentlichte Telemann Die Kleine Kammermusik, eine Sammlung von sechs Partiten für Melodieinstrument und Generalbaß. Was an Einfallsreichtum und Individualität in diesen auch für Laien gedachten Stücken steckt, haben Michael Schneider und seine Camerata Köln bereits vor acht Jahren mit dezenter Leidenschaft und profunder Stilkompetenz demonstriert (cpo CD 999 497-2). Nun stellt Schneider mit La Stagione Frankfurt eine Orchesterfassung dieser Musik vor, die Telemann Mitte der 1720er Jahre erstellt hat. Die Ober- und die Unterstimme sind dabei im wesentlichen unverändert, die beiden Mittelstimmen hinzukomponiert worden.

Germany's CPO label has presented the efforts of performers who have doggedly unearthed unknown music of various periods, especially the eighteenth century. With the voluminous corpus of concertos by Telemann, many of which exist only in manuscript, they enter a field with a lot of still-uncharted territory. This set of wind concertos is one of the label's most useful releases despite a few quirks.