Telemann Letzte Orchesterwerke Michael Schneider

This unique anthology of Baroque flute concertos on six CDs contains not only sensational collections featuring virtuoso recorder concertos of the German, Italian, and English Baroque but also the complete solo recorder concertos of Scarlatti, Vivaldi, and Georg Philipp Telemann. Telemanns two very different Concertos in F major and C major, for example, number among the most outstanding Baroque compositions of all for the recorder in a concerto role. Michael Schneider currently has no real rivals worldwide on his instrument. In his hands the recorder loses what so often limits its expressive capacity and gains a voice articulating all the musical facets. The complete eighteenth-century repertoire of recorder concertos or most of it is now available in performances by Schneider.

Georg Philipp Telemann - cpo friends have long known - is always good for surprises. He was a diligent and also important opera composer who wrote about 35 operas for the Hamburg Opera between 1721 and 1733, of which unfortunately only nine have survived. These are, without exception, important contributions to German opera history; recent performances have all proved their viability and power, but above all the originality, the music-dramatic sense and the always attractive melody of Telemann revealed.

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.

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.

Telemann wrote funeral compositions for many persons. His setting of the Funeral Music for Emperor Charles VII – transmitted solely in the form of a sketch in the composer’s own hand with numerous corrections and writing simplifications and in part without a text – already points to typical features of his late vocal work: a treatment of the vocal parts that is melodically sometimes austere, mostly coloratura-poor, and systematic in its employment of verbal meter, a melodic design sharpened by succinct rhythms and suspensions, and a harmonic structure enriched by pointedly set interdominants. This funerary music is set in the context of the state compositions ordered by the Hamburg city council for the elections, coronations, weddings, and deaths of Holy Roman Emperors of the German Nation.

Cinque Profeti is a little known Christmas cantata by Alessandro Scarlatti. It has a power and subtlety redolent of Handel coupled with touches of early Monteverdi. Sung here to great effect by the five soloists with sensitive instrumentalists, they play together to bring the gentle and subtle melodies - surely written to confer a sense of the special nature of the Christmas season - to life. It’s a recording which is sure to please. Opera was not performed in Rome for much of Alessandro Scarlatti's lifetime; that's why his vocal church music mostly comprised oratorios and cantatas, of which he wrote three for the Palazzo Apostolico. Only one survives: to a libretto by Silvio Stampiglia. Cinque Profeti takes the inventive form of a conversation between the five old testament prophets, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Abraham (the cinque profeti) about the birth of Christ – which was about to be celebrated on the occasion of the cantata’s first performance, in 1705 at the Papal Palace in Rome.

As music-lovers we can only be grateful when interesting recordings which probably are no longer available are reissued. It is a quite remarkable work, for historical, textual and musical reasons. First, historically it is notable that this oratorio was part of a series of eight oratorios which were performed during Lent 1708 at the palace of Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome. The performance is such that this reissue is welcome. The three soloists bring good interpretations, albeit a bit too restrained.

–Johan van Veen

Charles Burney, the great English music traveller of the 18th century, was extremely positive about "Herr Kapellmeister Benda". His compositions his "new, masterly, and learned." Mozart, too, never made a secret of his high regard for Georg Anton Benda; he was well aware of how much he was indebted to the creator of the German Singspiel - right up to the "Magic Flute".

The recorder only features in a handful of Vivaldi’s concertos. Well known for being an exceptional violinist, Vivaldi’s innovative style is apparent in his compositions for other instruments too. He used the same technique as when he composed for the violin, using a musical language marked by gigantic tonal ranges whether or not they were models for this in their respective repertoire. The result is a concert repertoire that is madly virtuosic and music of the greatest variety. Some could even say his recorder concertos represent the greatest challenge in the baroque repertoire.

Michael Schneider is one of the top recorder players in the field of early music and he is the ideal interpreter of these Concertos of the German Baroque. Amongst concertos by Graupner, Schickhardt, Schultze, and Scheibe, Schneider performs the World Première Recordings of recorder concertos by Johann Friedrich Fasch and Mattheus Nikolaus Stulick.