Telemann Französisch

Although this recording is now at least temporarily out of press it combines the finest oboist of our day, Holliger, with the most sensitive interpreter of Telemann in my experience: Iona Brown with the Orchestra of St. Martin and the Fields. That's particularly important because groups that don't understand or exploit Telemann's sense of musical drama, instrumental color and special effects, and ingenious interactions between orchestra and soloist can reduce a blood-pressure raising work to just baroque music. I expect to offer a more detailed sampler of Telemann recordings and comment in the future. For now let me point out the opening oboe concerto as a unique masterpiece.

This attractive mixed programme of Telemann’s works featuring flute or recorder has been designed by Ashley Solomon to celebrate Florilegium’s 25th anniversary. The triple concerto for flute, oboe d’amore and viola d’amore in E major stands out as one of the composer’s most beguiling masterpieces: the limpid opening Andante sounds like a serene evocation of sunrise that anticipates the mature Haydn by several decades; the soloists Solomon, Alexandra Bellamy and Bojan Čičić play with elegant finesse, and also conjure up refined melancholy in an intimately conversational Siciliana. The double concerto for recorder and viola da gamba in A minor is a charming example of Telemann’s taste for synthesising French and Italian musical styles with elements of Polish folk music; Florilegium’s civilised elegance in the French-style Grave, gently Italianate sway in the Allegro, and Solomon’s duet with gambist Reiko Ichise in the Dolce has pastoral sensitivity. At the heart of the programme is Ihr Völker hört, a cantata for solo voice and obbligato instrument that was published in the first instalment of the series Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst. Clare Wilkinson’s softly convivial and articulate singing communicates the cheerful Epiphany text.

This cd contains one of the best performances of Telemann's well-known A Minor Suite for recorder and strings. Sarah Cunningham is a fine recorder player, and Monica Hugget plays first violin and directs the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, who play on period instruments. The strings play with very little or no vibratto, which might sound a bit dry to some listeners, but the elegance and precision of this band will win over many others. The A Minor Concerto for recorder is also given an enjoyable performance, but the remaining pieces, a Suite in D for Viola da gamba, and a Sinfonia in F for recorder and gamba are less pleasing, mainly because the gamba playing of Marion Verbruggen is somewhat less than exciting.

Georg Philipp Telemann based his compositions on several texts by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. Most well-known (at least theoretically) are his settings of parts of the first and the tenth song of the Messiah, which were created in the 1750s and were presented in 1759 in the Hamburg Drillhaus a larger public. Telemann was thus the first to validly transform parts of this famous epic into a musical form. It is quite likely that Telemann and Klopstock met in person, especially since Telemann showed great interest in the latest literary trends up to the very last age. For Telemann, it would have been a challenge to try a poetry written in strict hexameters, which was so completely different from the usual cantata texts.

Georg Philipp Telemann's late work is almost inexhaustible in terms of surprises. How many times have I written this and yet I am not yet embarrassed to proclaim it again. With which creative power the 80 year old opens new worlds of expression at the end of the 18th century, one can only be astonished by his last oratorios. One of the very last - from 1761 - is his Easter oratorio "Die Auferstehung" (not to be confused with the "Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu", 1760). There is no longer a rigid sequence of recitatives and arias: flexible, almost through-composed, the music follows the strong affects of the (excellent) libretto, always in search of unconventional means of expression, such as a dramatic accompaniment, accompanied only by a highly virtuosic solo violin becomes. Or the beginning of the words: "Du tiefe, tote, grauenvolle Stille" …

Dass Georg Philipp Telemann durch seinen schier unerschöpflichen Einfallsreichtum immer wieder für Überraschungen gut ist, haben wir auf cpo schon oft bewiesen. Auch die jetzige Veröffentlichung zeigt wieder seine Originalität jenseits aller eingefahrenen Gleise. Wir veröffentlichen drei wunderschöne Kantaten aus Telemanns Frankfurter Zeit um 1720: »Sehet an die Exempel der Alten«, »Erhöre mich, wenn ich rufe« und »lch halte aber dafür«.

Telemann's 1733 compendium exhibits impeccable 'table manners' thanks to Concentus Musicus Wien's innate vivacity and Harnoncourt's charm offensive.

Tafelmusik (table music) is a term used since the mid-16th century for music played at feasts and banquets. Some of the most significant composers of Tafelmusik included Johann Schein and Michael Praetorius, who wrote about the genre in his Syntagma musicum of 1619. Composed in 1733, Telemann s Tafelmusik has been compared as a collection to the renowned Brandenburg Concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach in clearly demonstrating the composer s supreme skill in handling a diversity of musical genres and a variety of instruments. Played here by the Freiburger Barockorchester under the direction of their leader Gottfried von der Goltz, these Baroque gems shine as never before.

In the Telemann mountains, much of the topography remains terra incognita because most of Telemann's music remains an undiscovered country. But whatever future generations of hardy musicologists may uncover, it is unlikely that Telemann's Nouveaux Quatuors en Six Suites published in Paris in 1738 will be displaced as among his output's highest peaks.