Telemann: Chamber Music/Tafelmusik

CD1

1. Chamber Music : in G major . G-dur . en sol majeur : Allegro
2. Chamber Music : in G major . G-dur . en sol majeur : Grave
3. Chamber Music : in G major . G-dur . en sol majeur : Allegro
4. Trio Sonata in B minor . h-moll . en si mineur : Largo
5. Trio Sonata in B minor . h-moll . en si mineur : Vivace
6. Trio Sonata in B minor . h-moll . en si mineur : Dolce
7. Trio Sonata in B minor . h-moll . en si mineur : Vivace
8. Sonata : in C major . C-dur . en ut majeur : Adagio - Allegro
9. Sonata : in C major . C-dur . en ut majeur : Larghetto
10. Sonata : in C major . C-dur . en ut majeur : Vivace
11. Trio Sonata : in G minor . g-moll . en sol mineur : Mesto
12. Trio Sonata : in G minor . g-moll . en sol mineur : Allegro
13. Trio Sonata : in G minor . g-moll . en sol mineur : Andante
14. Trio Sonata : in G minor . g-moll . en sol mineur : Vivace
15. Sonata in F minor . f-moll . en fa mineur : Tristo
16. Sonata in F minor . f-moll . en fa mineur : Allegro
17. Sonata in F minor . f-moll . en fa mineur : Andante 
18. Sonata in F minor . f-moll . en fa mineur : Vivace
19. Trio Sonata in D minor . d-moll . en ré mineur : Andante
20. Trio Sonata in D minor . d-moll . en ré mineur : Vivace
21. Trio Sonata in D minor . d-moll . en ré mineur : Adagio
22. Trio Sonata in D minor . d-moll . en ré mineur : Allegro
23. No.2 Quartet in G major . G-dur . en sol majeur : Largo – Allegro – Largo
24. No.2 Quartet in G major . G-dur . en sol majeur : Vivace – Moderato – Vivace 
25. No.2 Quartet in G major . G-dur . en sol majeur : Grave
26. No.2 Quartet in G major . G-dur . en sol majeur : Vivace

CD2

1. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in B flat major . B-dur . en si bémol majeur : Ouverture. Lentement – Presto –
   Lentement 
2. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in B flat major . B-dur . en si bémol majeur : Bergerie. Un peu vivemen
3. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in B flat major . B-dur . en si bémol majeur : Allégresse. Vite – meno mosso – vite
4. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in B flat major . B-dur . en si bémol majeur : Postillons 
5. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in B flat major . B-dur . en si bémol majeur : Flaterie 
6. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in B flat major . B-dur . en si bémol majeur : Badinage. Très vite 
7. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in B flat major . B-dur . en si bémol majeur : Menuet
8. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in B flat major . B-dur . en si bémol majeur : No. 6 Conclusion
9. No.3 Concerto for 3 violins in F major . F-dur . en fa majeur : Allegro
10. No.3 Concerto for 3 violins in F major . F-dur . en fa majeur : Largo
11. No.3 Concerto for 3 violins in F major . F-dur . en fa majeur : Vivace
12. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in D major . D-dur . en ré majeur : Air I: Tempo giusto 
13. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in D major . D-dur . en ré majeur : Air II: Vivace 
14. No.1 Ouverture-Suite in D major . D-dur . en ré majeur : No.6 Conclusion : Allegro – Adagio – Allegro

Georg Philipp Telemann was one of the eighteenth century’s most active musicians: a prolific composer, publisher, writer, concert promoter and administrator. His instrumental works include every species of orchestral and chamber music, while his vocal works en -compass odes, operas, oratorios, close to fifty Passions and well over a thousand cantatas. History has never forgiven him for being offered the post of Cantor at the Thomas -kirche, Leipzig, in preference to Bach, when the post fell vacant in 1722; yet there is no evidence of any bad feeling between the two men. Quite the opposite: Telemann was god father to Bach’s second son Emanuel, and Bach frequently performed Telemann’s music. Posterity has been less generous. The suspicion that Telemann composed too much too quickly delayed the revival of his music for many years and has never quite gone away. Telemann was the most commercially successful composer working in Germany in the first half of the eighteenth century. This was in no small part due to his willingness to cater to the needs of every section of the musical public, from important civic, royal and religious patrons to the new breed of middle-class amateurs. ‘A page with witch-craft in its lines, full of tricky passagework’, he wrote, ‘is a burden to perform. He who composes for the many does better than he who writes for the few’. In truth, though, he also wrote for the ‘few’ – the connoisseurs – just as successfully. But unlike many of his contemporaries, whose works remained largely in manuscript, Telemann was an enthusiastic publisher, and so his music did indeed reach ‘the many’; compared with Bach’s modest catalogue of seventy-one printed works, Telemann’s tally was almost a thousand. One of the most widely circulated of his publications was his instrumental anthology Tafelmusik, issued in 1733. The beautifully engraved score (much of it his own work) was offered to subscribers at a high price, for which they also got their name, rank and address printed in the first edition. The two hundred or so names listed form a catalogue of Europe’s music lovers: royalty and gentry rubbing shoulders with the newly-emerging middle classes and Telemann’s fellow musicians. Indeed, he specifically designed Tafelmusik to appeal to such a broad public, each of its three parts consisting of an ambitious, French-style orchestral overture and dance suite, followed by a quartet and a dazzling concerto and then a trio and solo sonata for more intimate music making and with fewer technical demands, all rounded off with a lusty ‘Conclusion’.

Each part, or ‘production’ as he called them, could thus form the basis of a complete evening’s entertainment, or it could just be dipped into – as Ton Koopman does. One of the original subscribers to Tafelmusik, George Frideric Handel, frequently made use of the collection for inspiration, reworking the fugal theme of the B flat Ouverture recorded here in his Occasional Oratorio and remodelling ‘Postillons’ in Belshazzar. He also borrowed Air I from the D major Ouverture-Suite for the second movement of his organ concerto Op.7 no.4, and the well-known ‘Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’ was clearly based on the opening of the Concerto in F major for three violins. Telemann himself affected a rather superior attitude to the concerto, claiming in his autobiography that he composed them simply because ‘variety revives the spirit’. Nevertheless, the F major concerto is a brilliantly conceived work in which Telemann cleverly plays the violins off against each other, the three soloists sparring competi -tively, forming ever-changing alliances, but always ending up harmoniously together. In his own time Telemann’s chamber music was much admired for its engaging scoring and easy accessibility. The solo and trio sonatas included here were all well within the reach of good amateur players of the time, and catered for all manner of combinations of string and wind instruments. Telemann also appealed to both conservative and fashionable tastes, using older four- and newer three-movement designs, as well as mixing reminiscences of Corelli with more forward-looking concerto-like movements, as we can hear in the colourful G major Quartet for flute, oboe, violin, cello and con -tinuo from Tafelmusik I. But it’s the Quartet’s effervescent finale where Telemann’s unique voice is heard, as he draws on the memory of his youthful years of travel and enriches he suave cosmopolitan style with spicy echoes of folk music.

Simon Heighes, 2015