Telemann Box Sets

[Richard Barrett]

CMW/Harnoncourt AFAIK only recorded 4 sets of Telemann. Tafelmusik, Darmstadt Overtures, Concertos and The Day of Judgment.

There was a 2 LP set of trio sonatas for various instrumentations as well, in 1978, and a single LP of two suites for recorder(s) and strings, with Frans Brüggen.

[richardfinegold]

In some ways though this "progress" has been in the direction of making sounds more palatable to listeners who expect the same kind of polish you'd get from a modern symphony orchestra, so that HIPP in the early 21st century has, for better or worse, quite possibly less to do with how the music originally sounded than for example Harnoncourt's recordings of the 1960s and 1970s. I like the inhomogeneity of the string sound. It seems to me more indicative of the kind of sound 17th or 18th century players would make than the smoothed-out contemporary HIPP version. The musicologist Richard Taruskin has written interestingly on this subject (although personally I don't always agree with his tastes or conclusions), for example in his book Text and Act from 1995. It often seems to me that many of the most successful HIPP performers these days are purveying HIPP for people who don't really like HIPP.

I've read some of Taruskin's work, but my response would be that we don't, and never will, know how Music sounded before the dawn of recordings. Many people think they know, but at bottom it's speculation. Nor can we be sure that all Orchestras sounded alike. I would venture that when Pisandel programmed a Vivaldi work for the Court in Dresden it didn't sound exactly like it would while played at La Fenice
The Harnoncourt and other early HIP practioners no doubt sounded revelatory to those whose first exposure to PP was via their recordings. Mine wasn't, and when I hear these recordings I appreciate their spirit and intensity but after a while the string tone rattles my teeth fillings. Since I don't like to associate music with trips to the dentist, I'll pass

[jayne lee wilson]

There was a 2 LP set of trio sonatas for various instrumentations as well, in 1978, and a single LP of two suites for recorder(s) and strings, with Frans Brüggen.

Yes, but that Trio Sonata/Quartet set isn't with the Concentus, and doesn't appear to feature Nikolaus, only Alice, Harnoncourt....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sonatas-Quartets-Harnoncourt-Boeke-Vries/dp/B000009L2E/ref=sr_1_8?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1503425673&sr=1-8&keywords=Telemann+harnoncourt

And those two recorders/string suites with Bruggen are of course included in the Das Alte Werk 2-CD set of "Darmstadt Overtures"; the last two items recorded in 1966, as I mentioned above in #5.

[Richard Barrett]

I've read some of Taruskin's work, but my response would be that we don't, and never will, know how Music sounded before the dawn of recordings. Many people think they know, but at bottom it's speculation.

Which is exactly what Taruskin says. (What of his have you read, I wonder?) As for homogenisation, there is indeed far more of that now in HIPP recordings than there was 30 or 40 years ago, a point famously made by Reinhard Goebel in connection with the overdotting of French overtures in different parts of Europe. One reason of course is that now you can go to conservatoires and study for example Baroque violin in the expectation of finding work with ensembles anywhere in Europe and indeed elsewhere too. The inevitable result is a new kind of unspoken orthodoxy: HIPP for people who experience problems with rattling teeth fillings when they hear performances made prior to the homogenisation process. The "real thing" was probably rougher in sound than anything Harnoncourt was involved with.

Jayne, yes, you're right, I mistakenly remembered that double album as involving both Harnoncourts. I also remember it being pretty good though, I must check out the CD release some time.