BaL 24.06.17 - Telemann: Water Music 'Hamburger Ebb' und Fluth'

[verismissimo]

"..........and have on each occasion netted out as Draco..."

Genuinely do not understand what that term 'netted out as ' means? Never heard it before.

Net as in 'net profit', Draco.

[DracoM]

Sorry - still don't follow............?

May not be all that worth going on with to alleviate just my bafflement!!

[DracoM]

And yes, sorry, but Mozart for me did indeed write a lot of dullish but comfortable and brilliantly orchestrated stuff. It was his JOB to do so. and if anyone in those days went seriously off-accepted rules / scale, they were rubbished.

I suspect that the the demands of pretty conservative patrons meant that you went off message at your peril and indeed loss of job. Plus ca change etcetcetc

[Bryn]

Sorry - still don't follow............?

May not be all that worth going on with to alleviate just my bafflement!!

Might George du Maurier's curate's egg help?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And yes, sorry, but Mozart for me did indeed write a lot of dullish but comfortable and brilliantly orchestrated stuff. It was his JOB to do so. and if anyone in those days went seriously off-accepted rules / scale, they were rubbished.

I suspect that the the demands of pretty conservative patrons meant that you went off message at your peril and indeed loss of job. Plus ca change etcetcetc

Well, again, yes-ish: but this is true of most professional composers (and writers and painters) until at least the middle of the 19th Century. The "Victorian" image of the tortured genius writhing in creative ecstasies as he (sic) starved to death in order to devote the years needed to produce a single masterwork is a pernicious inheritance from the Romantic Era.

But so, I think, is the danger of thinking that because a composer produced work "by the yard", with no time for "inspiration", the work can't be much good - that it cannot exhilarate, move, and (yes) inspire listeners today; that the working methods cannot result in (many) "masterpieces".

I write, of course, with the enthusiasm of the newly-converted with regard to Telemann - but there are Musicians who have dedicated much of their professional lives to performing this Music, returning to it regularly, and programming it in spite of the fact that performing a Bach or Handel piece instead might bring in larger audiences (avoiding pun on "Hamburger Concertos"). The "intense" exposure to Telemann's Music that I've experienced this week (CotW, BaL, the CDs that I've repeatedly played) has already convinced me that they must be right - the more I hear of it, the more it impresses me; the more I want to listen to it; the more delight I receive from it. Whether he took three hours, three weeks, or three years to write each work becomes irrelevant when realizing just how good this Music is.

I wish I felt the same about ... oh, probably better if I don't



(Oh - and the more I know it, the more I'm convinced that Mozart - a composer who notoriously went "off-message" in Salzburg - didn't compose a "dullish" piece in his life: it's just some performers who think he did. )

[Richard Barrett]

if anyone in those days went seriously off-accepted rules / scale, they were rubbished.

This is supposition without any evidence. Just because composers were given a brief to fulfil doesn't mean they didn't fulfil it with all the individual artistry they had, or that this wasn't deeply appreciated by at least some of their listeners. Also Telemann, to give an example, wrote large amounts of music for publication rather than to order. His Tafelmusik series, for example, was "crowdfunded" by subscription. (Handel was one of the subscribers and stole quite a few themes from it for his own use.) The image of Baroque composers as purveying wallpaper is as lazy and inaccurate as that of Romantic composers sweating over a hot piano or modern composers lost in calculations!

[DracoM]

" doesn't mean they didn't fulfil it with all the individual artistry they had, or that this wasn't deeply appreciated by at least some of their listeners."

Hang on, a mo.......at NO point did I say or imply that the composers were unskilled or uncommitted, lacked expertise, or awareness of or support from their audience / crowdfunders. Indeed, it is especially because they were aware and attentive to those constituencies that they flourished. And realistically, ALL composers unless they are of independent means then or now have to be able to court their potential audience. It's part of the job spec / job angst. Yes, got all that.

Next thing is to ask might be what it was that that diverse and possibly fragile audience demanded? What would they not pay for? Who wouldn't fight pretty hard to be a Kapellmeister / court composer in residence / by appointment since it usually brought decently predictable income streams and job security? Yes, got that too.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I am at a disadvantage in having known the Handel for forty years, and the Telemann for merely four days, and I was intending to give credit to Telemann, rather than diss Handel (who, as I have mentioned many times over the years, is one of my favourite composers).

fhg: you may have hit the nail on the head - Georg Friderick got his blow in fust

Not in the trivial sense of 1717 vs 1723 but because very few people today will first hear the Telemann before the Handel has been fairly burnt into their brain. Nonetheless, and making all the allowances for this that I can, IMHO Handel did a much better job!

I've had the Telemann for a few years and despite my strong personal disposition towards the new and unfamiliar, I'm sure it's had far fewer airings - and given less pleasure - than the Handel in that time. Was hoping the BaL would alert me to new delights in it, but it didn't really

But would it have been the other way about if Harty, Szell, Sargent, Maazel, Van Beinum, Menuhin, Leppard, Dart etc had plugged the Telemann like crazy any time from the 1920s onward, while the GFH sat waiting for rediscovery till say 1970? I'd like to think No, quality will out, but...

[Richard Barrett]

at NO point did I say or imply that the composers were unskilled or uncommitted, lacked expertise, or awareness of or support from their audience / crowdfunders.

No, but you did imply that you set a low value on their work on account of it being commissioned/intended as "wallpaper". What I was saying is that composers (the ones whose work is still heard centuries afterwards that is) don't think "well it's just to accompany some prince eating his lark's tongues, I won't bother too much," instead putting as much skill, subtlety and expression into that music as they could. If you personally don't find the results engaging that isn't because of the wallpaper factor.

[MickyD]

"composers (the ones whose work is still heard centuries afterwards that is) don't think "well it's just to accompany some prince eating his lark's tongues, I won't bother too much," instead putting as much skill, subtlety and expression into that music as they could."

...I agree, and would give the complete Haydn baryton trios (21 CDs!) as a good example of this. The prince specified that he wanted a lot of music composed for this instrument, and Haydn duly obliged, with considerable aplomb.

[verismissimo]

...I agree, and would give the complete Haydn baryton trios (21 CDs!) as a good example of this. The prince specified that he wanted a lot of music composed for this instrument, and Haydn duly obliged, with considerable aplomb.

As boarders will know , I'm utterly devoted to Haydn and really can't be doing with those baryton things. Now I know why!

[Richard Barrett]

Now I know why!

How do you mean? Micky and I were agreeing that "If you personally don't find the results engaging that isn't because of the wallpaper factor." In other words: the fact that Haydn's baryton trios, or Telemann's "Water Music", or whatever, were written to order in whatever quantities has nothing really to do with what the respective composers put into them. If you have no time for Haydn's baryton pieces (how many of them have you heard?) you need to look elsewhere for the reason!

[Richard Barrett]

Now I know why!

How do you mean? Micky and I were agreeing that "If you personally don't find the results engaging that isn't because of the wallpaper factor." In other words: the fact that Haydn's baryton trios, or Telemann's "Water Music", or whatever, were written to order in whatever quantities has nothing really to do with what the respective composers put into them. If you have no time for Haydn's baryton pieces (how many of them have you heard?) you need to look elsewhere for the reason!