Telemann

[teamsaint]

No takers?
Caught half an hour yesterday. Sounds like an interesting life story, at any rate.

There was a nice quartet for( ?) violin, Cello, Harpsichord and oboe played.

Doesn't seem to be lighting forum members' fires though.....

[John Shelton]

I like Telemann very much. Tafelmusik is a much more substantial collection than the connotations of the name would suggest, with chamber works and concertos alternating with large scale suites or 'overtures'. Try the reissue of Musica Antiqua Köln, who have done so much to revive Telemann's music. http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/DG%2BArchiv/4778714

Though the Freiburger Barockorchester set is scintillating http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/H...C902042%252F45

Musica Antiqua Köln's disc of wind concertos is a winner http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/DG%2BArchiv/E4196332

as is the dramatic cantata Ino http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/B...Classics/93897

and their Flute Quartets http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/DG%2BArchiv/E4775379

Paul Dombrecht's disc of Christmas Cantatas is lovely http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/sea...emann+cantatas

The opera Orpheus is well worth investigating

And there's a nice selection in this box http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Ricercar/RIC270 (which is a decent bargain at the moment. Some of the performances have dated a bit in style, the musicians would do things differently now, but they are still finely performed).

Telemann

[John Shelton]

The Fantasies for solo violin make an interesting 'free' contrast to Bach's much more structured works

http://www.amazon.co.uk/G-P-H-Telemann-Fantasie-Violino-Senza/dp/B000025ZNY/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1353527227&sr=1-1

[teamsaint]

I like old Telly also.Love the Baroque Gypsies/Ensemble Caprice CD.

some nice suggestions there HN. I will certainly try to get a listen to the Freiburg set...they are always brilliant in my limited experience.

[jayne lee wilson]

Telemann's wonderful, and great fun too - it's almost pop-baroque isn't it?

Any of the Akademie fur Alte Musik recordings of the Suites are very entertaining, La Bizarre, La Chasse, the "Alster" suite, all on Harmonia Mundi. The Alster-Suite has movements imitating Frogs and Crows, Swans and Bells, dances making affectionate fun of Gods and nymphs, and a brilliant "echo" piece. Only problem is you'll end up playing it too often...

My personal favourite is Harnoncourt's group of TWV 55 Darmstadt Suites, with the lovely woody textures of the Concentus Musicus, on Teldec Das Alte Werk, some reissues may be slightly different.

..And he can do serious things: the 'lyrical tragedy" Orpheus came out on Harmonia Mundi some years ago, Rene Jacobs leading the AfAM as above. It's a stunning opera with a multilingual libretto, a synthesis of many different operatic styles (buffa, seria, etc.) - but beyond all that it's just a very catchy, compellingly dramatic listen!

If I met Telemann in the afterlife, I'd do the Wayne's World thing and cry, "Not Worthy, not worthy!"

[doversoul1]

I very much enjoy Telemann’s instrumental music but I still haven’t quite got round to say yes, I really enjoy his vocal music, particularly his secular cantatas and operas, like I do now with Vivaldi’s. I wonder if this is because German language and music of his time do not quite suite the form and mood of the music. But I think it’s more likely to be just me and my loss…

I still think the best (by which I mean the one I like best) Telemann is by Spinosi and Ensemble Matheus at the late night prom in 2010.

[ed] .Jayne

And he can do serious things: the 'lyrical tragedy" Orpheus came out on Harmonia Mundi some years ago, Rene Jacobs leading the AfAM as above. It's a stunning opera with a multilingual libretto, a synthesis of many different operatic styles (buffa, seria, etc.) - but beyond all that it's just a very catchy, compellingly dramatic listen!

This sounds intriguing. I’ll certainly try one day.

[John Shelton]

..And he can do serious things: the 'lyrical tragedy" Orpheus came out on Harmonia Mundi some years ago, Rene Jacobs leading the AfAM as above. It's a stunning opera with a multilingual libretto, a synthesis of many different operatic styles (buffa, seria, etc.) - but beyond all that it's just a very catchy, compellingly dramatic listen!

There are many lost Telemann operas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operas_by_Telemann. A word of ... not so much warning, but I believe Jacobs's is very much a performing edition: he cuts / re-orders numbers and includes numbers from other partially extant operas. The mix of genres is fascinating (a little like Reinhard Keiser) and obviously reflects local taste.

There is a more recent recording of Orpheus http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/D...HM/88697805972 I've not heard it, but the Amazon review (for what that's worth) is very enthusiastic, so I might well give it a try http://www.amazon.com/Telemann-Orphe.../dp/B004ECJW4K

Don't forget on a very different scale the lovely Paris Quartets.

[LeMartinPecheur]

JS Bach has always been a stick with which to beat Telemann. Is this perhaps because JSB stands as the culmination of the baroque, contrapuntal, 'learned' style where Telemann seems to be more experimental, pointing towards the classical (more 'tune+accompaniment', more emotionally expressive/ simple) style of CPE Bach? JSB a lot more unified in style than T, and therefore in some sense easier to assimilate and put into a category? It's kinda easier to get concensus on the key works, the masterpieces, too. Which ones you pick for Telemann may depend on whether you want him to shine in the old style or the new one, which is probably no more than a personal matter of taste - which of the styles do you, or the critic, prefer?

In general, is it perhaps easier to be remembered if you're the culmination of a style rather than its instigator? For me this is part of the pre-eminence of Mozart: he did pretty much what everyone else was trying to do at the time, but did it so-o-o much better, particularly in the piano concerto and opera (I allow, as WAM himself did, a similar pre-eminence, to Haydn in the symphony and quartet especially), and then what he had done got quickly overshadowed by LvB.

Maybe Beethoven is the obvious exception to this proposition: in at the beginning of the next thing after the WAM/ Haydn classical style, but also its greatest exponent. Maybe Wagner is a similar 'end of a style', with Liszt the Telemann trying all sorts of possible successor-styles?

I appreciate that sweeping generalisations like this can be easily challenged, but it makes some sense of musical history to me...

[John Shelton]

Perhaps "JS Bach has always been a stick with which to beat Telemann" really belongs to the period before the 'early music' revival. We have such a richer knowledge of the styles and contexts of C18 music than 50 years ago that things just aren't that simple. (With Bach somehow standing alone as the musical Old Testament etc.).

And for earlier music (of the C17 say) the situation is so changed a wonderful body of music has been recovered and contextualised. People moan about 'HIPP', but it was those pioneers who were truly responsible (and, yes, there was the Bach-Gesellschaft and Chrysander and Brahms's Couperin editions in the C19 and other earlier C20 continuers) for the vastly different ideas and experiences we have of earlier musical landscapes.

[Boilk]

In general, is it perhaps easier to be remembered if you're the culmination of a style rather than its instigator? For me this is part of the pre-eminence of Mozart: ... and then what he had done got quickly overshadowed by LvB.

Is that how it was perceived at the time (and just after) or is that the prism through which we now view it, courtesy of the compartmentalisation of styles so beloved of musical historians?

[MickyD]

I would add the lovely CD of mixed Telemann concertos from Hogwood and the AAM to this list - it is a most persuasive introduction for those who remain to be convinced.

[Dave2002]

I would add the lovely CD of mixed Telemann concertos from Hogwood and the AAM to this list - it is a most persuasive introduction for those who remain to be convinced.

There is a lovely concerto for flute and recorder, which I have on a 7 inch Archive vinyl disc (I nearly wrote LP - which it isn't). I can't remember who the performers are. It's the one with a drone in the last movement. I have other versions, and I think there have been others since on Archive, but that one was very special. The Telemann A minor flute/recorder suite is also a lovely piece - at least if played well.

Note also that some Telemann CDs are currently cheap at ArkivMusic Europe - see Bargains. I wonder how good the Telemann Edition box set is, but heck it's under £20 at the current prices.

[MickyD]

I think the drone flute and recorder concerto you are talking about is on both the AAM disc and the Musica Antiqua Koln one, Dave...both are good, but the latter version has the players really letting their hair down, great stuff!

[LeMartinPecheur]

Is that how it was perceived at the time (and just after) or is that the prism through which we now view it, courtesy of the compartmentalisation of styles so beloved of musical historians?

Boilk: definitely a good question!

I do think there is a decisive change with LvB, around (eg with just the symphonies) fewer and much more 'distinct' works (just the 9, as against 41+ and 106), a greater degree of personal reference and emotional charge, a tie-in to world political events (in the Eroica at least, and the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars were surely a massive change affecting just about everyone and everything, the sort of event that had to have consequences in art(*)), a clear-ish connection with the wider Romantic movement in other arts all around - the cult of the individualistic heaven-storming artist, no longer the servant of the aristocratic employer, a greater distance from religious norms, etc etc.

All this is surely a big break with the very recent Viennese past that Haydn and Mozart knew. (OK, in 1781 Mozart had attempted a similar escape from the servant status that Haydn had accepted under the Esterhazys, but arguably he went some 15 years too early)

(*)Is it perhaps their very lack of significant response to social and artisitic revolutions that - at least in part - condemned, and still condemns, LvB's younger Viennese contemporaries such as Hummel to 2nd-rank status??

[doversoul1]

Flagged up by Flosshilde on the Early Music Board

Tuesday’s Live evening concert includes:
Telemann’s Concerto in E minor for flute and recorder

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p01xs

Iestyn Davies, countertenor
Neil Brough, trumpet
Alexis Kossenko, recorder, flute
Jean-Marc Goujon, flute
Ensemble Matheus
Jean-Christophe Spinosi