Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Concerti, Quartets and Trios in the French and Italian Manner
Performed on Period Instruments
TRIO IN E-FLAT MAJOR
for oboe, obbligato harpsichord and basso continuo
from the Essercizii musici, no. 24 (Hamburg, ca. 1740)
1. Largo
2. Vivace
3. Mesto
4. Vivace
SIXIEME QUATUOR IN E MINOR
From the Nouveaux quatuors en six suites a une flute traversiere, un violin, une basse de viole ou violoncel et basse continue (Paris Quartets, Vol.
II): Paris, 1738 (Beginning)
5.Prelude. A discretion.
Tres vite
6.Gai
7. Vite
8. Gracieusement
SIXIEME QUATUOR IN E MINOR (Conclusion)
9.Distrait
10. Madere
QUADRO IN G MINOR
for oboe, violin, viola da gamba and basso continuo
(from a manuscript in the Hessische Landes -und Hochschulbibliothek, Darmstadt)
11.Lento
12.Vivace
13. Adagio
14. Allegro
CONCERTO SECONDO IN D MAJOR
from the Quadri a violino, flauto traversiere, viola di gamba o violoncello e fondamento (Paris Quartets, Vol. I): Hamburg, 1730
15. Allegro
16. Affetuoso
17. Vivace
The Aulos Ensemble:
Anne Briggs, Flauto traverso
Linda Quan, Baroque violin
Myron Lutzke, Baroque violoncello
Marc Schachman, Baroque oboe
Charles Sherman, Harpsichord
Richard Taruskin, Viola da gamba
In the Concerto secondo, the third solo part is played by viola da gamba with cello continuo.
In the Sixieme Quatuor, these roles are reversed.
History has not dealt kindly with Georg Philipp Telemann, who was born exactly 300 years ago in Magdeburg, Germany, and died 86 years later in Hamburg. Far and away the leading German composer of his time, his modern-day reputation has been tarnished by the very attributes of style and character that brought him his original success.
Recognized by no less an authority than the Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific composer who ever lived, Telemann's legacy boggles the mind in its pro fusion. We will never have a full picture of it: before World War II, no comprehensive list was attempted, and during the war, stacks and heaps of Telemann manuscripts were destroyed. But what is left numbers some 2,000 works, including over 25 operas and 46 settings of the Passion.
This mountain of music was written strictly on demand, in the course of a whirlwind career that took the composer from city to city all over Germany and involved him in every kind of activity in which a musician could find employment in early 18th-century Germany. In his time, he fiddled in opera theaters, played the organ in churches, led a student collegium musicum, served princes Sorau (now Zary in Poland) and Eisenach as court composer, and served the city of Frankfurt as Director musices. The last 46 years of his life were
spent. in Hamburg, where he was simultaneously cantor for an important school, director of music for five churches, and manager of Germany's most important public opera house.
And what placed his services and his music in such demand was his style: catchy, effervescent, and galant. He had no use for the kind of musician who, in his own words, "seeks to imitate the old ones who write frilly counterpoints well enough, but who are either naked of any invention, or else add 15 or 20 obbligato voices, so that Diogenes himself could hardly find a droplet of melody with his lantern." In the eyes of his contemporaries, J.S. Bach fell into this latter category, which is why in 1722 the town of Leipzig went to great lengths to lure Telemann to the recently vacated cantor's post, and only settled on Bach third choice.
How the tables have turned! Now it is Bach who occupies the place of honor (and not, after all, without reason), while Telemann's reputation has become that of a mere Vielschreiber, as the Germans put it, a facile scribbler. The same 19th-century musicians and scholars who rescued Bach's works from oblivion made Telemann their whipping boy. For by the very nature of his career and accomplishments, Telemann transgressed against every romantic conception of what an
artist was. He was successful. He was in every sense of the word popular. He was not alienated from his society, but vitally involved in it. He aimed to please. How, then, could he have been any good?
And let us remember, too, the vastly different ways in which Bach and Telemann have been rediscovered. The rediscovery of Bach in the 19th century was essentially the rediscovery of his church music: the monumental Passions, the B minor Mass, the festive cantatas. This side of Telemann has even yet remained unexplored to any great extent. Instead, Telemann came back into our musical life through the "early music" revival that first got under way in Germany in the 1920s. This was at first mainly an amateur and educational movement centering around the recorder as a school instrument. And so the baroque music enthusiast of the 20th century has come to look upon Telemann as a composer for private consumption. It is only since performances on "original instruments" have achieved a real professional standard in the last couple of decades that Telemann has once again truly become our contemporary. And now that he is, he is having the same effect on us as on his 18thcentury hearers. At last he is being appreciated at his true worth -- as a master entertainer. His glittering, kaleidoscopic
instrumental textures, his rhythmic verve, his spicy harmony are irresistibly attractive. And since his art is to such an extent one of timbres, the colors and the articulations of the instruments of his time are what bring his music rightly in to focus for our time.
Telemann published his first set of Quadri a violino, flauto traversiere, viola di gamba o violoncello e fondamento in Hamburg in 1730. They were republished in Paris (as Six quatuors) in 1736-37, and made a furor. Such was the réclame they brought him that in 1737 he decided to cash in on his success with a personal visit to the French capital. This visit, Telemann's only extended sojourn abroad, resulted in a set of Nouveaux quatuors, consisting of works composed expressly for performance by the Parisian virtuosi: Michel Blavet on flute, Jean-Pierre Guignon on violin, Jean-Baptiste Forqueray on viola da gamba.
These prestigious circumstances give the Paris Quartets a fair claim to recognition as Telemann's most important instrumental work. And their quality strengthens the case. We see even more elaborately worked out in them the merits Telemann proudly claimed for his trio sonatas: "1 made a point of writing them so that the second part appeared to be the first; the bass line was set as a natural melody which moved along in such closely related harmony to the other parts that each note fell
inevitably into place. Everyone flattered me by saying that in this form lay my greatest strength.”
The first set of Quadri consisted of three pairs: two concerti, two "balletti" (i.e., suites), and two sonatas. The second concerto, given here, is a brilliant essay in the Italian style. In the outer movements, the three solo instruments are given flashy passages in turn, and team up in the tuttis to suggest the missing orchestra. The middle movement, a lilting siciliano, is especially imaginative in its deployment of forces: the flute and violin as a duo are pitted against the viola da gamba playing double stops -- another "duo."
The six Nouveaux quatuors written in Paris are all cast in the form of Ouvertures, or elaborate dance suites, as suited the French taste of the time. The one on this record is the last of the set. Its six movements are all in the standard French forms of the day, though they are not identified as such by the composer. The first movement is a Lullian French overture of impressive dimensions. The second is a gavotte. The third is a broad gigue. The fourth is dainty minuet. The fifth is a breathless passepied. The sixth and last is the most remarkable of all: a huge chaconne, it has all the majesty of the traditional con cluding dance of the French court ballet.
The Sonata for oboe and harpsichord is the very last item in Telemann's last major publication, the Essercizi Musici ("Musical Recreations") of 1740. This large collection of solo and trio sonatas probably represents what Telemann considered his choicest achievements in Hausmusik (music for home use) over a period of more than thirty years. It contains twenty-four pieces: two solos each for flute, recorder, oboe, violin, viola da gamba and harpsicord, plus trios for these instruments in all possible combinations. In the sonata recorded here, the harpsichord is liberated from its continuo role and becomes a melodic partner to the oboe. It continues, however, to provide harmonic support at the same time.
As in the case of Bach, Telemann's publications represented only the tip of an iceberg. The Sonata in G minor for oboe, violin, viola da gamba and continuo comes down to us only in manuscript, but is in no way inferior to the other pieces on this record. The instruments are constantly changing their relationship to one another, in inventive and fascinating ways. In the second movement, for example, the violin and viola da gamba seem to act as a ripieno backing up the oboe, as if the piece were an oboe concerto. Any such illusions, however, are dispelled in the concluding Allegro, when the viola da gamba
comes charging up from the depths of the ensemble to assert its rights!
Richard Taruskin
The Aulos Ensemble was founded in 1973. Since then it has won international acclaim for its performances and recordings of baroque chamber music on authentic instruments. Mastery of these, the use of original musical and theoretical sources, and the cultivation of period style, however, were only the means toward the kind of performances that have been winning new audiences for this music wherever the Aulos Ensemble has played. The New Yorker has described the group as
“scintillating" and "virtuosic," and defined their "secret" as consisting of the "exemplary matching of inflection, phrasing, ornamentation and feeling."
Produced by David B. Hancock
Engineering: David B. Hancock
Mastering: Bill Kipper, Masterdisk Corp.
Cover Art: Telemann by Robert Florczak
Jacket Design: Sara Breslow
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 81-750418
Musical Heritage Society, Inc., 1981
