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TELEMANN, G.P.: Viola Concerto / Recorder Suite in A minor / Tafel |
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Composer: |
Georg Philipp Telemann |
Artist: |
Anna Hoelblingova, Anna Holbling, Alexander Jablokov, Ladislav Kyselak, Roger Montgomery, Jiri Stivin, Zdenek Tylsar, Quido Holbling, Bedrich Tylsar, Daniel Rothert, Gavin Edwards, Petra Mullejans, Clas Pehrsson, Gottfried von der Goltz, Roland Straumer, Anders Ohrwall, Ulrike Kaufmann, Ludwig Guttler, Guido Larisch, Friedrich Kircheis, Mathias Schmutzler, Volker Stegmann, Michael Eckoldt, Heinz-Dieter Richter, Erik Reike, Anne Katharina Schreiber, Torsten Johann, Beatrix Hulsemann, Christa Kittel, Kathrin Troger, Lothar Haas, Stefan Muhleisen, Tom Devaere |
Conductor: |
Richard Edlinger, Helmut Muller-Bruhl, Barry Wordsworth, Ludwig Guttler, Helfried Steckel |
Ensemble: |
Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble |
Orchestra: |
Cologne Chamber Orchestra, Capella Istropolitana, Orchestra of the Golden Age, Virtuosi Saxoniae, Homburg Chamber Orchestra |
Label: |
Naxos |
Catalogue No.: |
8.550156 |
Format: |
CD |
Barcode: |
4891030501560 |
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Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 - 1767)
Concerto in G major for viola and strings
Suite in A minor for recorder and strings
Concerto in F major for three violins
(from Musique de table)
Concerto for two horns and strings (from
Musique de table)
Georg Philipp Telemann was among the most
distinguished composers of his time, a rival to his friend Johann Sebastian
Bach in reputation, and the certain preference of the Leipzig authorities for
the position of Kantor at the school of St, Thomas, where Bach was eventually
appointed in 1723. Telemann had, in 1721, taken the position of Kantor of the
Johanneum in Hamburg, with musical responsibility for the five principal
churches of the city. His negotiations with Leipzig a year later proved the
means to secure better conditions in Hamburg, where he remained until his death
in 1767. He was succeeded by his godson, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, son of
Johann Sebastian.
Born in Magdeburg in 1781, Telemann
belonged to a family that had long been connected with the Lutheran Church. His
father was a clergyman and his mother the daughter of a clergyman, and his
elder brother also took orders, a path that he too might have followed, had it
not been for his exceptional musical ability. As a child he showed some
precocity, but it was while he was a student at Leipzig University, which he
entered in 1701, that a career in music became inevitable. He founded the
university collegium musicum that Bach was later to direct and in 1703 became
musical director of the Leipzig Opera. At the same time he involved
fellow-students in a great deal of public performance, to the annoyance of the
Thomaskantor, Bach's immediate predecessor Kuhnau, who saw his prerogative now
infringed.
After Leipzig Telemann went on to become
Kapellmeister to the Count of Promnitz, a nobleman with a taste for French
music, and in 1708 moved to Eisenach, following this with a position as
director of music to the city of Frankfurt am Main in 1712. There were other
offers of employment elsewhere, but it was to Hamburg that he finally moved in
1721, to remain there for the rest of his life.
As a composer Telemann was prolific,
providing an enormous body of work, both sacred and secular. This included 1043
church cantatas and settings of the Passion for each year that he was in
Hamburg, 46 in all. In Leipzig he had written operas, and he continued to
involve himself in public performances in Hamburg, arousing some opposition
from the city council, his employers. Once he had strengthened his position he
took additional responsibility as musical director of the Hamburg opera, while
he was active in publishing and selling much of the music that he wrote.
The G major Viola Concerto is a
good example of the attractions of Telemann's style as a composer, its four
short movements suggesting the beginnings of the style galant that was to
prevail over the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque. The Concerto
for three violins and the Concerto for two horns form part of the Musique
de table, published in Hamburg in 1733, while the A minor Recorder Suite
is an equally fluent example of the refreshing lightness of touch that Telemann
brought to the music of the period, a reflection, often enough, of his wider
educational background and cultural interests more typical among musicians of a
later age.
Capella Istropolitana
The Capella Istropolitana was founded in
1983 by members of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, at first as a chamber
orchestra and then as an orchestra large enough to tackle the standard
classical repertoire. Based in Bratislava, its name drawn from the ancient name
still preserved in the Academia Istropolitana, the historic university
established in the Slovak and one-time Hungarian capital by Matthias Corvinus,
the orchestra works principally in the recording studio. Recordings by the
orchestra on the Naxos label include The Best of Baroque Music, Bach's
Brandenburg Concertos, fifteen each of Mozart's and Haydn's symphonies as well
as works by Handel, Vivaldi and Telemann.
The soloists in this recording, Jiři
Stivin, Ladislav Kyselak, Anna Hoelblingova, Quido Hoelbling, Alexander
Jablokov , Zdeněk & Bedřich Tyšlar are members of the Capella
Istropolitana.
Richard Edlinger
The Austrian conductor Richard Edlinger
was born in Bregenz in 1958 and directed his first concert at the age of
seventeen. In 1982 he completed his studies in conducting and composition at
the Vienna Academy, having by then already acquired considerable professional
experience on the podium. He was the youngest finalist in the 1983 Guido
Cantelli Conductors' Competition at La Scala, Milan, and since 1986 he has been
Artistic Director of the Capella Istropolitana, an orchestra with which he has
undertaken various European tours. Richard Edlinger has made recent appearances
with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Zagreb Philharmonic, the George Enescu
Philharmonic, the orchestra of La Scala, Milan, and the RTSI Orchestra in
Lugano. In 1987 he was appointed Music Director of the Kamptal Festival in
Austria.