Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Musique de table (Tafelmusik), Volume 3
Part II (Continued): Quartet, Concerto,
Trio, Sonata and Conclusion
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 Cantor at the St Thomas Choir School, where Bach was eventually
appointed in 1723. Telemann had, in 1721, taken the position of Cantor 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 there by his godson Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the
second son of Johann Sebastian.
Born in Magdeburg in 1681, 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, while 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, composing some twenty operas himself. At
the same time he involved his fellow-students in a great deal of public
performance, to the annoyance of the Thomascantor, Bach's immediate
predecessor Kuhnau, who saw his prerogative now endangered.
After Leipzig Telemann went on to become Kapellmeister
to Count Erdmann II 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 46 settings of the Passions, one for each of the years he
was in Hamburg. He continued to involve himself in public performances of opera
in Hamburg, arousing some opposition from the city council, his employers. Once
he had strengthened his position he took additional responsibility as director
of the Hamburg Opera, while active in publishing and selling much of the music
that he wrote. Four years Bach's senior, he outlived him by seventeen years, so
that by the time of his death Haydn was 35 and Mozart was eleven. His musical
style developed with the times, from the characteristically late Baroque to the
new stile galant exemplified by his godson.
Telemann's Musique de table was
published in 1733, a collection of music divided into three Productions, each
one containing an overture with a suite for seven instruments, a quartet, a
concerto for seven instruments, a trio, a solo and a conclusion for seven
instruments, and advertised as offering a variety of instrumentation. On the
title-page where this is announced Telemann declares himself to be Maître de
Chapelle to Their Highnesses the Duke of Saxe- Eisenach and the Margrave of
Bayreuth and Director of Music in Hamburg. Telemann had been appointed to the
position of Kapellmeister von Haus aus (visiting Kapellmeister)
to the Duke of Saxe-Eisenach in 1717, with the duty of providing music for
the church, Tafel Music and the necessary music for solemn occasions.
The appointment confirmed his earlier activity and residence at Eisenach from
1708 until 1712, when he took up his appointment in Frankfurt. In Leipzig,
Eisenach and Frankfurt, as subsequently in Hamburg, he was closely involved
with the provision and performance of instrumental music. In Hamburg he held
regular weekly meetings of the Collegium Musicum, at first in his house and
then in the Drillhaus, reviving an institution comparable to that which he had
founded in Leipzig and worked with in Frankfurt, but which before his arrival
had fallen into abeyance.
Telemann's wide reputation by 1733 is
witnessed by the list of 206 subscribers to the Musique de table. 52 of
these came from abroad and included among them musicians of great distinction,
such as the French flautist and composer Blavet and, from London, Mr. Hendel
Docteur en Musique, while German subscribers ranged from members of the
nobility to leading figures in the world of music. The work is in the French
style. As Telemann explained in a letter to the composer Graun, since there was
nothing new to be found in melody, so novelty must be sought in the harmony, an
unduly modest assessment of his achievement.
After the Ouverture to the second
part of the Tafelmusik, a suite scored for oboe, trumpet, two violins,
viola, cello and harpsichord, comes a Quartet, in D minor, scored for
two flutes, a third part allocated to recorder or, an octave lower, to cello or
bassoon, with cello or bassoon and harpsichord providing a basso continuo. In
the present performance cello and bassoon alternate between the third part and
the fourth, the continuo. The three melodic parts enter in imitation one
of the other, with the two flutes soon joining together in mellifluous thirds.
There is imitation again in a second entry of the subject, with changes in
instrumentation, a procedure broadly followed as the movement continues,
leading to the return of the opening subject and key and the trill that
precedes the second movement, with its opening section for the two flutes. The
bassoon part enters, providing a background to the answering figures of the
flutes and entrusted with solo passages, accompanied by the basso continuo, in
general contrast with the two upper parts. The Largo, an A minor siciliano,
is started by the first flute, in traditional style. The Quartet ends
with a D minor Allegro. Triplet rhythms are introduced with a change of
key to D major, before the opening section of the movement is repeated.
The Concerto, in F major, is scored
for three solo violins and an orchestral ensemble of violin, viola, cello and
harpsichord. The opening Allegro at first has all the instruments
presenting the ritornello, the material that is to return, punctuating
solo entries from each of the three solo violins, in turn. The solo instruments
enter in imitation of each other in the D minor Largo, its outer
sections framing a central passage for the solo instruments, vestigially
accompanied. The style of the Italian concerto continues in the final Vivace.
Telemann scores the E minor Trio for
flute, oboe and bassoon and harpsichord continuo. The opening movement
is marked Affettuoso, an indication that suggests both the gentle pace
and feeling of the music. An Allegro follows, initiated by the oboe,
while it is the flute that starts the E major third movement, marked Voice. The
original key returns in the final Vivace.
The Solo Sonata is in A major,
scored for violin and cello and harpsichord continuo. The lyrical
opening Andante leads to a rhythmic Vivace, followed by an F
sharp minor third movement, marked Cantabile and provided with full
opportunity, in its ornamentation, for intensity of feeling. The final Allegro
is in 12/8, the rhythm of a gigue, its two sections marked by
concluding bars marked Adagio and in contrasted rhythm.
The Conclusion returns to the
instrumentation of the Ouverture, oboe, trumpet, two violins and viola,
with cello and harpsichord continuo. The energetic Allegro, informed
by the technical mastery that Telemann had so immediately at his command, is
repeated to frame a short central Adagio that offers brief harmonic
contrast.
The Orchestra of the Golden Age
ln 1995 the Orchestra of the Golden Age
made its critically acclaimed début recording of music by Henry Purcell with
Naxos. This marked the rapid development of the ensemble, since its first
concerts in 1992. Based in Manchester, it was formed by the cellist Robert
Glenton to bring performance on original instruments to a wider audience and
quickly established a reputation for itself beyond the boundaries of its
home-town. The orchestra has recorded for the BBC and appeared at the Flanders
Early Music Festival, part of a schedule that brings other appearances overseas.
A generous award by the Arts Council of England National Lottery Arts Fund has
made possible further acquisitions to augment the orchestra' s existing
collection of original instruments.
Violin I - Anne Schuman
Violin II - Julia Bishop
Violin III - Joanna Parker
Cello - Robert Glenton
Flute I - Edwina Smith
Flute II - Felicity Bryson
Oboe I - Heather Foxwell
Oboe II - Heather Kershaw
Bassoon - Christopher Robson
Horn I - Roger Montgomery
Horn II - Gavin Edwards
Trumpet - David Blackadder
Harpsichord - Bernard Robertson
Robert Glenton
The cellist Robert Glenton is a musician
of some versatility, his activities having ranged from leading, on trumpet, his
own jazz band to the performance of charnber music at Windsor Castle, from
playing with Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie Orchestra to appearance as
soloist in Elgar' s Cello Concerto. He won early distinction as a
student cellist at the London Royal Academy of Music, subsequently working as a
soloist and charnber-music player, with a period spent in New Zealand and
Australia and in conducting-studies in Vienna. Since his return to Britain, he
has devoted his time principally to original instrument performance and the
creation of the Orchestra of the Golden Age.