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Telemann: Tafelmusik (First Production)

AUSTRIAN TONKUENSTLER ORCHESTRA, Vienna
Dietfried BERNET Conductor

Ouverture-Suite in E Minor, TWV 55:e1
1 I. Ouverture: Lentement-Vite 7:09
2 II. Rejouissance 3:25
3 III. Rondeau 2:16
4 IV. Lourée 2:21
5 V. Passepied 3:09
6 VI. Air un peu vivement 7:21
7 VII. Gigue 2:47
HELMUT RIESSBERGER and GERHARD PERZ, Flutes
HILDE LANGFORT, Harpsichord
Quartetto in G Major, TWV 43:G2
8 I. Largo - Allegro 4:01
9 II. Vivace 2:50
10 III. Moderato 4:34
11 IV. Grave - Vivace 2:15
HELMUT RIESSBERGER, Flute
ALFRED HERTEL, Oboe
MANFRED GEYRHALTER, Violin
JOSEF LUITZ, Cello
HILDE LANGFORT, Harpsichord
Concerto for Flute, Violin and Cello in A
Major, TWV 53:A2
12 I. Largo 5:07
13 II. Allegro 6:28
14 III. Gracioso 4:37
15 IV. Allegro 6:29
HELMUT RIESSBERGER, Flute
RUDOLF KALUP, Violin
JOSEF LUITZ, Solo Cello
HILDE LANGFORT, Harpsichord
Trio Sonata in E-Flat Major, TWV 42:Es1
16 I. Affetuoso 2:44
17 II. Vivace 2:48
18 III. Grave 3:21
19 IV. Allegro 3:03
RUDOLF KALUP and MANFRED GEYRHALTER,
Violins
HILDE LANGFORT, Harpsichord
JOSEF LUITZ, Cello
Sonata for Flute and Basso Continuo in B
Minor, TWV 41:h4
20 I. Cantabile 3:13
21 II. Allegro 2:44
22 III. Dolce 2:58
23 IV. Allegro 2:54
HELMUT RIESSBERGER, Flute
JOSEF LUITZ, Cello
HILDE LANGFORT, Harpsichord
Conclusion in E Minor, TWV 50:5
24 I. Allegro - Largo 6:14
HELMUT RIESSBERGER and GERHARD PERZ, Flutes
HILDE LANGFORT, Harpsichord
AUSTRIAN TONKUENSTLER ORCHESTRA, Vienna
Dietfried BERNET Conductor
Georg Philipp Telemann, the son of a clergyman
in Magdeburg, was largely self-taught in music.
His formal education was rounded off at the
University of Leipzig, where he studied law and
languages. Dur- ing his student days, he wrote a
number of operas and cantatas and, in 1704, he
obtained his first musical appointment as
organist and choir master of the New Church.
In Leipzig he also founded the Collegium
Musicum made up mainly of students. This
ensemble presented the first public concerts in
that city and outlasted Telemann's stay in
Leipzig. Some twenty years later its director
was Johann Sebastian Bach.
Beginning in 1705, Telemann held a number of
posts as Kapellmeister, first to Count Promnitz
in Sorau (East Germany), then to the court of
Eisenach (1709-1712), and, from 1712 to 1721, in
Frankfurt.
In 1721 Telemann was appointed Cantor of the
Johanneum and music director of the five
principal churches in Hamburg, positions he
retained for the last forty-six years of his long
life. In addition to his numerous duties, he
continued to supply compositions to the city of
Frankfurt and to the courts of Eisenach and
Bayreuth.
From Hamburg, Telemann undertook a number
of trips to other musical centers, such as Berlin
and Paris. This latter visit, in 1737, was the
fulfillment of a dream, since Telemann had
always been an admirer of French music and
had been influenced by its style, having in his
youth studied the scores of such masters as
Lully and Campra. Lacking the profundity of
some of his older North German
contemporaries, the strength of Telemann' s
music lies in other directions: external
brilliance thematic inventiveness, delight in
orchestral experimentation. Among later
scholars, who judged him by standards to
which Telemann never aspired, these
tendencies earned him the reputation of a
superficial musician, whereas these very
elements of his "international" style helped to
make him one of the most popular composers
of his age, whose fame surpassed that of Bach
by a considerable margin. The number of
Telemann's works published during his
litetime, as compared to the small number of
Bach' s works which attained that distinction,
is ample testimony to this fact. And, if we
consult Johann Gottfried Walther's
Musikalisches Lexikon of 1732, we find
Telemann's biography spread over one and a
half pages while Bach is given less than half a
page.
The decline in popular esteem during the
following era, that of the Mannheim school and
the Viennese classics, affected Telemann no
less than Bach and all other baroque
composers. A new beginning had to be made
during the nineteenth century, and this
brought with it the re-discovery of the music of
Bach, accompanied by a scholarly interest in,
but popular neglect of, the music by most of
those composers who were now lumped
together as Bach's forerunners and
contemporaries. Thus, we find even in the 1955
edition of Grove’s Dictionary only two pages
allotted to Telemann as against twenty-eight
and a half pages devoted to Bach.
The nineteenth and early twentieth century
neglect of Telemann, at times bordering on
contempt, has gradually given way to a more
just evaluation of his genius, and a recognition
of his true place in musical history. We now see
in him not only an accomplished and facile
writer in all the familiar forms of baroque
composition, but a great forerunner of the
rococo. His music is highly inventive and, if it
lacks the depth of Bach, it is extremely
polished and, in its bend toward
experimentation explores a great many
imitative and programmatic devices, the
influence of which reaches as far as the
romantic age. Telemann’s fusion of German
and French styles, his use of northern
polyphony to express a joie de vivre, rarely
encountered up to then, give his music a
cosmopolitan grace which, in recent decades,
led to its wider acceptance. There is full
justification for the new Telemann renaissance
we are experiencing at present. Taken on its
own terms, this is music able to give much joy
and pleasure to the listener.
Of Telemann’s vast instrumental output, the
Musique de Table is probably the most
important and impressive part. Musique de
Table or Tafelmusik was music intended to be
played as background, or rather entertainment
for festive banquets. Telemann composed his in
three different productions or cycles, which are
formally quite similar, but differ as to
instrumentation. All consist of an orchestral
suite, a quartet, an orchestral concerto, a trio
sonata, a solo sonata with continuo and an
orchestral conclusion, which, as a finale to the
whole cycle, really represents the final
movement to the opening orchestral suite. Each
of these constituent parts is a complete
composition in itself and can be performed
separately.
The title of Telemann’s original edition of 1733
reads as follows: Musique de Table, partagée en
Trois Productions, dont chacun contient 1
Ouverture avec la suite à 7 instruments, 1
Quatuor, 1 Concert à 7, Trio, 1 Solo, 1 Conclusion à
7, et don’t les instruments se diversifient par tour:
composée par George Philippe Telemann, Maitre
de Chapelle de Lrs. As. St. le Duc de Saxe-Eisenach,
et le Margrave de Bayreuth: Directeur de la
Musique à Hambourg.
These three productions enjoyed a tremendous
success upon their appearance. They were
ordered from such musical centers as Berlin,
Breslau, Dresden, Frankfurt, Hamburg,
Hannover, Leipzig, London, Paris, Christiania
(Oslo), and Copenhagen, and helped greatly to
establish the international reputation of
Telemann.
FLORIAN GRASSMAYR

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