Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Schwanengesang – The Last Orchestral Works
La Stagione Frankfurt/Michael Schneider
rec. 2014-2021, Köln & Frankfurt, Germany
CPO 555 533-2 [2 CDs: 136]
Georg Philipp Telemann lived to the grand old age of 86, something quite remarkable in the 18th century. At the time of his death, Joseph Haydn was already settling nicely into his job with the Esterházys, and Mozart was just 11. So times were a-changing, but as these late works of Telemann’s show, his music was still firmly rooted in the Baroque aesthetic. That is not to say that there is anything boringly conventional about these works; on the contrary, they are full of delightful eccentricities and surprises. Listening to this, it confirmed my opinion that Telemann is in no way inferior to Handel (they admired each other openly), and was not far behind J.S.Bach in sheer inventiveness.
The story of how this cache of late compositions came to be discovered in the tower of Riga Cathedral is a strange and complex one. It is told at length in the booklet notes, and I won’t attempt to summarise here. The subtitle ‘Schwanengesang’ has been chosen because these are the final known works of the composer, though there is absolutely nothing ‘elegiac’ about the collection as a whole. A curious choice in a way, because Telemann himself had used the same description for a cantata written many years earlier for the funeral of the Hamburg Bürgermeister Garlieb Sillem.
This 2 CD box contains, apart from the brief Fanfare in D at the end of CD1, a total of nine multi-movement works, which are variously titled as Ouvertüren-Suite, ‘Divertimento’ or ‘Sinfonia’, each consisting of anything from four to eight movements. The scoring varies too; alongside the strings and basso continuo, we find in different pieces pairs of oboes, flutes, trumpets (with attendant timpani) horns, and solo bassoon.
For me, the most entertaining of all was the Ouvertüren-Suite in D, TWV 55:D 22, which occupies tracks 12 – 18 on CD1. It has a subtitle, ‘Ouverture, jointes d’un suite tragi-comique’, that is ‘Overture, together with a tragi-comic suite’. Telemann is here poking fun at the proclivities of the then current Landgrave, Ludwig VIII. They seem to have been good friends – the Landgrave wasn’t very much younger than Telemann – so it’s likely that the leg-pulling was taken in good part. This is delicious and hilarious music; after the overture, the sequence of movements includes ‘Le Podagre’, a sufferer from gout; ‘L’Hypochondre’, the Hypochondriac, which is alternately painfully slow and suddenly manic; ‘Le Petit-Maître’, an expression of the day meaning a fop or dandy; and the final ‘Remède’, a trip to the ‘Petite-Maison’ – a brothel! Telemann has also apparently hidden here a reference to a subversive song about a king who has put his trousers on back to front.
Other similarly irreverent passage occur all the way through these marvellous works. The recording from CPO is top-class, as is the playing of La Stagione of Frankfurt. Their director, Michael Schneider, is a knowledgeable and stylish interpreter of the music of the 18th century. He adds his own thoughts in an article in the booklet titled ‘A cycle after all? Observations from a Musician’s Perspective’, which might not be very flattering from the point of view of Professor Wolfgang Hirschmann, who has clearly put in a huge amount of research in order to facilitate performances of the music.
One or two small carps regarding the booklet notes: the scoring of each piece is helpfully detailed beneath its title. But those details for the Sinfonia (Divertimento) in E flat major are missing. For the record, it’s scored for 2 flutes, horn, bassoon, strings and basso continuo. And the bassoon, played by the excellent Marita Schaar, is unlisted for the Ouvertüren-Suite in g minor TWV 55:5 9, where the instrument often plays a crucial role in forming a trio with the two oboes.
Those are though, as I say, small defects, which don’t detract from the overall quality of this splendid and fascinating issue.
Gwyn Parry-Jones
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Contents
Ouvertüren-Suite in D major TWV 55:D 21
Divertimento in A major TWV 50:22
Ouvertüren-Suite in D major TWV 55:D 22
Sinfonia melodica in C major TWV 50:2
Ouvertüren-Suite in D major TWV 55:D23
Fanfare in D major TWV 50:44
Ouvertüren-Suite in F major TWV 55:F16
Divertimento in B flat major TWV 50:23
Sinfonia (Divertimento) in E flat major TWV 50:21
Ouvertüren-Suite in g minor TWV 55:g 9
