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In a letter of 1718, looking back on 20 years of composing, Telemann wrote that church music was the genre he valued the most, and that the majority of work he had produced came under this genre. Indeed, this statement held true for the rest of his career – this extremely prolific composer wrote more than 1000 cantatas and several Passions, psalm settings and minor sacred works. However, Telemann’s style was in no way monotonous and unvaried – his work encompasses a wide variety of musical genres, forms of expression and programmatic elements, and the three cantatas on this CD reflect this diversity. The first cantata heard here, Die Gnadentüre steht dir offen, was composed for just one vocalist, two violins, figured bass and a four-part choir, but these small musical forces barely affect the quality of the work. It is still a fine example of Telemann’s versatility, in which he combines his own personal style with the influence of the delicate and refined music of Berlin in the 1740s. The next cantata on this CD, Herr, erhöre meine Stimme, consists of two arias which enclose a 100-bar arioso and recitative setting of the Lord’s Prayer.

Here, Telemann demonstrates his skill as a composer of programmatic music, using the high strings to depict the birds in the sky and the low strings to imitate the sounds of the animals on the ground. This skill is also evident in the final cantata on this disc, Ach Herr, lehr uns bedenken wohl, in which rapid demisemiquavers in the strings represent the rushing of the wind. The work also showcases Telemann’s unique feeling for melody and his ability to blend sound and create a sense of balance. The cantatas are complemented by some of Telemann’s greatest instrumental music: the Overture in D, the Sinfonia from his opera Miriways, ‘Der stürmende Aeolus’ from his well-known Wasser Ouverture, and the Largo from the Serenade Deutschland grünt und blüht im Frieden.

Born in Magdeburg in 1681, Georg Philipp Telemann rejected a vocation in law, insisting that music was to be his focus. An organiser of concerts and a publisher of musical scores, he was a highly versatile entrepreneur as well as a throughouly ‘modern’ musician, one who remained at the forefront of musical innovation throughout his career. Today he is widely regarded as Germany’s leading composer during the first half of the 18th century. This release is centered around four cantatas taken from the composer’s Harmonischer Gottesdienst (‘Music for Religious Services’), a collection of cantatas for solo voice, flute, oboe or violin, and harpsichord that, on account of its idiomatic writing for voice, its relation to the instrumental parts and the many indications concerning interpretation, rests among the great achievements of the period. One of Telemann’s characteristic skills was his ability to imbue the arias with the sort of brilliance that we normally associate with solo concertos (consider the radiance of the initial aria in Deine Toten werden leben), and this extends to his often virtuosic use of the recorder in the works – an instrument with which he was obviously familiar. Indeed, that Telemann was a more than competent player himself can be seen from the quality and quantity of music that he wrote for the recorder, and it is two of his lesser‐known creations for the instrument – the E minor Partita and the Trio Sonata in G minor – which form the remainder of this highly engaging disc.

Gemma Bertagnolli and Stefano Bagliano – both leading experts in the field of period Baroque performance – are the soprano and recorder soloists on this release, and are aptly supported by the historical group Collegium Pro Musica. The disc is a welcome addition to the rich assortment of Telemann recordings in Brilliant Classics’ ever‐growing catalogue.

Chamber Music and Concertos in chamber music setting of Georg Philipp Telemann, the Baroque composer who produced an astonishing amount of compositions of an astonishingly high quality. Performances on period instruments played by the finest Italian specialists.

A welcome addition to the impressive Telemann discography on Brilliant Classics.

The works on this CD represent an unfamiliar aspect of Telemann’s work. They date from early in his career when his was experimenting with the different musical and stylistic influences he was exposed to. It was during his time as Kapellmeister at Eisenach that he commenced his incredible output of sonatas and concertos for diverse groups of instruments. He found initially the modern Italian style too superficial (although Corelli was an early influence), and it was the French style that appealed, so much so that he said his concertos ended up ‘smelling of France’. Eventually his view of Italian music softened, probably as his friend the violinist and composer J.G Pisendel had travelled to Venice and become a friend of Vivaldi, and it is not hard to imagine Telemann writing a brilliantly scored concerto for his friend’s return.

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) was one of the most prolific composers of the Baroque period, rivalling Vivaldi in his industry. He studied languages and science at Leipzig University, and was largely self-taught as far as music was concerned. In 1704 he became organist of the New Church in the city, and founded a students music society, called Collegium Musicum. After several other appointments in Germany, including Bayreuth, Eisenach and Frankfurt, he became director of music at the Johanneum in Hamburg, and organist at 5 major churches in the city. A tireless traveller, he visited Berlin many times and in 1737 went to Paris.

He was a friend, colleague and, through marriage a relation to J.S Bach. His huge output includes over 40 operas, 44 Passions, 12 sets of services for the year, cantatas, Psalm settings, keyboard music for organ and harpsichord and many inventive concertos and overtures.

This 29CD set provides a superb introduction to this master of the Barock. He often suffers in comparison to Bach, Handel and Vivaldi mainly because it is so difficult to know where to start with such a vast body of work.

This Brilliant Classics box set makes the Telemann experience all the more enjoyable by making this selection and providing a wonderful window into the world of this great composer.

CDROM includes booklet essays and sung texts.

Artists include Heinz Holliger, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Iona Brown, Otto Sauter, Amsterdam Bach Soloists, Wiener Akademie, Martin Haselböck, Barbara Schlick, Musica Antiqua Koln, Reinhard Goebel, Fabio Biondi and others.

Erik Bosgraaf (born in 1980) is generally considered to be one of the most gifted and versatile recorder players of a new generation, who has already recorded for Brilliant Classics in the form of an acclaimed set of the music by Jacob van Eyck. Here he pairs the two summits of the solo flute repertoire of the German Barock in a generous coupling that is natural but unique on record. In such monophonic works as these, for all the hidden delight of their implied harmonies, it is inevitably melodic invention that draws the ear, and Telemann’s fertility in this area is legendary. He himself remarked that ‘He who plays instruments must be able to sing’ and would likely have been sceptical of Bach’s more advanced contrapuntal excursions. His 12 fantasias are all sets of short movements: as he recognised, an ideal genre for his peculiar genius and one that allowed him to assimilate all the musical tastes and fashions of the day, from Poland to France.

While Telemann is, today, considered among the very greatest of Baroque composers, he was one of the last of the period to be reappraised by later generations, and his music had to be ‘rediscovered’, just as that of J.S. Bach and Vivaldi was. Despite this, he enjoyed a great deal of fame during his lifetime, and his long career resulted in a vast output. He was, in fact, one of the most prolific composers of any age, and travelled widely, assimilating different styles into his own compositions. This allowed him to produce music of such individuality and quality, with a noticeable sense of ease, that it must have astonished his colleagues and patrons, as it does us today.

The 36 Fantasias for harpsichord were published in 1732/3, and are divided into three groups of 12 – the second set is in the French style, while the outer sets are in the Italian style. Each fantasia closes with a da capo repeat of the first movement, expertly and sensitively embellished by harpsichordist Andrea Coen.

These are energetic and energising works, at once intellectual and entertaining ‘so that the player enjoys them, and you can take pleasure from that (because) variety revives the spirit’ as Telemann commented.

For the first time complete on a 3-CD set: the Fantasias TWV 33 by Telemann.

As always with Telemann (always a bit in the shadow of the great J.S. Bach and Handel...) a surprise: high quality keyboard works of great virtuosity and invention.

Andrea Coen knows the style inside out, as proven by his many recordings, among which the Complete Sonatas by Giustini, which got rave reviews by the international press.

Coen wrote his own illuminating booklet notes.

Of all the composers who witnessed the widespread blossoming of the arts in the middle of the 18th century, it was Georg Philipp Telemann who responded the most enthusiastically to each new phase of musical development. In his last works in particular he expressed the deeper sentiment of his musical personality and encapsulated the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. His large-scale cantata Ino (c.1765) was probably composed for performance in a new heated concert hall in Hamburg. Telemann greatly admired the achievements of a new generation of talented German writers and poets, and the author of the cantata text, Carl Wilhelm Ramler (1725–1798) had attracted his attention several years earlier. Ramler was a poet and professor of philosophy at the Berlin Military Academy, and his writing reflected the spiritual ideals and literary aesthetics of the Enlightenment.

Ramler’s Ino tells the story of Ino’s desperate attempt to save her son from her husband Athamas, who has been driven insane and is intent on killing him. With its perfect blend of drama and poetry, narration and reflection, and emotion and structural control, it was the finest secular text that Telemann set to music. The Ino cantata is a virtually unbroken progression of accompanied recitative, arioso, aria and instrumental commentary and, with its two large-scale da capo arias, it has the proportions of a grand, through composed operatic scena. The accompanied recitatives are the most striking example of Telemann’s extraordinarily expressive word-painting. The harmonic and melodic language of Ino are typical of its time, characterised by pedal points and smoothly flowing movement in thirds and sixths in much of the instrumental writing, and harmonic structures which point clearly to a new age with a broader sense of harmonic planning.

This recording also includes Telemann’s seven movement Orchestral Suite in D. Composed in the same year as he completed Ino, it was his last preserved instrumental work. The exceptionally charming and witty music is a permanent testament to the way in which Telemann transformed conventional Baroque structures through rococo style and sentiment.

A generous selection of 33 Overtures (or Orchestral Suites) by Georg Philipp Telemann, formerly issued separately, now collected in one 8-CD set. Telemann’s Suites are written for strings and several solo instruments such as flute, oboe, bassoon or horn (each overture has a different instrumentation), beginning with a grand Overture in French style, followed by a suite of shorter dance movements.

The overtures are highly attractive works and deserve to be as popular as the suites of Handel (Water Music) and Bach (orchestral suites).

Excellent performances on modern instruments, however according to the historically informed performance practice, by the elite ensemble Collegium Instrumentale Brugense, conducted by Patrick Peire.

Although Telemann chose the title of ‘Overtures’, this was somewhat interchangeable with the genre of the Suite in his era. Each work opens with a three-part French overture, and this is followed by a series of varied, shorter pieces – encompassing everything from dances (drawn from the French tradition and beyond), fugues, chaconnes, passacailles, musical portraits, folk dances and evocations of scenes and characters.

In these eight discs, Collegium Instrumentale Brugense and Patrick Peire’s three separate volumes of Telemann Overtures have been collected together for the first time, creating a box set that is set apart by its breadth. Its overview of 33 Overtures illuminates Telemann’s hugely inventive approach to instrumentation, while revealing the wealth of subjects that he sought inspiration in.

The ‘Alster Overtüre’, for example, named after the Alster river in Germany, features a ‘Concert of Frogs and Crows’, while another Overture is inspired by Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Beyond this, the set is distinguished by authoritative performances. Collegium Instrumentale Brugense and Patrick Peire are experts in historical performance practice, but use modern instruments, making these recordings truly distinctive and rigorously researched.