Telemann: Concerto TWV 52:a1 in A minor for recorder, viola da gamba, strings & b.c.

According to my good friend Wikipedia, the Concert spirituel was one of the first public concert series in existence. The concerts began in Paris in 1725 and ended in 1790. The series was founded to provide entertainment during Lent and on religious holidays when the other spectacles (the Paris Opera, Comédie-Française, and Comédie-Italienne) were closed. The programmes featured a mixture of sacred choral works and virtuosic instrumental pieces, and for many years took place in a magnificently-decorated Salle des Cent Suisses (Hall of the Hundred Swiss Guards) in the Tuileries Palace. They started at six o’clock in the evening and were primarily attended by well-to-do bourgeois, the lower aristocracy and foreign visitors. Jordi Savall brings these magnificent evenings back to life, thanks to an imaginary ‘concert spirituel’ programme featuring 3 major composers from Italy, Germany and France : Corelli, Telemann and Rameau. This album enables us to (re)discover the quintessence of the musical life during the reign of Louis XV. Enrico Onofri recently appeared at the Lufthansa Baroque Festival directing the European Union Baroque Orchestra and his own Ensemble Imaginarium.

Naturally Telemann offers some of the composer’s most elegant, ingenious and spirited instrumental music. Two concertos feature the recorder and the transverse flute in novel instrumentations that yield unique combinations of tone. These works are paired with the cantata Seele, lerne dich erkennen for soprano and recorder ensemble, and the Sonata in B flat major for recorders and continuo. Naturally Telemann shows off the composer’s great stylistic range as he adapted his idiom to the times, indeed helped shape the music of a new era.

Vittorio Ghielmi is known for the intensity and versatility of his musical interpretations and for his new approach to the viola da gamba and the sound of the early music repertoire. His ensemble, Il Suonar Parlante, is devoted to investigating early music repertoire and has also performed with jazz, flamenco and traditional Asian musicians.

Lorenz Duftschmid, one of the most celebrated gambists of our time, has selected some of the most original and beautiful compositions the viola da gamba: a double concerto for recorder, viol, strings and continuo, two solos with basso continuo, a sonata for solo viol and two quartets. He is accompanied by the all star Armonico Tributo Austria, in an issue long overdue for re-release. This milestone of the Arcana catalogue returns with new artwork and new packaging.

This CD is also part of the Souvenir Anniversary Series and is mid-price. “Siegfried Pank and the Mitteldeutsche Barocksolisten surprise with virtuoso pieces from the late period of the viola da gamba, in which this instrument can again shine soloistically….A rewarding rarity!” Applaus

Telemann was an imaginative and highly prolific composer and this recording is the perfect collection to hear some of his concertos for various combinations of woodwinds and string instruments, with either a baroque flute or recorder as the solo instrument.

“Beautiful and impressive playing like this sets the standards to which others must aspire! “ Early Music Review