| If the Suite in A minor for Recorder, Strings and Continuo is the single work of Telemann which is best known to the general public (as a sort of companion piece for flutists to the Suite in B minor of Bach), the Musique de Table [or Tafelmusik] of 1733 is perhaps his most celebrated collection, and the earliest to come before the modern public, in a complete edition edited by Max Seiffert as part of the Denkmäler Deutsche Tonkunst in 1927 (the collection has since appeared also in the Musikalische Werke of Telemann from Bärenreiter, vol. 12-14, 1959-1963). One might think of the collection as a counterpoint to the Brandenburg Concertos of Bach, showing off the composer’s skill in handling various genres and instruments. Bach’s collections of concerted and chamber music were, of course, never published. Telemann, in contrast, spent most of his career in the thriving commercial center and port of Hamburg, a free city with no resident nobility, in which the highly educated merchant elite set the tone, and one to which travelers came from all over Europe. |
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