The concerto in this production is certainly one of my favorites among all of Telemann’s works. In A major, it is scored for flute and violin solo, strings and continuo, but the cello has a particularly prominent solo role to play as well. One might think of it as Telemann’s reimagining of the texture of his Paris quartets in an orchestral context. The musical idiom is Telemann at his most modern, combining the best of the French and Italian styles, and making use of the sort of expressive use of Lombard rhythms familiar from such late works as the flute duets TWV 40: 130-135. Also similar is the almost kaleidoscopic spinning out and combining of contrasting motives, something alien to the typically Baroque method of constructing music based upon multiple reiterations of simple and easily recognizable melodic gestures, and perhaps developing out of the improvised practice of elaborate ornamentation of the adagio.

The trio sonata for two violins in E-flat which follows (a jarring tritone away) is not far in style from the empfindsamer Stil of C.P.E Bach and his associates at the court of Frederick the Great, with ornate lines spun out over harmonically static bass lines in clearly divided phrases, and a definite proclivity for parallel thirds in among the structural counterpoint. The solo for flute which follows, in contrast, is perhaps more similar in style to the music of J.S. Bach, the opening cantabile beginning with a solo ritornello for the continuo part, something scarcely to be found in the composer’s other solo sonatas. The passagework of the allegro which follows is reminiscent of that from Bach’s flute sonata in E minor. There is an occasional lombard, but overall the tone is conservative. The return of the full band for the allegro conclusion brings the production to an exhilarating conclusion.

Production 2

The second production begins with a suite which could scarcely be more different in character from that which opened the first production. If the lamenting sound of the flute recalls the French style (the instrument was perfected in the late seventeenth century by the French, who contributed the bulk of its early repertoire) and soft-spoken chamber music, the brassy sound of the trumpet and oboe in D here connotes the pomp of royal courts, and to my ear at least, the idiom which Telemann has chosen recalls that of Handel. It is not by accident that the numbers which follow the ouverture are none of them dances, but labeled airs instead with the first and third partaking of a military, martial character.

The quartet in this production is the one most frequently heard in concert, due to its unusual scoring for solo recorder, a pair of transverse flutes and continuo. The recorder part is given in the French violin clef (G on the bottom line of the staff), so that the part may also be taken by a bassoon reading bass clef (a procedure found elsewhere in Telemann’s oeuvre, for example the sonata in F minor from the Getreue Musikmeister). Militating against this choice is Telemann’s part-writing, which often pairs either the two flutes, or a flute and recorder. The recorder only has a truly concertato part in the second movement, with the two flutes playing at being an orchestra for a day. Worthy of note is the contrasting episode in the major, pastoral in character, in the conluding rondeau.