Georg Philipp Telemann Ouverture in D TWV55:D18
live, March 2020
First Christian Church, Colorado Springs, CO
Audio and Video: Michael Lascuola


Overview: Georg Philipp Telemann
Born: March 14, 1681, Magdeburg, Germany; died: June 25, 1767, Hamburg, Germany
Work Composed: 18th Century

Georg Philipp Telemann lived a charmed life. His talent was identified early, and he developed it tirelessly. He rose quickly to the top of his profession, and stayed there, apparently without making any enemies, for decades. In an age when it was rare for someone to live 70 years, he lived to be 86, and was healthy and productive to the end. (He was born four years before J. S. Bach and outlived him by 17 years.) He may have been the most prolific composer ever, with some 3,000 known works, about half of which survive. He seems to have composed something between 30 minutes and an hour of music every week for 65 years.
His afterlife has not been so charmed, however. While his work was tremendously influential during his life, and still widely respected several decades later, he fell out of favor in the 19th Century, when his very productivity began to inspire suspicion as well as awe. Is it possible to compose this much without being superficial?
The answer to this question is given by no less than J. S. Bach himself. It would have been natural for Bach to be jealous of Telemann’s fame – a: Among other things, Telemann was the first choice for the Leipzig position Bach coveted, and it only went to Bach because first Telemann, and then Christoph Graupner turned it down. Yet Bach is known to have performed a number of Telemann’s works, and the two were on good terms. And Telemann’s music is good enough that about a dozen of his works used to be mistakenly ascribed to Bach.
Telemann had to have composed at white-hot speed – even more so than Bach’s music, which breaths spontaneity, Telemann’s pieces must almost be written-out improvisations. This makes their quality all the more impressive: Telemann’s music is rhythmically vivacious, there’s never a mis-step, and while it’s often conventional, it’s never banal. He composed in every Baroque genre, but held a special fondness for the orchestral suite: In 1740, he wrote that he’d composed about 600 of them, and he still had more than 40 more years to live.
Vast amounts of Telemann’s music still exist only in manuscript; only a third of his surviving works have been published. Nor have musicologists lavished the attention on Telemann that Bach has received. A few works were published in his lifetime, or can be attached to a specific performance date, but currently it’s difficult to date Telemann’s music based on stylistic traits: One recently published suite is given a date of “ca. 1700-1749,” and it’s almost impossible that a major composer’s style could be inert over this length of time.
This opening Ouverture is not a (then fashionable) French Ooverture. Like a French overture, the slow introduction is followed by a fast, quasi-imitative section; but the introduction doesn’t obsess over dotted rhythms like a typical French Ooverture, and the movement ends un-Frenchishly with a varied reprise of the introduction. This is not to suggest that Telemann’s knowledge of the French style was defective. Among German composers of his generation, Telemann probably had the deepest knowledge of French music, having spent eight months in Paris in 1737, and having composed – among the comparatively few works published in his lifetime – two sets of quartets in French style. He was just after something different here.
Indeed, the Telemann’s mastery of French style is evident elsewhere in this suite, which generally emphasizes the French values of textural clarity, grace, and charm rather than the denser and more serious approach favored by most German composers. (You will hear the contrast with the following Bach concerto.) Clarity is a principal trait of the two Menuets. The sprightly Gavotte, with its unpredictable phrase lengths, is especially reminiscent of Rameau, which may or may not be a coincidence. The Passacaille is martial in character, and unusually for the genre, does not unfold over a repeated bass line but is structured more as a rondo. The tiny Air lentenment provides a lyrical contrast to the predominantly festive atmosphere. In the exuberant Postillons, Telemann imitates the post-horn, an instrument that was used to signal the arrival of a post rider or mail coach. The closing Fanfare is brisk and joyous.

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