Program Notes: Towards Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) learned the rudiments of music at a young age and composed his first opera when he was 12. He entered Leipzig University in 1701 to study law, but performances of his music in the Thomaskirche led to his employment to compose music for the churches of the city—much to the chagrin of the music director of the Thomaskirche, Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722). By 1704 he left Leipzig to work in a succession of court positions in Poland, Austria, and Germany. These nobles wished to emulate the court of Louis XIV, and to please them, Telemann studied the works of French composers such as Lully and Campra.
Jean-Baptiste Lully’s (1632-1687) opera Acis et Galathée premiered on September 6, 1686 and sets a story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses of the mortal shepherd Acis, the sea nymph Galatée, and the jealous Cyclops, Polyphemus, who crushes Acis with a boulder. Neptune revives Acis and turns him into a river. Today’s suite of incidental music begins with a French overture followed by several short dances (airs), a march, and concludes with a passacaglia—a set of variations over a repeating bass in triple meter.
André Campra (1660-1744) composed the opera Le Carnaval de Venise (The Carnival of Venice) in 1699. The story is a complicated affair of the young and beautiful searching for love (and making a hash of it as the young and beautiful do in opera). The final act includes an opera within the opera, Orfeo negli Inferni (Orpheus in the Underworld), which serves as a diversion for the escape of a pair of lovers. Today’s concert presents two excerpts from the mini-opera: the overture in an ABA form and a forlana, a dance from north-east Italy in a fast compound meter, like a gigue.
Telemann left court life in late 1711 to become the director of music for Frankfurt and later (1721) for Hamburg, then the largest city in Germany. In addition to writing music for the churches, he became director of a Hamburg opera house at the Gänsemarkt (where he performed the works of Keiser) and took on the leadership of the city’s collegium musicum (for which he composed secular works modeled on Vivaldi).
Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739) composed at least 66 operas, although many of them are now lost; Der zugeschlossene Tempel des Janus (Locked in the Temple of Janus) was written for the Gänsemarkt opera in Hamburg in 1698 and frequently revived. Keiser’s opera follows the machinations of imperial succession in ancient Rome leading to the closing of the doors to the Temple of Janus (to indicate an era of peace). At the conclusion, a priestess foretells the peaceful reign of the contemporary Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I (r. 1658-1705), a reference to the recently concluded War of the League of Augsburg (1697). The suite from this work includes an overture in ABA form, an instrumental setting of an aria (ritornello), a march for the entrance of the Roman populace, and a suite of dances from the celebratory finale: a bourre (a French folk dance in duple meter), a passepied (a fast minuet), a sarabande (a stately triple meter), and a concluding gigue (a lively compound meter).
Antonio Vivaldi’s L’incoronazione de Dario (1717) is a comic opera loosely based on the ascension of Darius to the Persian throne in the late 6th century BCE involving the romantic entanglements of the three unwed daughters of the late King Cyrus. The overture, or sinfonia, to the opera begins with an Allegro movement in C major and is written as an orchestral concerto. The opening ritornello is followed by episodic material with restatements of the opening in different keys ending in G major, which serves to introduce a brief Andante in C minor of triplet figures over a walking bass. The final Presto in C major is a brief binary form.
Telemann was well aware of how his musical style benefited from the synthesis of various traditions. In his 1729 autobiography, he wrote: “What I have accomplished with respect to musical style is well known. First came the Polish style, followed by the French, church, chamber and operatic styles, and [finally] the Italian style, which currently occupies me more than the others do”.
Georg Philipp Telemann composed about 125 concertos. His Flute Concerto in D major for soloist, strings, and continuo (available in a recording by Barthold Kuijken and the IBO) was composed in the early to mid‑18th century and follows a four-movement plan, similar to a contemporary sonata. The opening Andante features the soloist above a walking accompaniment framed by orchestral ritornelli. The Vivace presents the orchestra in a contrapuntal texture with virtuoso interruptions by the soloist. The Largo in B minor allows the soloist a set of variations over an ostinato. The concluding Allegro returns to D major for a joyous gigue.
Telemann also composed about 125 orchestral suites. His Suite in E minor is scored for of flutes, oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo and was probably composed in the early to mid‑18th century. The opening French overture begins with dotted rhythms in a broad duple, leading to a central section in triple meter with running sixteenth-note passages (with interruptions of dotted figure), and concluding with a return to opening materials. There follows a number of dances in binary form. The second movement is titled “Les Cyclopes” but with no further clarification apart from the mythological reference. These are stately beings, not brutes, who dance a loure—like a slow gigue. A minuet forms the central movement of the work with the trio moving to G major and featuring the winds. The fourth movement is titled “Galimatias en rondeaux”; scholars are unsure what Telemann meant by “Galimatias”, but the movement is indeed a rondeaux in ABACA form. The suite concludes with a lively hornpipe.