I wrote these liner notes to accompany my CD of Telemann's complete 1715 Frankfurt Violin Sonatas. I had hoped that they would be read while listening to the recording: my intention was to guide listeners' ears through this wonderful music. However, they are only available with the hard-copy CD, which means that anyone who streams the music won't have access to them. I'm posting them here to make them more widely available.
The recording is on Spotify, iTunes, and various other streaming services.
Georg Philipp Telemann: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, Frankfurt 1715
Violin Sonata in F-sharp minor, TWV 41:fis2
Despite its inventiveness, Georg Philipp Telemann’s music is often compared unfavorably with works by his contemporaries. The contrapuntal flair of Bach, the dramatic acumen of Handel, the fierce virtuosity of Vivaldi – none of these finds a match in Telemann’s compositional toolkit. But Telemann was one of music’s great mavericks, an aesthete with a restless mind and cosmopolitan tastes. During his nearly seven-decade career, he sampled every conceivable genre, idiom, and national style, and incorporated a dizzying number of them into his music. The body of work Telemann produced is unrivalled not only in size – he remains, after all, one of the most prolific composers of all time – but also in breadth. His output includes serious sacred music (he wrote more than 1,000 cantatas alone), slapstick opera scenes, and everything in between: concertos for unusual combinations of instruments, dances based on Polish folk tunes, complex canon sonatas, and instrumental suites depicting episodes from Don Quixote and Gulliver’s Travels.
Considering the sheer breadth of Telemann’s musical interests, the violin sonatas presented on this disc may at first glance seem unremarkable. All seven works feature a single combination of instruments, and share the same four-movement structure slow-fast-slow-fast. But such formal similarities are deceptive. In fact, the Violin Sonatas of 1715 are so wide-ranging in both idiom and expression that, heard together, they constitute a microcosm of Telemann’s art. Sonata 1 epitomizes the German style popular at the beginning of the eighteenth century, with a lyrical and energetic violin part over a steady “walking bass” accompaniment. Sonata 2 is intimate and probing: its slow movements are full of beguiling dissonances and halting, breathless phrases, while its fast movements simulate the grandeur of orchestral music. If Telemann’s interests in Polish dances can be heard lurking behind Sonata 3 (particularly in its quirky second movement and impish finale), the full range of his musical tastes is reflected in Sonata 4. This is perhaps the most multifarious work in the set, with a first movement that evokes simple contentment; a stately, noble second movement; a third movement full of torment and lamentation; and, finally, a rustic fourth movement. In Sonata 5 we are transported to an altogether darker realm, a world of sinewy chromaticism, disjointed melodies, and devilish virtuosity. Finally, in Sonata 6, we emerge back into the sunlight. This work, by turns clever, elegant, urbane, and festive, ends the cycle with true pomp.
Telemann demonstrates a remarkable range of expression in this cycle, but he also goes further, experimenting with and probing the boundaries of the two instruments’ textural and timbral capabilities. In the third movement of Sonata 1, the harpsichord is silent on nearly every strong metrical beat. As a result, our ears are drawn downwards: beneath the violin’s serene long notes, the accompaniment gives a sense of unease and restlessness. The first movement of Sonata 3 – perhaps the strangest of all – takes this approach further. Unlike most other sonatas in the repertoire, this work begins with an extended harpsichord solo. When the violin finally enters, it seems poised to imitate the harpsichord’s melody, but instead lapses into a single, sustained high note. The harpsichord continues its meditation, and although the violin eventually becomes more active, the harpsichord never fully cedes control. This reversal of the roles of soloist and accompanist is reprised in the third movement: here, the music begins as expected, with the melody in the violin. A few moments later, however, the violin abandons its tune and takes up the harpsichord’s line. By the end of the movement, what was once accompaniment has become a melody in its own right. A similar device can be heard in the second movement of Sonata 6, a canon in which both players share nearly identical musical material, offset by only one beat. Such equality and dialogue between two instruments is rarely achieved in works of this genre.
It is tempting, then, to think of the virtuosity conjured in this cycle more in terms of compositional invention than instrumental technique. Even so, Telemann does not hesitate to make real demands on the violinist: demands that are as varied as the sonatas themselves. The last movement of each work features a different kind of technical display, from the manic string-crossings of Sonata 3 to the two-note slurred groupings of Sonata 4 and the cascading arpeggios of Sonata 6. In the finale of Sonata 2, the violinistic trickery is particularly clever. At the start of the movement, the violinist’s left hand holds the same note (D) on two different strings while the bow alternates rapidly between them. The theme returns near the end of the movement, and with it come the double-stops and string-crossings. But instead of simply repeating the figure verbatim, Telemann follows the initial D’s with a survey of the same technique on the violin’s other strings, A and then E. Such passages remind us that, where instrumental virtuosity does enter into Telemann’s works, it is always deployed with a light touch: at the service of musicality and wit rather than for technical effect.
Like the 1715 Violin Sonatas, the Sonata in F-sharp minor is a strange, convention-defying work. Unlike its sister sonatas, however, it seems more an unfinished experiment than a polished piece of music. Telemann may have sensed the work’s oddities and shortcomings; whatever the reason, he declined to publish it, and it survives today only in a manuscript housed in the Dresden State Library. The title page is signed George Melante, Telemann’s nearly-anagrammatic pseudonym. The sonata appears here in recording for the very first time.
Despite being set in F-sharp minor (a key associated with tragedy and heartache in much baroque music), the first three movements are all drawn to the more cheerful world of A major. Although eighteenth-century convention dictated that the first two movements of every sonata be confined to a single key, Telemann here makes the unprecedented decision to base the second movement entirely in A. Equally unusual is the length of this sonata’s movements. While the first is concise and tightly structured, the second and third seem out of proportion. The second is strangely short, and on this recording we perform it twice through to balance it better with the rest of the piece. The third, by contrast, is long and rambling, without a clear sense of form or direction. Although the fourth movement begins as a fugue, it frequently lapses into a more standard texture, where the violin carries the melody and the harpsichord provides unobtrusive support. Like the third movement, this finale seems flighty, even random: its short, stiff melodies are punctuated by incongruously rustic interjections. As a result, the ending is deeply unsatisfying. The final three movements fail to live up to the gravitas and beauty of the first.
In acknowledging that this sonata is problematic, I do not mean to disparage Telemann’s compositional craft. Too often we associate great composers with an oeuvre of only the greatest compositions, all the while ignoring their early drafts, abortive efforts, and failed experiments. But masterpieces such as the 1715 Sonatas do not appear out of nowhere. For every successful, inventive composition, countless alternate possibilities are tried and rejected. The Sonata in F-sharp minor is worth hearing not only because of its many charming phrases, but also because it offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at Telemann’s creative ingenuity. We present it here with the hope that it will illuminate a neglected aspect of the artistic process and ultimately increase admiration for Telemann’s successes. Comparing the seven works on this recording, it is clear that Telemann had no simple schema, no formula that would produce a single piece of music over and over. These are seven truly distinct sonatas: each unique, daring, and extraordinary in its own way.
The recording is on Spotify, iTunes, and various other streaming services.
Georg Philipp Telemann: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, Frankfurt 1715
Violin Sonata in F-sharp minor, TWV 41:fis2
Despite its inventiveness, Georg Philipp Telemann’s music is often compared unfavorably with works by his contemporaries. The contrapuntal flair of Bach, the dramatic acumen of Handel, the fierce virtuosity of Vivaldi – none of these finds a match in Telemann’s compositional toolkit. But Telemann was one of music’s great mavericks, an aesthete with a restless mind and cosmopolitan tastes. During his nearly seven-decade career, he sampled every conceivable genre, idiom, and national style, and incorporated a dizzying number of them into his music. The body of work Telemann produced is unrivalled not only in size – he remains, after all, one of the most prolific composers of all time – but also in breadth. His output includes serious sacred music (he wrote more than 1,000 cantatas alone), slapstick opera scenes, and everything in between: concertos for unusual combinations of instruments, dances based on Polish folk tunes, complex canon sonatas, and instrumental suites depicting episodes from Don Quixote and Gulliver’s Travels.
Considering the sheer breadth of Telemann’s musical interests, the violin sonatas presented on this disc may at first glance seem unremarkable. All seven works feature a single combination of instruments, and share the same four-movement structure slow-fast-slow-fast. But such formal similarities are deceptive. In fact, the Violin Sonatas of 1715 are so wide-ranging in both idiom and expression that, heard together, they constitute a microcosm of Telemann’s art. Sonata 1 epitomizes the German style popular at the beginning of the eighteenth century, with a lyrical and energetic violin part over a steady “walking bass” accompaniment. Sonata 2 is intimate and probing: its slow movements are full of beguiling dissonances and halting, breathless phrases, while its fast movements simulate the grandeur of orchestral music. If Telemann’s interests in Polish dances can be heard lurking behind Sonata 3 (particularly in its quirky second movement and impish finale), the full range of his musical tastes is reflected in Sonata 4. This is perhaps the most multifarious work in the set, with a first movement that evokes simple contentment; a stately, noble second movement; a third movement full of torment and lamentation; and, finally, a rustic fourth movement. In Sonata 5 we are transported to an altogether darker realm, a world of sinewy chromaticism, disjointed melodies, and devilish virtuosity. Finally, in Sonata 6, we emerge back into the sunlight. This work, by turns clever, elegant, urbane, and festive, ends the cycle with true pomp.
Telemann demonstrates a remarkable range of expression in this cycle, but he also goes further, experimenting with and probing the boundaries of the two instruments’ textural and timbral capabilities. In the third movement of Sonata 1, the harpsichord is silent on nearly every strong metrical beat. As a result, our ears are drawn downwards: beneath the violin’s serene long notes, the accompaniment gives a sense of unease and restlessness. The first movement of Sonata 3 – perhaps the strangest of all – takes this approach further. Unlike most other sonatas in the repertoire, this work begins with an extended harpsichord solo. When the violin finally enters, it seems poised to imitate the harpsichord’s melody, but instead lapses into a single, sustained high note. The harpsichord continues its meditation, and although the violin eventually becomes more active, the harpsichord never fully cedes control. This reversal of the roles of soloist and accompanist is reprised in the third movement: here, the music begins as expected, with the melody in the violin. A few moments later, however, the violin abandons its tune and takes up the harpsichord’s line. By the end of the movement, what was once accompaniment has become a melody in its own right. A similar device can be heard in the second movement of Sonata 6, a canon in which both players share nearly identical musical material, offset by only one beat. Such equality and dialogue between two instruments is rarely achieved in works of this genre.
It is tempting, then, to think of the virtuosity conjured in this cycle more in terms of compositional invention than instrumental technique. Even so, Telemann does not hesitate to make real demands on the violinist: demands that are as varied as the sonatas themselves. The last movement of each work features a different kind of technical display, from the manic string-crossings of Sonata 3 to the two-note slurred groupings of Sonata 4 and the cascading arpeggios of Sonata 6. In the finale of Sonata 2, the violinistic trickery is particularly clever. At the start of the movement, the violinist’s left hand holds the same note (D) on two different strings while the bow alternates rapidly between them. The theme returns near the end of the movement, and with it come the double-stops and string-crossings. But instead of simply repeating the figure verbatim, Telemann follows the initial D’s with a survey of the same technique on the violin’s other strings, A and then E. Such passages remind us that, where instrumental virtuosity does enter into Telemann’s works, it is always deployed with a light touch: at the service of musicality and wit rather than for technical effect.
Like the 1715 Violin Sonatas, the Sonata in F-sharp minor is a strange, convention-defying work. Unlike its sister sonatas, however, it seems more an unfinished experiment than a polished piece of music. Telemann may have sensed the work’s oddities and shortcomings; whatever the reason, he declined to publish it, and it survives today only in a manuscript housed in the Dresden State Library. The title page is signed George Melante, Telemann’s nearly-anagrammatic pseudonym. The sonata appears here in recording for the very first time.
Despite being set in F-sharp minor (a key associated with tragedy and heartache in much baroque music), the first three movements are all drawn to the more cheerful world of A major. Although eighteenth-century convention dictated that the first two movements of every sonata be confined to a single key, Telemann here makes the unprecedented decision to base the second movement entirely in A. Equally unusual is the length of this sonata’s movements. While the first is concise and tightly structured, the second and third seem out of proportion. The second is strangely short, and on this recording we perform it twice through to balance it better with the rest of the piece. The third, by contrast, is long and rambling, without a clear sense of form or direction. Although the fourth movement begins as a fugue, it frequently lapses into a more standard texture, where the violin carries the melody and the harpsichord provides unobtrusive support. Like the third movement, this finale seems flighty, even random: its short, stiff melodies are punctuated by incongruously rustic interjections. As a result, the ending is deeply unsatisfying. The final three movements fail to live up to the gravitas and beauty of the first.
In acknowledging that this sonata is problematic, I do not mean to disparage Telemann’s compositional craft. Too often we associate great composers with an oeuvre of only the greatest compositions, all the while ignoring their early drafts, abortive efforts, and failed experiments. But masterpieces such as the 1715 Sonatas do not appear out of nowhere. For every successful, inventive composition, countless alternate possibilities are tried and rejected. The Sonata in F-sharp minor is worth hearing not only because of its many charming phrases, but also because it offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at Telemann’s creative ingenuity. We present it here with the hope that it will illuminate a neglected aspect of the artistic process and ultimately increase admiration for Telemann’s successes. Comparing the seven works on this recording, it is clear that Telemann had no simple schema, no formula that would produce a single piece of music over and over. These are seven truly distinct sonatas: each unique, daring, and extraordinary in its own way.
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