Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) - Concerto a 2 Trombe selvatiche (c.1740)
Performers: Georges Barboteu (1924-2006, horn); Gilbert Coursier (horn);
Chamber Orchestra of Toulouse; Louis Auriacombe (1917-1982, conductor)
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German composer. A few singing lessons and two weeks of organ
instruction taken at the age of 10 apparently comprise all of Telemann’s
formal education in music. He taught himself composition by
transcribing scores, as well as recorder, zither, and violin, which
became his principal instrument. By age 12, he had already completed
several motets, arias, instrumental works, and one opera, Sigimundus.
His mother, alarmed that Georg might forgo a more secure livelihood for
music, confiscated his instruments and forbad further study, to no
avail: Telemann’s teacher at school, Casper Calvoer of Zellerfeld,
encouraged his obvious musical aptitude by introducing him to the
relationships of music and mathematics. In 1697, he entered the
prestigious Gymnasium Andreanum in Hildesheim and graduated in 1701. In
the meantime, he had taught himself thoroughbass composition and the
instruments flute, oboe, chalumeau, viola da gamba, violone, and bass
trombone. Then, he entered the University of Leipzig to study law. But,
according to Telemann’s own account, his roommate chanced upon one of
his psalm settings, and after it was performed, the mayor of Leipzig
hired Telemann to compose music for the city’s two principal churches,
the Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche. Then he founded the Leipzig
Collegium Musicum, with 40 student musicians, and gave public concerts
of instrumental music. In 1702, he was appointed music director of the
city’s Opernhaus auf dem Brühl. In June 1705, he left Leipzig to become
Kapellmeister to Count Erdmann II of Promnitz at Sorau, and began to
study intensively the works of Jean Baptiste Lully and André Campra. In
December 1708, he became secretary and concertmaster to Duke Johann
Wilhelm of Saxe-Eisenach. In 1712, he moved again, to become the
director of music in Frankfurt and Kapellmeister for the city’s
Barfüßkirche. On 13 October 1709, he married Amalie Louise Juliane
Eberlin. They had one daughter together, but his wife died in January
1711. In his autobiography, Telemann confesses a religious awakening at
this time. On 28 August 1714, he married Maria Catharina Textor. They
had eight sons and a daughter together, and yet the marriage seems to
have broken up by 1736, when Maria Catharina left Telemann for a convent
in Frankfurt.
On 10 July 1721, the Hanseatic city-state of Hamburg invited Telemann to
become the city’s cantor. He accepted and was installed on 17
September. This position demanded all of Telemann’s prodigious
productivity. He was responsible for all the music in the city’s five
churches. He was required to compose two new cantatas for each Sunday,
one to be sung before the Gospel reading and another after, as well as a
new passion for Lent, in addition to various occasional works for civic
celebrations. He directed the city’s collegium musicum, and these
public concerts became so popular that their number had to be doubled
from weekly to twice weekly. If all this were not enough activity, in
1722, he became director of the Hamburg Gänsemarkt Opera, where he
performed operas by Keiser, Handel, and himself, among others. Some in
Hamburg objected to his connection with the opera, and friction
increased to the point where, in 1722, Telemann applied for the position
of cantor in Leipzig to replace the deceased Johann Kuhnau. He was the
Leipzig city council’s first choice, but he declined their offer after
Hamburg offered him a higher salary to stay, leaving Leipzig with J. S.
Bach as their third choice. He undertook the publishing of 43
collections of his own music and often engraved the plates himself. Some
of these, like J. S. Bach’s publications, are conceived as encyclopedic
surveys of genres and techniques of his own time. For the Societät der
musikalischen Wissenschaften, he wrote a theory of enharmonic and
chromatic relationships, the Neues musikalisches System (1752). In the
mid-1740s, Telemann seems to have withdrawn into semiretirement. By
then, he was, along with Handel, the most famous German musician alive.
From October 1737 to May 1738, he had visited Paris. Yet he still
provided the required passion for Hamburg every year until his death
and, in fact, increased his output of sacred music late in life when new
sacred poetry arrived on the scene. Telemann died in his home of “a
chest illness” on 25 June 1767.
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