Telemann revived

Abstract

The most prolific composer of his age, Telemann was generally regarded by his contemporaries as the leading composer in Germany during the first half of the 18th century. He was the unanimous first choice of the Leipzig town council for the vacant post of Thomaskantor in 1722; history, however, has looked on him less favourably, and he has since been overshadowed by the council's reluctant third choice, Johann Sebastian Bach. This group of six discs goes some way to illustrating the range of Telemann's remarkable output, and to suggest that he has been treated rather harshly by posterity. When Telemann applied around the end of 1711 for the newly vacant post of Frankfurt's director of music and Kapellmeister at the Barfüsserkirche, his letter of application underlined his versatility as a performer, being ‘proficient principally on the violin, but also on the keyboard, recorder, chalumeau, cello, and calchedon [a type of bass lute], and no less presentable with my voice, which lies between tenor and bass and is usually called baritone’. Having been appointed to this new position in February 1712, Telemann's duties included writing several annual cycles of church cantatas; the fact that in 1717 he complained to the city fathers that ‘the serious lack of church singers constantly forces me to tire myself, and is an incessant agitation to my constitution’ suggests that he may well have sung some of the works for male voice himself, and among the more than 1,400 surviving cantatas, a large number are for solo bass.