Meaning in Telemann's Instrumental Works [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

Music for a Mixed Taste

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Music for a Mixed Taste Style, Genre, and Meaning in Telemann ’ s Instrumental Works Steven Zohn

1 2008

1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

Copyright © 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zohn, Steven David, 1966– Music for a mixed taste : style, genre, and meaning in Telemann’s instrumental works / Steven Zohn. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 978-0-19-516977-5 1. Telemann, Georg Philipp, 1681–1767. Instrumental music. 2. Instrumental music—18th century— History and criticism. I. Title. ML410.T26Z65 2007 784.092—dc22 2007009441

Publication of this book was supported by the Dragan Plamenac Publication Endowment Fund of the American Musicological Society.

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Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

For my parents, Judith and Harry Zohn

Die Violine wird nach Orgel-Arth tractiret / Die Flöt’ und Hautbois Trompeten gleich verspühret / Die Gamba schlentert mit / so wie das Bäßgen geht / Nur daß noch hier und da ein Triller drüber steht. Nein / nein / es ist nicht genug / daß nur die Noten klingen / Das du der Reguln Kram zu Marckte weist zu bringen. Gieb jedem Instrument das / was es leyden kann / So hat der Spieler Lust / du hast Vergnügen dran. The violin is treated in the manner of an organ, The flute, oboe, and trumpet are employed similarly, The viola da gamba ambles along like a small bass, But for a trill here and there. No, no, it’s not enough that the notes are sounded, That you can apply the rules as if bringing wares to market. Give each instrument that which it will permit, The player will be pleased, as will you. —Telemann, “Lebens-Lauff mein Georg Philipp Telemanns” (1718 autobiography)

Die Instrumental-Sachen des Herrn Capellmeisters geben überzeuglich zu erkennen / daß derselbe mit den Instrumenten gleicher gestalt sehr wohl bekannt seyn müsse. Er begleitet sie nemlich mit dem Brillant / welches ihre einwohnende Natur erfordert. Er beobachtet bey den Saiten Instrumenten das Gewichte des Bogens / die bloß liegenden Thöne / und dergleichen; wie auf den Blas-Instrumenten die gebrochenen / nebst andern ihnen zukommenden Zierlichkeiten; überhaupt aber und fürnehmlich die Anmuth des Gesanges. The instrumental works of Herr Kapellmeister [Telemann] furnish persuasive evidence that he is very well acquainted with the instruments in question. That is, he treats them with the brilliance that their inherent nature demands. He observes the weight of the bow, the unstopped pitches, and the like with string instruments; the breaks and other delicate aspects of wind instruments; and above all the gracefulness of singing. Anonymous Hamburg reviewer, in Hamburgische Auszüge aus neuen Büchern und Nachrichten von allerhand zur Gelahrtheit gehörigen Sachen, 1728

Preface and Acknowledgments

In 1982, a year after the tercentenary of Telemann’s birth, the New Yorker magazine ran a cartoon showing several billboards announcing concerts, evidently at New York City’s Lincoln Center. A sold-out Mozart concert is advertised on the middle billboard, but in front of it is one proclaiming “ALL THE GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN YOU CAN STAND.”1 The cartoon amusingly plays off the common notion of the composer as a prolific purveyor of trifling music. One imagines sated audience members rolling their eyes in anticipation of consuming yet another trio sonata during an all-you-can-hear baroque buffet. To risk unduly extending the culinary analogy: the music provides empty calories instead of real aural nourishment; it merely represents its era without rising above mediocrity. Even those who know Telemann as a musical author of great depth and originality, as a master of idiomatic instrumental and vocal writing, can appreciate this joke. And one likes to imagine that the composer, with his keen sense of humor, would self-deprecatingly chuckle along with us. Much has changed during the quarter century since this cartoon was published. Numerous critical and performing editions, scholarly studies, and performances both live and recorded have gone a long way toward restoring Telemann’s reputation to something approaching its height during the first half of the eighteenth century, when he was considered Germany’s leading musician. Virtually all of his instrumental works are now available in print, and many can be heard in stylish recordings. If access to his vocal music has lagged behind, there have nevertheless been great strides on this count as well. Indeed, the time draws near when we shall be able to make a well-informed assessment of Telemann’s entire compositional legacy. Yet, curiously, musicologists—especially those outside Germany—have been slow to embrace him as a legitimate object of study. One struggles, in fact, to name another composer of his historical stature who has received so little attention from Anglo-American musicology.2 That this is the first book-length study on any aspect of Telemann and his music to be published in

viii Preface and Acknowledgments

English since a 1974 translation of Richard Petzoldt’s brief life-and-works volume seems hard to believe.3 The composer’s scholarly marginalization as a musical giant in the realm of Kleinmeister is perhaps nowhere better reflected than in that traditional gatekeeper to the pantheon of musical greatness, the music-history textbook. Only recently have such texts begun to mention Telemann as anything more than an important contemporary and friend of Johann Sebastian Bach— and, of course, as the composer who was first offered the position of “Cantor zu St. Thomae et Director Musices” at Leipzig.4 In fact, many students learn nothing more about Telemann than this, unless they encounter him as history’s “most prolific composer,” according to The Guinness Book of World Records. However much this dubious distinction may have raised popular awareness of the composer, it cannot have emboldened many to wade through his vast musical output.5 How and why Telemann went from being universally praised during his lifetime to being almost universally derided in the century and a half following his death is a fascinating topic that has been treated elsewhere in detail.6 But because the composer’s image continues to be shaped by many old misconceptions and prejudices, it will be instructive for us to sample some of the critical reactions to his music—particularly the instrumental works—from the past century. One should not assume from this brief overview, however, that the reception of Telemann’s music since the early twentieth century has been uniformly negative or ambivalent. To take but two examples, Ernst Bücken’s 1928 characterization of Telemann as the “seeker and deliberate finder of new musical paths” is echoed in George Buelow’s 2003 assessment that “Telemann was a pathfinder in music, an original, imaginative creator of musical forms and styles for the new age in which he became a composer. . . . He was one of music history’s outstanding and gifted composers.”7 Typical of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century view of Telemann is a passage from Hugo Riemann’s 1899 genre study of the overture-suite: “After scoring up a few hundred pages of Telemann, I can only summarize my overall impression to the effect that he generally writes smoothly, sometimes piquantly, and here and there in the dance pieces even quite spiritedly, but is unable to continually hold one’s interest because he doesn’t understand how to build up intensity. This is why, despite his great success during his lifetime, he has little claim to a revival.8 Like many of his contemporaries, Riemann praises the composer on a number of counts before offering a devastating critique aimed at justifying his continued neglect. Another common theme in the early literature on Telemann’s music is his supposed lack of originality. Thus Frederick Niecks writing of the characteristic Ouverture burlesque de Quixotte (55:G10) in 1906: “The fancifulness of the titles is here in most cases more striking than their significance. . . . Tele-

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mann shows himself rather a ready and spirited writer than an original and profound one. The amusing externalities are better hit off than the weightier internalities.”9 Hans Graeser, who in 1925 wrote a dissertation on Telemann’s instrumental chamber music, came to the conclusion that although the composer’s role in the development of eighteenth-century musical style was analogous to that of Corelli in violin music, he could not be viewed as an “original artist,” for he had merely reflected and synthesized the music of his time.10 And in 1933 Hans Mersmann moderated his generally high estimation of Telemann’s instrumental music by accusing the composer of merely reflecting, not synthesizing, his stylistic influences and of failing to achieve true originality despite his “occasionally brilliant” experiments.11 The not-so-hidden subtext of these estimations is a comparison with the music of J. S. Bach, one in which Telemann’s perceived failure to have transcended the musical styles of his day in forging an original, personal idiom—as Bach did—is considered to mark him a superficial artist. Such writings also echo a lateeighteenth- and nineteenth-century aesthetic that valorized individuality of expression above all else, an aesthetic fundamentally at odds with the stylistically “mixed” mode of expression that prevailed in Telemann’s time. Thus the composer’s fluency in all of the major compositional styles of his day came in for heavy criticism from Alfred Einstein, whose prewar project was to determine the nature of musical “greatness”: If Bach had not been born, the leading representative of German music in the first half of the eighteenth century would be Georg Philipp Telemann, of Magdeburg—Bach’s senior by four years and his survivor by seventeen, a happy and successful man. He far exceeded Bach in productivity, and like Bach (and later Mozart)[,] he was a man that could write in all manner of styles, in the French as well as the Italian. But when he wrote in these styles there was always a residue of imitation, albeit tasteful imitation. When Bach wrote a concerto “im italienischen Gusto,” it was Bachian or, as has been incorrectly said, German. For it was not his so-called Germanism that determined Bach’s style; rather it was Bach’s music that determined the German style. . . . [Telemann] fused Italian, German, and French ingredients into a highly agreeable and amiable synthesis. Handel, the “Italian,” was much more one-sided than Telemann—and much greater. And Bach did something quite different: he was much more the true heir than Telemann, and what he produced was much more than a mere synthesis. Indeed, he was not only an heir, but a revolutionary as well.12

Here Telemann comes off as a kind of baroque Papa Haydn: a “happy and successful man” who wrote music that is (merely) “tasteful,” “agreeable,” and “amiable,” and that (again, merely) offers a “synthesis” of national styles.13 Had he

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written music that sounds “Telemannian” the way that Bach’s sounds “Bachian,” and had he been less catholic in his tastes, like Handel, the avuncular Telemann might be fitted for the mantle of greatness. And—reading a bit between the lines—he might also have been more German. One of the ironies here is that Telemann, more than Bach or any other composer of his time, “determined” the German style. At least, this is what his contemporaries believed. Around the middle of the twentieth century, Anglo-American scholars began turning their attention to Telemann’s instrumental works. In his 1959 study of the baroque concerto, Arthur Hutchings offered praise for the composer that is by turns extravagant and damningly faint. For him, Telemann’s music represented “the whole history of the concerto and other forms of French and Italian concert music as reflected in German composers from Muffat until after Quantz.”14 William S. Newman’s magisterial survey of the baroque sonata from the same year includes several pages devoted to Telemann, and his conclusion bears quoting here: The customary historical evaluation of Telemann as a fluent, popular, highly prolific, but not very original composer seems to require no special qualification after a review of the sonatas. If originality means, among other things, boldness of concept, there is boldness in some wide melodic leaps and some out-of-the-way harmonies. . . . If originality means introspective fantasy, there is virtually none. . . . The strengths of Telemann’s sonatas seem to lie in their fluent craftsmanship, clear lines, compelling harmony (sometimes strongly chromatic by dominants), effective writing for the instruments, and satisfactory structural organization. The chief weaknesses seem to lie in neutral ideas that stick too close to the scale or chord to achieve individuality, in similarly neutral rhythmic patterns, in a somewhat indifferent rhythmic organization at the phrase or period level, and in a lack of any special textural interest. . . . Actually, the most interesting rhythmic patterns are the borrowed ones, such as the mazurka and polonaise elements.15

Once again the issue of originality is raised: Telemann’s bold adoption of rhythmic patterns from Polish dances is downplayed as a mere borrowing. To be fair, Newman probably lacked access to such works as the fantasias for unaccompanied flute and violin, where Telemann’s considerable “introspective fantasy” is on full display. But one has to wonder at his criticism that the sonatas lack “any special textural interest,” especially because he indicates his familiarity with the sixth of the Nouveaux quatuors (43:e4), a work of great textural complexity that has since become one of the composer’s most popular works. At the end of her 1980 book chapter on Telemann’s concertos, an overview containing many valuable insights, Pippa Drummond concluded that

Preface and Acknowledgments xi Telemann can no longer be classed as a baroque composer. In many ways his work forms a link between the baroque and classical periods. The break with tradition is not complete in that he still relies extensively on the figurative patterns and contrapuntal devices of the old manner. Yet his belief that melody was of supreme importance, his experiments with orchestration and texture, his synthesis of popular and learned styles, are all progressive traits. The tension between old and new which is so characteristic of Telemann is representative of the whole transitional era. In this respect he is one of the most typical composers of his age.16

There are few things worse, historiographically speaking, than to be labeled a transitional figure—a “link” between two historical periods and “representative” or “typical” of an era in stylistic flux—for those who fall into the cracks between epochs defined by style, culture, or politics seem destined to be marginalized. Given that Telemann has often been viewed as straddling the baroque and classical eras and therefore easily dismissed as peripheral to mainstream musical developments in both, it is remarkable that he is barely mentioned at all in a recent and wide-ranging study of galant music composed between 1720 and 1780, a style and a period that have themselves traditionally been marginalized in musichistorical narratives.17 The fact of the matter is that Telemann was less a transitional figure than a progressive whose music remained on the stylistic cutting edge during most of his long career. As this book aims to demonstrate, Telemann was not only an innovative composer of “fluent” and “tasteful” music, but also an original—and at times even revolutionary—creator of concertos, sonatas, and suites, more than a few of which rank among the eighteenth century’s finest. Researching and writing a study of Telemann’s instrumental music has therefore been a pleasurable journey of enlightenment. Occasionally it has also seemed an overwhelming task, given the enormous size of the repertory, the scattered nature of sources and modern editions, and the modest body of earlier scholarship upon which to build and against which to react. What survives of Telemann’s compositions for various instrumental combinations encompasses roughly 125 overture-suites, an equal number of concertos, 50 sonatas in four to seven parts, 130 trios, 90 solos, and 95 works for one or more instruments without continuo. Rather than progress systematically through each genre or move across Telemann’s career in strictly linear fashion, I have written a series of independent yet related essays that to some extent combines generic and chronological frameworks. After a brief prologue considering the German “mixed taste” and the eighteenth-century manuscript dissemination of Telemann’s music, the book’s first three parts explore the principal categories of overture-suite, concerto, and sonata. Chapters 1, 3, and 5 are in large measure repertory surveys, whereas chapters 2, 4, and 6 investigate subrepertories

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in greater depth, dealing in turn with issues of musical mimesis, imitation, and generic amalgamation. In an effort to contextualize Telemann’s music, I frequently turn to comparable works by a variety of other eighteenth-century composers. The most substantial of these investigations reconsider the history of particular musical subgenres such as the overture-suite with concerto-like soloist, the concerto for strings without soloist, the quartet with obbligato bass, and the sonata in concerto style. Part four of the book considers the composer’s Hamburg publications, first in a detailed study of his ambitious self-publishing enterprise, and then in a survey of the music. The book’s final chapter explores the musical meanings and cultural resonances of Telemann’s Polish style, a mode of expression that cuts across all the genres and periods discussed previously. Given the enormity of Telemann’s instrumental output, even a comprehensive survey must be somewhat selective when it comes to discussing the music. Thus not every work deserving of commentary has made the cut. Perhaps the largest omission is Telemann’s keyboard music, though more than a few works receive attention here. Against those who would argue, reasonably, that a fuller consideration of this music would have provided a more balanced view of Telemann’s achievement, I shall take refuge in the scholarly tradition of separating out a composer’s keyboard works from his overall instrumental output. Also not discussed in depth are works of doubtful authenticity, instrumental movements in vocal works, and brief dances found in manuscript anthologies. A word about terminology. Following eighteenth-century usage, I refer to sonatas and suites for one and two melody instruments with continuo as “solos” and “trios.” On the other hand, I employ the modern “quartet” in place of the eighteenth-century “quadro” or “sonata a quattro” for works with three melody instruments and continuo. My use of “overture-suite” to describe what is often called an orchestral suite reflects Telemann’s practice of referring to such works as an “overture with suite,” which in turn harks back to late-seventeenth-century publications of instrumental suites by Lully (“Ouverture avec tous les airs”), Johann Sigismund Kusser (“Ouvertures de théâtre accompagnées de plusieurs airs”), and Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (“Ouvertures begleitet mit ihren darzu schicklichen airs”). Although Telemann did sometimes employ the term “ouverture” to refer to both the overture and following suite, he more often used formulations such as “Ouvertüren mit ihren Nebenstücken,” “Ouverture, jointes d’une Suite tragi-comique,” “Ouvertures avec la suite comique,” “Ouvertüren mit ihren umfänglichen Switen,” and “VI Ouverturen nebst zween Folgesätzen.” Because few libraries contain more than a small fraction of Telemann’s instrumental works in modern editions, I have included as many musical examples as practical; the small number of examples in chapter 8, relative to the amount of

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music discussed, is due to the availability of many works in Bärenreiter’s selective critical edition, Georg Philipp Telemann: Musikalische Werke. Musical transcriptions closely follow the original sources but silently correct errors, regularize articulations, and, with a few exceptions, modernize instrument names, key signatures, and beamings. Readers interested in the sources of quoted passages from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writings will find the original-language versions in the notes. Unless otherwise credited, all translations are my own. I have also provided a brief glossary of terms that may be unfamiliar to nonspecialist readers. Portions of this study originally appeared in the form of journal articles and book chapters. Chapter 1 draws in part on “Bach and the Concert en Ouverture,” in J. S. Bach’s Concerted Ensemble Music: The Ouverture, Bach Perspectives 6, ed. Gregory Butler (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 137–56. Chapter 5 includes material first published as “When Is a Quartet Not a Quartet? Relationships Between Scoring and Genre in the German Quadro, ca. 1715–40,” in Johann Friedrich Fasch und sein Wirken für Zerbst, Bericht über die Internationale Wissenschaftliche Konferenz am 18. und 19. April 1997 im Rahmen der 5. Internationalen FaschFesttage in Zerbst, Fasch-Studien 6, ed. Konstanze Musketa and Barbara Reul (Dessau: Anhaltische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1997), 263–90. And earlier versions of chapters 4, 6, and 7 appeared as “Bach, Telemann, and the Process of Transformative Imitation in BWV 1056/2 (156/1),” Journal of Musicology 17/4 (1999): 546–84; “The Sonate auf Concertenart and Conceptions of Genre in the Late Baroque,” Eighteenth-Century Music 1/2 (2004): 205–47; and “Telemann in the Marketplace: The Composer as Self-Publisher,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 58/2 (2005): 275–356. I am grateful for permission to reprint this material, and for the privilege to rethink and revise my earlier work. Throughout this book, the notes bear witness to the great debt I owe earlier writers on Telemann’s instrumental music, including some of the scholars already mentioned. But several studies warrant mention here for their special significance. Two 1969 dissertations by Adolf Hoffmann (on the overture-suites) and Siegfried Kross (on the concertos) include succinct but valuable studies of their repertories.18 Both have provided an important basis for subsequent research, especially as they include thematic catalogs that have only recently been superseded by the third volume of Georg Philipp Telemann: Thematisch-Systematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke (henceforth TWV). A more up-to-date and substantial investigation of Telemann’s concertos is offered by Wolfgang Hirschmann’s 1986 dissertation, consisting of trenchant stylistic and formal analyses of some forty works.19 Particularly valuable is Hirschmann’s identification of stylistic tendencies at various points during the composer’s career. Finally, Jeanne Swack’s unpublished 1988 dissertation on the solos for Yale University considers the music from both

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source-critical and analytical perspectives.20 Equally illuminating on issues of style, chronology, and authenticity, her study helped inspire my own dissertation on Telemann’s trios and quartets.21 During the book’s preparation, my research and writing was greatly facilitated by a grant from the American Philosophical Society, a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, and research support and a semester’s leave from Temple University. Funds to defray the book’s production costs came from the Dragan Plamenac Publication Endowment Fund of the American Musicological Society. I wish also to thank a number of librarians and archivists who allowed me to view rare musical materials and assisted me in obtaining microfilms, photocopies, and photographs: Helmut Hell of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin— Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv; Oswald Bill and Silvia Uhlemann of the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt; Karl Wilhelm Geck of the Sächsische Landesbibliothek—Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden; Rainer Birkendorf of the Deutsches Musikgeschichtliches Archiv in Kassel; Barbara Linnert and Dagmar Steinfurth of the Universitätsbibliothek Rostock; Anna Olszewska and Ste˛pien´ Graz.yna of the Biblioteka Jagiellon´ska Kraków; and Ilse Wieërs of the library of the Brussels Conservatoire Royal de Musique/Koninklijk Muziekconservatorium. At Temple University, librarian Anne Harlow and the Interlibrary Loan staff of Samuel L. Paley Library responded promptly and with good cheer to my many requests. It is a pleasure to express my gratitude to those friends and colleagues who have assisted and inspired me in various ways over the years. Generously sharing their unpublished research with me were Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Wolfgang Hirschmann, Peter Huth, Joachim Kremer, Sarah McCleave, Ian Payne, Rudolf Rasch, Joshua Rifkin, Stephen Rose, David Schulenberg, and Andrew Talle. Ian Payne, whose many critical editions of Telemann’s music greatly facilitated my studies, often sent me copies before the ink had fully dried; he is also responsible for the editorial reconstructions of the Telemann oboe concerto discussed in chapter 4. I owe additional thanks to Ian and Wolfgang Hirschmann for helping shape my ideas about Telemann’s music through many stimulating discussions. My colleagues at the Zentrum für Telemann-Pflege und -Forschung in Magdeburg—Wolf Hobohm, Carsten Lange, Ute Poetzsch-Seban, and Brit and RalphJürgen Reipsch—invited me to present my research at several scholarly conferences held in conjunction with the biennial Telemann-Festtage, and provided me with valuable advice and assistance on numerous occasions. Late in the writing process, Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Wolfgang Hirschmann, and Stephen Rose read drafts of selected excerpts, and Daniel Melamed and Michael Talbot made their way through nearly the entire manuscript; all offered thoughtful comments that

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have immeasurably improved the final result. I fear, however, that even such wise counsel as this has not prevented me from committing more than my share of errors in fact and interpretation. I am also deeply appreciative of the personal and professional help I have received from various other people. Erika Moser expertly prepared the electronic copy of most of the musical examples. At Oxford University Press, Editor Kim Robinson, Assistant Editor Norm Hirschy, and Production Editor Christi Stanforth were unfailingly efficient and enthusiastic throughout the journey toward publication. During the project’s final stages, my fiancée, Jennifer, offered muchneeded love and support, not to mention a good deal of patience. Finally, I have dedicated this book to my parents, Judith and Harry Zohn, without whose encouragement it could never have been completed.

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Contents

List of Abbreviations

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List of Music Examples

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List of Tables

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List of Figures

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Prologue: Styles and Sources

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Part I The Overture-Suites one Acquiring a Mixed Taste: Telemann as “Great Partisan of French Music”

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two Telemann’s Mimetic Art: The Characteristic Overture-Suites

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Part II The Concertos three Never from the Heart? Telemann’s Concertos

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four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest: A Case Study of Transformative Imitation

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Part III The Sonatas five “Something for Everyone’s Taste”: Telemann’s Sonatas to 1725

six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart

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Part IV The Hamburg Publications seven Telemann in the Marketplace: The Composer as Self-Publisher

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eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber: The Music of the Hamburg Publications

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nine Telemann’s Polish Style and the “True Barbaric Beauty” of the Musical Other

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Afterword

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Glossary

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Notes

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Bibliography

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Index of Telemann’s Compositions

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General Index

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Abbreviations

Bibliographic BDok 1–3 Bach-Dokumente 1: Schriftstücke von der Hand Johann Sebastian Bachs, ed. Werner Neumann and Hans-Joachim Schulze (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1963) Bach-Dokumente 2: Fremdschriftliche und gedruckte Dokumente zur Lebensgeschichte Johann Sebastian Bachs, 1685–1750, ed. Werner Neumann and Hans-Joachim Schulze (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1969) Bach-Dokumente 3: Dokumente zum Nachwirken Johann Sebastian Bachs, ed. HansJoachim Schulze (Leipzig and Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1972) MGG Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik, ed. Friedrich Blume, 17 vols. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1949–86) MGG II Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik. 2nd ed., ed. Ludwig Finscher (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1994–) MW Georg Philipp Telemann, Musikalische Werke (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1953–) NBA Johann Sebastian Bach, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1950–) NBR The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, ed. Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, revised and enlarged by Christoph Wolff (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998) NG The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 20 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1980) NG II The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, 29 vols. (London: Macmillan, 2001)

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Abbreviations TB Georg Philipp Telemann: Briefwechsel, ed. Hans Grosse and Hans Rudolf Jung (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1972) TD Georg Philipp Telemann: Singen ist das Fundament zur Music in allen Dingen: Eine Dokumentensammlung, ed. Werner Rackwitz (Leipzig: Reclam, 1981)

TWV 1–3 Georg Philipp Telemann: Thematisch-Systematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke (TWV): Instrumentalwerke, ed. Martin Ruhnke, 3 vols. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1984–99) TVWV 1–2 Thematisches Verzeichnis der Vokalwerke von Georg Philipp Telemann, 2nd ed., ed. Werner Menke, 2 vols. (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1988 and 1995)

Libraries B-Bc Brussels, Conservatoire Royal de Musique/Koninklijk Muziekconservatorium D-Bds Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv D-Dl Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek—Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek D-DS Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek D-HRD Arnsberg-Herdringen, Schloßbibliothek (Bibliotheca Fürstenbergiana) D-KA Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek D-Mbs Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek D-MÜu Münster, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek D-ROu Rostock, Universitätsbibliothek D-SWl Schwerin, Landesbibliothek Mecklenburg-Vorpommern D-WD Wiesentheid, Musiksammlung des Grafen von Schönborn-Wiesentheid DK-Kk Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek US-Wc Washington, DC, Library of Congress Secondary sources are cited as author, short title, page. Citations of thematic catalog numbers for Telemann’s instrumental works omit the preceding “TWV.” This catalog (TWV) is organized by genre and key, so that 42:a2 is the second trio in A-minor, 51:D5 is the

Abbreviations

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fifth solo concerto in D major, 55:h1 is the first overture-suite in B minor, etc. By contrast, the thematic catalog of Telemann’s vocal works (TVWV) is organized primarily by genre and secondarily by either text incipit or date of composition. Thus 1:21 is the sacred cantata Ach, Jesus geht zu seiner Pein (1749), whereas 1:1241 is Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz (ca. 1700); 21:14 is the opera Omphale (1724), whereas 21:27 is Flavius Bertaridus (1729).

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Music Examples

1.1. Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz, TVWV 1:1241/i, mm. 1–16

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1.2. Erlebach, Ciaccona in A major for violin, viola da gamba, and continuo from VI Sonate no. 3 (Nuremberg, 1694), mm. 1–15

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1.3. Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz, TVWV 1:1241/i, mm. 73–80

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1.4. Suite in D major for strings and continuo, 55:D16/i, mm. 18–28

28

1.5. Suite in F major for violin, strings, and continuo, 55:F13: (a) Allemande, mm. 1–4; (b) Courante, mm. 1–4

29

1.6. Suite in C major for 2 oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo, 55:C4/iv, mm. 12–15

32

1.7. Suite in B minor for 2 violins, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, strings, and continuo, 55:h1/i, mm. 46–49

33

1.8. Suite in F-sharp minor for strings and continuo, 55:fis/i, mm. 26–30

34

1.9. Suite in E minor for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 violins, strings, and continuo, 55:e3/i, mm. 24–42

35

1.10. Suite in F minor for 2 recorders (tacet), strings, and continuo, 55:f1/iv, mm. 1–8

37

1.11. Suite in B-flat for 3 oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo, 55:B10/ix, mm. 1–6

37

1.12. Suite in B-flat for 3 oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo, 55:B10/iv, mm. 1–4

39

1.13. Suite in D major for 3 oboes, strings, and continuo, 55:D15/viii, mm. 1–7

41

1.14. Concerto in F major for violin and orchestra, 51:F4/ii, mm. 1–8

49 xxiii

xxiv

Music Examples

1.15. Suite in A minor for recorder and strings, 55:a2/iii, mm. 5–11

52

1.16. Divertimento in A major for strings and continuo, 50:22/i, mm. 1–16

59

1.17. Divertimento in A major for strings and continuo, 50:22/ii, mm. 1–12

60

1.18. “Concert à 9 Parties” for flute and/or piccolo, oboe, chalumeau, 2 violins, viola, 2 concertante contrabasses, and continuo, 50:1/i, mm. 36–41

62

2.1. Suite in B-flat for strings and continuo, 55:B8/vii, mm. 11–19

76

2.2. Suite in G major for strings and continuo, 55:G4/vi, mm. 1–12

80

2.3. Suite in C major for 3 oboes, strings, and continuo, 55:C6/v, mm. 1–18

82

2.4. Suite in B-flat for 3 oboes, strings, and continuo, 55:B10/viii, mm. 5–17

85

2.5. Suite in F major for 4 horns, 2 oboes, 2 violins, and continuo, 55:F11/vi, mm. 1–14

91

2.6. Suite in F major for 4 horns, 2 oboes, 2 violins, and continuo, 55:F11/vii, mm. 1–14

92

2.7. Suite in E-flat for strings and continuo, 55:Es3/v, mm. 1–19

97

2.8. Suite in C major for strings and continuo, 55:C5/vi, mm. 1–17

98

2.9. Suite in G major for strings and continuo, 55:G2/i: (a) mm. 1–7; (b) mm. 18–30; (c) mm. 37–42

102

2.10. Suite in B-flat for 2 oboes, strings, and continuo, 55:B11/ii, mm. 34–38

108

2.11. Suite in B-flat for 2 oboes, strings, and continuo, 55:B11/iii, mm. 1–5

109

2.12. Suite in D major for 3 trumpets, tympani, strings, and continuo, 55:D22/ii, mm. 1–14

111

2.13. Suite in D major for 3 trumpets, timpani, strings, and continuo, 55:D22/iv

112

3.1. Concerto in G major for two violins and strings, 52:G2/i, mm. 1–6

126

3.2. Concerto in A major for four violins and strings, 54:A1/ii, mm. 1–11

128

3.3. Concerto in A minor for violin and strings, 51:a1/i, mm. 1–16

130

3.4. Concerto in C minor for oboe and strings, 51:c1/i, mm. 1–8

132

3.5. Concerto in D minor for oboe and strings, 51:d1/iii

133

Music Examples

xxv

3.6. Concerto in B-flat for two violins and strings, 52:B2/i, mm. 1–6

134

3.7. Concerto in D minor for oboe and strings, 51:d1/i, mm. 1–3

135

3.8. Concerto in C minor for oboe and strings, 51:c1/ii, mm. 1–16

136

3.9. Concerto in E minor for oboe and strings, 51:e1/ii, mm. 26–33

138

3.10. Concerto in A major for two flutes and strings, 53:A1/ii, mm. 1–16

141

3.11. Concerto in B minor for two flutes and strings, 53:h1/ii, mm. 112–18

142

3.12. Concerto in B-flat for strings and continuo, 43:B2/i, mm. 1–24

154

3.13. Sonata in A major for strings and continuo, 40:200/iv, mm. 1–11

156

3.14. Concerto in E-flat major for strings and continuo, 43:Es1/i, mm. 22–34

157

3.15. Concerto in E-flat major for strings and continuo, 43:Es1/ii, mm. 29–46

158

3.16. “Concerto Polonoise” in B-flat for strings and continuo, 43:B3/ii, mm. 33–52

161

3.17. Sonata in C major for four violins, 40:203/ii, mm. 26–37

162

3.18. Concerto in G major for four violins, 40:201/iv, mm. 1–16

163

3.19. Concerto in C major for four violins, 40:203/i

164

3.20. Concerto in F major for recorder and strings, 51:F1/ii, mm. 18–23

171

3.21. Concerto in E minor for flute and recorder, 52:e1/iii, mm. 1–9

173

3.22. Concerto in E major for flute, oboe d’amore, viola d’amore, and strings, 53:E1/iii, mm. 25–32

175

3.23. Concerto in D major for two flutes, violin, cello, and strings, 54:D1/iii, mm. 1–38

176

4.1. Sinfonia to Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe, BWV 156

194

4.2. Concerto in G major for oboe or flute, strings, and continuo, 51:G2/i

196

4.3. Solo in G major for flute and continuo, 41:G9/i (Essercizii musici, Solo 8), mm. 1–6

199

4.4. Concerto in G major for oboe or flute, strings, and continuo, 51:G2/ii, mm. 1–12

203

xxvi

Music Examples

4.5. Concerto in G major for oboe or flute, strings, and continuo, 51:G2/ii, mm. 60–65

204

4.6. Concerto in G major for oboe or flute, strings, and continuo, 51:G2/iv, mm. 26–29

204

4.7. Concerto in G major for oboe or flute, strings, and continuo, 51:G2/iii, mm. 1–9

205

5.1. Sonata from Ach Herr, strafe mich nicht, TVWV 7:1, mm. 1–13, 23–27

218

5.2. Concerto in A major for two scordatura violins and continuo, Anh. 42:A1/i, mm. 11–22 (violins at sounding pitch) 219 5.3. (a) Corelli, Trio in F major for two violins and continuo, op. 4, no. 9/iii, mm. 1–5; (b) trio in D major for two violins and continuo, 42:D14/iv, mm. 1–4

221

5.4. Fugue subjects in the early Italianate trios: (a) 42:G11/ii; (b) 42:c7/iv; (c) 42:d9/iv; (d) 42:g15/i; (e) 42:d9/ii

223

5.5. Trio in G major for two violins and continuo, 42:G11/iii, mm. 1–14

224

5.6. Trio in G minor for oboe, violin, and continuo, 42:g14/iii, mm. 1–4

225

5.7. Trio in G minor for flute, viola da gamba, and continuo, 42:g15/ii, mm. 1–3

225

5.8. Trio in D minor for two treble instruments and continuo, 42:d11/i, mm. 1–13

230

5.9. Trio in D minor for two treble instruments and continuo, 42:d11/ii, mm. 1–16

231

5.10. Quartet in D minor for flute, violin, bassoon/cello, and continuo, 43:d3/i, mm. 1–12

235

5.11. Handel, concerto in G minor for oboe and strings, HWV 287/i, mm. 1–8

237

5.12. Concerto in A minor for recorder, oboe, violin, and continuo, 43:a3/ii, mm. 24–32

238

5.13. (a) Telemann, 43:g2/iv, mm. 10–12; (b) Fasch, FWV N:F4/ii, mm. 13–17; (c) Heinichen, Seibel 220/ii, mm. 11–15

245

5.14. Zelenka, ZWV 181/2/i, mm. 1–6

246

5.15. Couperin, La Françoise, mm. 133–36

249

Music Examples

xxvii

5.16. Telemann, 43:G3/i (Six quatuors ou trios no. 4), mm. 1–5

249

5.17. Bach, BWV 1049/i, mm. 286–96

250

5.18. Niedt, Handleitung zur Variation, chapters 3–5

251

5.19. Gasparini, L’armonico practico al cimbalo, 105–8

254

5.20. Mattheson, Grosse General-Baß-Schule, 331

256

5.21. Sonata in F minor for two violins, two violas, and continuo, 44:32/ii, mm. 15–21

260

5.22. Sonata in E minor for 2 oboes, two violins, two violas, and continuo, 50:4/i, mm. 1–12

262

5.23. Sonata in E minor for 2 oboes, two violins, two violas, and continuo, 50:4/ii, mm. 65–74

263

5.24. Concerto in A minor for two recorders, two oboes, two violins, and continuo, 44:42/i, mm. 1–6 264 5.25. Concerto in B-flat for three oboes, three violins, and continuo, 44:43/i, mm. 1–7

265

5.26. Quatrième livre de quatuors no. 1/i, mm. 1–2

267

5.27. Quatrième livre de quatuors no. 1/ii, mm. 58–66

268

5.28. Quatrième livre de quatuors no. 3/iv, mm. 13–22

269

5.29. Quatrième livre de quatuors no. 2/i

270

5.30. Six sonates à violon seul no. 3/i, mm. 1–18

273

5.31. Solo in B minor for flute and continuo, 41:h4/i (Musique de table, Production 1), mm. 1–9

274

5.32. Kleine Cammer-Music no. 3/vii, mm. 1–12

275

5.33. Kleine Cammer-Music no. 4/vi

276

5.34. Six trio no. 2/i, mm. 1–8

279

6.1. Suite in A major for keyboard, 32:6/iii (VI Ouverturen nebst zween Folgesätzen no. 2), mm. 1–23

289

6.2. Fantasia in B-flat for unaccompanied violin, 40:14/ii (Fantasie per il violino senza basso no. 1), mm. 1–15

290

6.3. Johann Melchior Molter, “Sonata à 4dro” in E minor for oboe, violin, viola, and continuo, MWV IX/19/i, mm. 1–29

299

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Music Examples

6.4. George Frideric Handel, Trio in B-flat for two violins and continuo, HWV 388/iv, mm. 1–26

305

6.5. Quartet in G minor for recorder, violin, viola, and continuo, 43:g4/iii: (a) mm. 1–18; (b) mm. 63–71

308

6.6. Quartet in A minor for recorder, oboe, violin, and continuo, 43:a3/iv: (a) mm. 1–18; (b) mm. 37–52

317

6.7. Quartet in D major for flute, violin, viola da gamba/cello, and continuo, 43:D1/iii (Quadri, Concerto 2), “ideal” ritornello

321

6.8. Quartet in A minor for flute, violin, viola da gamba/cello, and continuo, 43:a2/i (Nouveaux quatuors no. 2): (a) mm. 1–14; (b) mm. 49–54

324

8.1. Sonates sans basse no. 5/iv, mm. 60–69

394

8.2. Essercizii musici, solo 7/ii, mm. 1–20

396

8.3. Essercizii musici, trio 3/iii, mm. 1–21

398

8.4. Essercizii musici, trio 2/iii, mm. 14–31, 44–55

399

8.5. Solo in F minor for bassoon and continuo, 41:f1/i (Der getreue Music-Meister), mm. 1–19

404

8.6. Solo in D major for unaccompanied viola da gamba, 40:1/iii (Der getreue Music-Meister), mm. 1–22

407

8.7. Trio in C major for recorder and treble viol, 42:C2/ii, mm. 1–15

409

8.8. Quadri, Sonata 1/ii, mm. 53–54

415

8.9. Quadri, Concerto 1/i, mm. 1–13

416

8.10. III Trietti methodichi e III scherzi, trietto 3/ii, mm. 1–11

420

8.11. III Trietti methodichi e III scherzi, trietto 2/ii, mm. 13–15

421

8.12. Trio in G minor for oboe, violin, and continuo, 42:g8/iii

422

8.13. J. G. Pisendel’s ornamentation for 42:A8/i, violin 1, mm. 1–2, 8–18

424

8.14. III Trietti methodichi e III scherzi, trietto 2/i, mm. 1–23

426

8.15. XII Solos no. 11/ii: (a) mm. 1–12; (b) mm. 19–24

442

8.16. Six concerts et six suites, Suite no. 5/v, mm. 1–11

444

8.17. Six concerts et six suites: (a) Concerto no. 6/iii, mm. 2–3; (b) Concerto no. 5/ii, mm. 28–29; (c) Suite no. 6/i, mm. 3–4

445

Music Examples

xxix

8.18. Six concerts et six suites, Concerto 2/i, mm. 7–12

447

8.19. Nouveaux quatuors no. 6/vi, mm. 1–19

457

8.20. Duet in E minor for two flutes, 40:142/i, mm. 1–13

462

8.21. Duet in E minor for two flutes, 40:142/iii, mm. 1–19

462

8.22. Sei duetti no. 1/iii, mm. 1–24

464

8.23. Sei duetti no. 2/i, mm. 1–4

464

9.1. Suite in D major for 2 horns or trumpets, strings, and continuo, 55:D17/ii, mm. 1–18

491

9.2. “Sonata Polonese à 3” for violin, viola, and continuo, 42:a8: (a) movement 1, mm. 1–5; (b) movement 2, mm. 1–4

495

9.3. Concerto in C minor for oboe and strings, 51:c1/iv, mm. 1–22

496

9.4. Concerto in E minor for flute, recorder, and strings, 52:e1/iv, mm. 1–20

498

9.5. Trio in D minor for recorder, treble viol, and continuo, 42:d7/iv, mm. 32–50

500

9.6. “Schweig hinkünftig, albrer Tropf!” from Pimpinone, act 3, mm. 1–5

502

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Tables

1.1. Overture-suite publications of German Lullists, 1682–1706

18

1.2. The concert en ouverture

44

2.1. Characteristic titles to Telemann’s overture-suites

69

3.1. Telemann’s solo concertos, ca. 1708–15

125

3.2. Selected publications including ripieno concertos, 1692–1720

144

3.3. Telemann’s ripieno concertos

149

3.4. Telemann works copied in Saxony by Johann Samuel Endler and others

179

3.5. Telemann concertos and overture-suites performed with orchestral doublings at Dresden

185

3.6. Telemann’s Dresden church sinfonias

187

5.1. Telemann duets and trios excerpted in Quantz’s Solfeggi

228

5.2. Telemann’s trios alla francese

229

5.3. Obbligato bass quartets in Germany, ca. 1715–40

243

6.1. Telemann’s solos auf Concertenart

311

6.2. Telemann’s trios auf Concertenart

312

6.3. Telemann’s quartets auf Concertenart

313

6.4. Structure of 43:a3/iv

316

6.5. Structure of 42:h1/ii

322

7.1. Telemann’s self- and authorized publications, 1725–65

337

7.2. Telemann’s subscription publications, 1725–48

350

xxxi

xxxii

Tables

7.3. The “Supplément de souscrivants” for the Nouveaux quatuors

362

7.4. Telemann publications offered in the Breitkopf Verzeichniß Musicalischer Bücher sowohl zur Theorie als Praxis

388

8.1. Symmetrical arrangement of solos in the Essercizii musici

395

8.2. Movement types in the 12 Fantaisies à travers. sans basse

428

8.3. Movement types in the XII Fantasie per il violino senza basso

431

8.4. Structure of 53:F1/i (Musique de table II)

437

9.1. A lexicon of musical exoticism

492

Figures

2.1. Gregorio Lambranzi, Neue und Curieuse Theatralische Tantz-Schul (Nuremberg, 1716), part 1, plate 15

79

3.1. First page of “Violino Primo” part to Johann Ernst of Sachsen-Weimar, concerto in A minor for strings and continuo: (a) D-ROu, Musica saec. XVII.18.5142, copied by an anonymous scribe in Weimar, ca. 1713–14?; (b) Six concerts à violon concertant, op. 1 no. 2 (Frankfurt: Telemann, 1718)

147

3.2. Title page to concerto in G major for strings and continuo, 43:G8: D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/90, copied by Johann Balthasar König, Frankfurt, ca. 1716 (possessor mark “H” in upper left = Anton Eberhard Helffmann)

151

3.3. First page of “Violino 1” part to concerto in E major for strings and continuo, 43:E2: D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/93, copied by Anton Eberhard Helffmann, Frankfurt or Darmstadt, ca. 1716–21

152

5.1. Graupner, “Canon all’unisono,” movement 3, mm. 7–19 (D-DS, Mus. ms. 408)

247

5.2. Graupner, Sonata 6/ii, mm. 1–38 (D-DS, Mus. ms. 472/1)

247

5.3. Graupner, Sonata 10/i, mm. 9–25 (D-DS, Mus. ms. 472/1)

248

5.4. Frontispiece to Telemann’s Sei suonatine per violino e cembalo (Frankfurt, 1718)

281

6.1. First page of the cello part to an anonymous trio for flute, violin, and cello (D-Rou, Mus. saec. XVII.18.5167)

302

7.1. Second page of the “Noms des souscrivants” list from the Nouveaux quatuors, showing the “Supplément de souscrivants” (Library of Congress, Washington)

361

7.2. Title page to the Musique de table

372

xxxiii

xxxiv

Figures

7.3. Detail of the list of participants at the 1730 Hamburg Bürgerkapitäne celebration, engraved by Christian Fritzsch (Staatsarchiv Hamburg)

373

7.4. First page of music in the Hamburg second edition of the Six Sonates à Violon seul

375

7.5. Telemann’s engraving in (a) Sonate metodiche, p. 12; (b) Continuation des sonates méthodiques, p. 1; (c) Fugirende und veraendernde Choraele, no. 19; (d) VI moralische Cantaten II, p. 6

376

7.6. Lettering in Essercizii musici, partbook 1: (a) p. 5 (letters engraved freehand); (b) p. 21 (letters punched)

378

7.7. Mezzotint by Valentin Daniel Preißler (Nuremberg, 1750), after a lost painting by Ludwig Michael Schneider (Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum)

385

8.1. Sonate metodiche no. 2/i, mm. 1–8

419

8.2. J. G. Pisendel’s ornamentation for 42:A8/i, violin 1 (D-Dl, Mus. 2392-Q-11)

423

9.1. Jakub Kazimierz Haur, Musicians at a Polish Inn, from Sklad abo skarbiec znakomitych sekretów ekonomiej ziemian´skiej (Kraków, 1693)

473

9.2. Sack-Pfeiffe, from Johann Christoph Weigel, Musicalisches Theatrum (Nuremberg, ca. 1722)

474

9.3. Polnischer Bock, from Johann Christoph Weigel, Musicalisches Theatrum (Nuremberg, ca. 1722)

475

9.4. Johann Beer, “New and Completely Accurate Representation of the Musical Realm,” from Bellum musicum oder musicalischer Krieg (Weißenfels, 1701)

481

Music for a Mixed Taste

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Prologue Styles and Sources

Telemann and the German Mixed Taste Johann Sebastian Bach’s August 1730 memorandum to the Leipzig town council, the “Short but Most Necessary Draft for a Well-Appointed Church Music,” includes not only a famous description of the unfavorable performing conditions for his music, but also a pithy description of the cosmopolitan nature of German musical life at the time: “It is, anyhow, somewhat strange that German musicians are expected to be capable of performing at once and ex tempore all kinds of music, whether it come from Italy or France, England or Poland.”1 This was in fact nothing new, for such versatility had long been expected of German performers. As early as 1681, Johann Beer could satirize this taste for the music of other nations in his novel Der berühmte Narren-Spital (The Famous Fool’s Spital), in which the narrator, Hans guck in die Welt, is a court violinist required by his master to play a ridiculous mixture of “the most beautiful little pieces from the entire world, now French, now Burgundian, now Turkish, now Italian, now from the Siebengebirge, now Tyrolian.”2 Bach did not need to point out to the town council that German composers were also expected to master all the principal national idioms, resulting in a style that became known as the “mixed taste.” Thus Georg Muffat acknowledged in the dedication to his 1695 Florilegium primum that “I dare not employ only a single style or method, but rather the most skillful mixture of styles I can manage through my experience in various countries. . . . As I mix the French manner with the German and Italian, I do not begin a war, but perhaps rather a prelude to the unity, the dear peace, desired by all the peoples.”3 By the 1710s and 1720s, such stylistic mixtures were being advocated in German theoretical writings: Johann Mattheson noted the German tendency to “combine the Italian and French styles”;4 Ernst Gottlieb Baron observed that “whereas the Italian manner is serious and the French style diverting, in Germany one takes on both, for this nation loves variety and going from one thing, and even 3

4 Music for a Mixed Taste

one extreme, to another”;5 and Johann David Heinichen considered that a “happy mixture of the Italian and French tastes would most astonish the ear, and must win out over all other tastes of the world.”6 In a 1728 issue of his periodical Der Biedermann, the Leipzig literature professor Johann Christoph Gottsched reported that “in particular, I hear it said in praise of the above-mentioned Telemann that he knows how to suit the taste of all amateurs. In composing his pieces he follows sometimes the Italian, sometimes the French, and often also a mixed manner.”7 Telemann became something of a standard-bearer for the mixed taste in subsequent years: Johann Adolph Scheibe marveled at his ability to assimilate national styles of music without compromising his individuality as a composer, and Mattheson praised the mixture of the French and Italian idioms in his trios.8 Although Scheibe elsewhere warned against mixing styles in a single composition, he found that “it is best if diligent German part writing, Italian galanterie, and French passion are combined” in trios and quartets.9 By the early 1750s Johann Joachim Quantz could describe the amalgamation of national styles as the “German taste”: If one has the necessary discernment to choose the best from the styles of different countries, a mixed taste results that, without overstepping the bounds of modesty, could well be called the German taste, not only because the Germans came upon it first, but because it has already been established at different places in Germany for many years, flourishes still, and displeases in neither Italy nor France, nor in other lands.10

The four national styles mentioned by Bach—Italian, French, English, and Polish—were also those recognized by Telemann as the constituent parts of the mixed taste. In his libretto for the lost cantata Wie? ruhet ihr, versteckte Saiten?,TVWV 20:13, performed at the opening of his winter collegium musicum concert series in 1721 and 1722, Telemann described the nature of German music in a recitative: The flattery of Italy’s pieces, The unrestrained liveliness That flows from French songs; Britain’s leaping, obliging nature; Yes, Sarmatia’s exquisite pleasure, To which the notes’ jesting is devoted: German diligence combines all this To the honor of its country, All the more to please the listener here Through pen, mouth, and hand.11

Prologue

5

Thus, at the outset of his career in Hamburg, the composer introduced himself to the city’s concertgoing public by stating something of a musical manifesto. Telemann again praised the felicitous combination of national styles in the dedicatory poem to his published minuet collection Zweytes sieben mal sieben und ein Menuet, which appeared six months before Bach wrote his “Short but Most Necessary Draft.” Here he compliments the mixed taste of Count Friedrich Carl von Erbach (1680–1731), an amateur musician with whom he had long been acquainted: “You effortlessly combine the French liveliness, melody, and harmony; the Italian flattery, invention, and strange passages; and the British and Polish jesting in a mixture filled with sweetness.”12 Telemann could just as easily have been describing his own brand of the mixed taste, marked as it is by an abiding eclecticism—a rondeau in the Italian style, a suite with a concerto-like soloist, a concerto in the Polish style, a sonata combining modern and historical idioms. Such hybridizations do not constitute merely a mix-and-match catalog of possibilities, for Telemann had a genius for seamlessly blending disparate elements. The result is a variegated musical language that remains, paradoxically perhaps, simultaneously accessible and intellectually demanding.

Genius in the Closet Although the following chapters are not primarily concerned with issues of chronology, authenticity, and dissemination, comprehending the meanings of Telemann’s music often requires investigating a given work’s genesis and reception. The details of such investigations may be fascinating in themselves, but as Charles Burney cautions, they must not distract one from the larger picture. In his celebrated travelogue of 1773, The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Provinces, Burney reflected on the difference between writing a military history and one focused on ideas, scientific discoveries, or artworks: If a narration of the still, but successful efforts of genius in the closet, could render a book equally entertaining with the public transactions of the field; the life of a philosopher, a man of science, or an artist, would be read with as much avidity, as that of a Cæsar, or an Alexander. But though the day, and hour, are carefully consigned to posterity, when towns have been sacked, and armies defeated, yet the exact time is seldom enquired, when discoveries the most useful to human nature have been made, or the greatest productions of genius conceived. He would, therefore, be thought a most contemptible biographer, who, in the life of a musician, should circumstantially relate the year, the day, the hour when,

6 Music for a Mixed Taste and place where, a particular sonata was composed, though by its excellence, it should bid fair for delighting the lovers of music, as long as the present system of harmony shall submit. And yet an historian will be read with a kind of savage satisfaction, who in the course of events, tells us, when Kouli-kan, or any other tyrant, made dispositions for a battle, in which such carnage ensued, as will make humanity shudder with horror, as long as the recital of it shall blacken the annals of mankind.13

Little seems to have changed from Burney’s time to ours, though relating the story of a sonata’s genesis is no longer considered such a pointless act. We shall not, in any case, concern ourselves with the details of particular works here; instead, let us open the closet’s door a crack to consider how Telemann’s instrumental music has come down to us. The field of Telemann studies was relatively slow to embrace source-critical research, in part because for years the monumental undertaking of achieving basic bibliographic control over the composer’s output took precedence, and in part because very few autograph sources for the instrumental music survive. Aside from Telemann’s composing scores to eighteen concertos, overture-suites, and symphonies, we have only scribal copies for the many instrumental works he left unpublished.14 Why this is so remains a mystery, and unfortunately the nonvocal portion of Telemann’s musical estate seems to have vanished with scarcely a trace. However, hundreds of the extant scribal copies were made at courts to which the composer had close ties, and some are in the hands of musicians he knew personally. The bulk of them belonged to the Darmstadt and Dresden Hofkapellen, or to musicians employed by those courts, and in recent years much progress has been made in determining their chronology though studies of copying hands and paper types.15 Indeed, the situation is much improved over the days when scholars such as Hans Graeser, Horst Büttner, Adolf Hoffmann, and Siegfried Kross lamented that a chronology of Telemann’s instrumental works was practically out of reach.16 Still, copies can tell us only the date by which the music was written, and in fact a given work might have been decades old by the time a particular scribe put quill to paper. We are also fortunate to possess Telemann’s authorized publications from Frankfurt and most of his self-published editions from Hamburg; these last, engraved by the composer, have the status of autograph fair copies, and many are precisely datable. Although Telemann’s earliest instrumental works, the “sausage symphonies” (Bratensymphonien) he wrote for town musicians at Zellerfeld between 1693 and 1697,17 have not been traced, it appears that the extant instrumental works represent most or all of the stations in his career: Hildesheim (1697–1701), Leipzig (1701–05), Sorau (1705–08), Eisenach (1708– 12), Frankfurt (1712–21), and Hamburg (1721–67).

Prologue

7

Starting with his Frankfurt years, Telemann maintained a long relationship with the Darmstadt Hofkapelle maintained by Ernst Ludwig (1667–1739) and Ludwig VIII (1691–1768), Landgraves of Hessen. Under the leadership of Christoph Graupner, this organization performed Telemann’s instrumental music with great frequency during the 1720s and 1730s. The surviving portion of the court’s music collection is now owned by the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt, where there are some 350 manuscripts containing instrumental works by Telemann. The earliest layer of these sources dates from before 1720, with many manuscripts appearing to have been sent by the composer from Frankfurt (occasionally one finds among them corrections or even an entire part in his hand). Telemann was probably well acquainted with most of the Hofkapelle musicians, who played under him in performances at Frankfurt during April and May 1716. Despite the richness of the Darmstadt collection, it is likely that much has been lost. For example, in 1729 the wind player Johann Michael Böhm, who had served at Darmstadt since 1711 and became Telemann’s brother-in-law in 1714, suddenly left the court for a position at the Württemberg court in Stuttgart. Although Böhm had been a valued member of the Hofkapelle, directing some of the instrumental music and receiving a high salary (in 1718 he was the fourth-highest-paid member), he claimed following his departure that the Landgrave had repeatedly ignored his requests for temporary leaves, and that he could no longer support his family because his salary was so desperately in arrears. To the charges that he had stolen music and instruments belonging to the court, Böhm responded that he had taken only his “own Telemann things,” of which there were “nearly as many” as the violinist Johann Samuel Endler owned.18 Today just over a hundred manuscripts of Telemann’s instrumental music in Endler’s hand are at Darmstadt. Böhm’s manuscripts, which like those of other musicians had been placed at the Darmstadt Hofkapelle’s disposal, have not been identified.19 The second largest manuscript collection of Telemann’s instrumental music, numbering just over 150 items, is preserved at the Sächsische Landesbibliothek— Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek in Dresden. Under the Saxon Electors Friedrich August I (“August the Strong,” r. 1694–1733) and Friedrich August II (r. 1733–63), the opulence of the Dresden Hofkapelle was nearly unrivalled in all of Europe. An ardent Francophile, Friedrich August I restructured the Hofkapelle along French lines during the first decade of the eighteenth century. In addition to creating a six-part string ensemble supplemented with flutes, oboes, and bassoons, he assembled a French ballet and brought French comédiens to the court. The Versailles-trained Belgian Jean-Baptiste Volumier (Woulmyer) was engaged as dancing master in 1709 and soon became Konzertmeister. The elector ensured that Hofkapelle members received a cosmopolitan musical education: several

8 Music for a Mixed Taste

chamber musicians accompanied him on trips to Paris (1714), Italy (1716–17), and Vienna (1718). Italian music was represented at Dresden by the operas of court composers (including Giovanni Alberto Ristori and the Kapellmeisters Johann David Heinichen and Antonio Lotti) and through frequent performances of Vivaldi’s instrumental works. The influence of the Italian style heightened with the installation of Johann Georg Pisendel as Konzertmeister in 1728, the accession to the throne of Friedrich August II in 1733, and the arrival at court of the Italian-trained Oberkapellmeister Johann Adolph Hasse in the following year. It was also at this time that the mixed taste crystallized at Dresden. The skill of the Hofkapelle’s musicians was a source of wonder to the teenaged Quantz, who first heard the ensemble in March 1716: The royal orchestra was already in full bloom at this time. By virtue of its smooth, French manner of performance, introduced by the then Konzertmeister Volumier, it was already different from many other orchestras. Under the leadership of the succeeding Konzertmeister, Pisendel, who introduced a mixed taste, its execution gradually reached a high level of refinement. In all my subsequent travels, I have heard none better. At that time it boasted many famous instrumentalists, including Pisendel and [Francesco Maria] Veracini on the violin, Pantaleon Hebenstreit on the pantaleon, Sylvius Leopold Weiss on the lute and theorbo, [Johann Christian] Richter on the oboe, [and] Pierre Gabriel Buffardin on the transverse flute, not to mention the good cellists, bassoonists, horn players, and double bassists.20

All of these musicians, including Quantz, were personally known to Telemann. In fact, the composer very nearly joined the Dresden Hofkapelle in 1711, when Friedrich August I tried to lure him away from Eisenach.21 Instead, the composer settled the following year in Frankfurt. But Telemann’s music was already being performed at Dresden by 1710–11, and the surviving manuscripts reveal that performances of his music continued there into the 1750s. Aside from performance material prepared by court copyists, the bulk of the “Königliche PrivatMusikaliensammlung” (Royal Music Collection) was probably the property of musicians, who were responsible for developing their own repertory.22 As a result, many manuscripts must have left the collection when players took other court positions or died. A large quantity of the Telemann works were evidently owned by Pisendel, who maintained a warm friendship with the composer over several decades; the violinist’s personal collection joined the court’s in 1765. Next to Darmstadt and Dresden, the most significant collection of Telemann’s instrumental music is that assembled by Crown Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Württemberg-Stuttgart between 1716 and 1731. Now in Rostock, the prince’s manuscripts include some three dozen Telemann sources.23 Two dozen more

Prologue

9

sources, once belonging to the Schwerin Hofkapelle, are now at the Landesbibliothek Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Schwerin. Most are in the hands of musicians from the town of Altona (now a suburb of Hamburg), and appear to have traveled to Schwerin in 1730 with the newly installed court organist, Peter Johann Fick.24 Although the copies of Telemann instrumental works preserved at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz are mostly late or peripheral sources, they have been supplemented recently by manuscripts from the archive of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. Among the holdings of the archive are previously unknown chamber works, including a set of flute duets. It is also worth considering what has been lost, in addition to Michael Böhm’s extensive collection. A 1743 inventory of the holdings of the Zerbst Hofkapelle under Johann Friedrich Fasch shows it to have been especially rich in Telemann’s music, with no fewer than forty-three overture-suites, twenty-three concertos, and twenty-four sonatas.25 Some of this music may have come with Fasch from Prague, where he served the Bohemian count Wenzel von Morzin (1676–1737) as Kapellmeister in 1721–22. Unfortunately, little or no instrumental music by Telemann is preserved in Sorau, Eisenach, Frankfurt, and Hamburg. Nor do we have any record of the music that he sent to Bayreuth as Kapellmeister in absentia from 1726.26 Finally, a number of manuscripts transmitting Telemann’s music are attributed to “Melante,” the composer’s anagrammatic pseudonym. He began referring to himself in this way no later than 1712, and seems to have ceased after 1733.27 To judge from the composing scores and scribal copies at Berlin, Darmstadt, Dresden, and Frankfurt, “Melante” was in use mainly during the Frankfurt years. In adopting this pseudonym, Telemann was participating in a German fashion for pen names: the dancing master Johann Leonard Rost styled himself “Meletaon,” the poet Christian Friedrich Hunold published under the name “Menantes,” and the poet and amateur musician Johann Sigismund Scholze was known as “Sperontes.” This fashion seems to have emulated a seventeenth-century French tradition of representing prominent members of society as characters in novels, their identities concealed by pastoral names. It is also reminiscent of Jean de La Bruyère’s 1688 Caractères, literary portraits with classicizing pseudonyms.28 Already by the second half of the eighteenth century, many writers on music were unaware that Telemann and “Melante” were one and the same. When, in 1899, Alfred Moffat published his edition of the violin sonata 41:a1 (from the Six sonates à violon seul)—apparently the first publication of a multimovement instrumental work by Telemann in well over a century—he entitled it “Sonate von Georgio Melande (ca. 1700–1750).”29

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Part I The Overture-Suites

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Chapter 1 Acquiring a Mixed Taste Telemann as “Great Partisan of French Music”

Writing to Telemann in January 1753, Johann Joachim Quantz expressed pleasure at the older composer’s approval of his recently published Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen: “since you yourself declare that what you take exception to is of no consequence, I am pleased, at all events, that I have differed from your principles only in trifles.” One of Telemann’s few trifles (mentioned in a letter that has yet to surface) concerned a brief passage in the Versuch on French overtures. With more than the requisite grace, Quantz responded to Telemann’s criticisms: At the place where I extol Handel and Telemann for having surpassed Lully in writing overtures (in other [kinds of] pieces this same [superiority] is self-evident) I take overtures in [a] broader sense. I also perceive no reason why I should introduce a distinction here and establish true French overtures, since their invention derives from the French. Nevertheless, I will yield on this point, if you, honorable Sir, will resolve to give a genuinely precise explanation of true French overtures. I will never allow myself to be persuaded, however, that Telemann and Handel have not made infinitely better overtures than Lully. You know yourself what a lazy writer and sluggish hero Lully was in learned and fugal music.1

In the Versuch, Quantz had contented himself with providing a few points about the French overture’s style and noting that “Lully has provided good models for it; but some German composers, among others especially Handel and Telemann, have far surpassed him. . . . Since the overture produces such a good effect, however, it is a pity that it is no longer in vogue in Germany.”2 He now considered Telemann to be splitting stylistic hairs by insisting, apparently, on a distinction between overtures composed by the French (“true French overtures”) and those by German imitators, who were more fluent in “learned and fugal music.” (One might accuse Quantz of being slightly disingenuous on this point, for earlier in his letter he had referred to Telemann’s trios in the “true French 13

14 The Overture-Suites

style” without defining his terms.) For Telemann, the distinction would have been far from meaningless: unlike Quantz, who seems not to have composed any overture-suites, he had witnessed the genre’s unfolding almost from its birth during the 1680s and 1690s, and knew as well as anyone how it had moved beyond the Lullian archetype during succeeding decades. “True French overtures” may therefore have encompassed not only the works of Lully and his French successors, but also those by German “Lullists” such as Benedict Anton Aufschnaiter, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, Johann Sigismund Kusser, Rupert Ignaz Mayr, Georg Muffat, and Johann Abraham Schmierer, all of whom published collections of overture-suites before 1700.3 But for Quantz, as for most of his readership in the 1750s, such music no longer laid claim to special recognition. As a self-styled “grand partisan de la musique Française,”4 Telemann cultivated an interest in the French style from his teens through old age, an interest reflected in numerous suites, sonatas, concertos, cantatas, and operas. The fact that his faîte de la gloire came during his eight-month visit to Paris in 1737–38—the composer’s only documented trip outside Germany—further underscores his Gallic sympathies, as does his advocacy of French recitative in a fascinating correspondence with Carl Heinrich Graun during the 1750s.5 Telemann’s involvement with the French style is most vividly documented by his overture-suites, a repertory that also offers some unusually rich expressions of the mixed taste. This blend of stylistic purity and heterogeneity undoubtedly helps explains the music’s great popularity among the composer’s contemporaries, for in this sense it could hardly be more “German” in expression.

Telemann as Lullist Let us begin to approach Telemann’s overture-suites—and his instrumental works generally—from just before the start of his career as a professional composer. While a student at the Andreanum Gymnasium in Hildesheim (1697–1701), he made frequent visits to the courts at Hanover and Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, where he was able to absorb the French, Italian, and “theatrical” styles of composition and to familiarize himself with various instruments. He recounted these visits and his early compositional models in the autobiographies of 1718 and 1740: I took the works of the new German and Italian masters as my models, finding the most pleasant taste in their style, which was at once inventive, singing, and well

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 15 crafted. I am still of the opinion that a young man proceeds better if he examines works in the current fashion than if he seeks to emulate those by older composers, who are able enough in counterpoint but devoid of invention or write fifteen to twenty obbligato voices. . . . At that time I often had the good fortune to hear the Kapellen at Hanover and Wolfenbüttel, regarding the first of which one must confess: Here is the best seed of France’s science, Growing into a large tree and the ripest fruit. Here Apollo himself feels the lively songs’ power And, half ashamed, must flee with his lyre. And regarding the second: Venice may no longer rejoice in its theaters, For Brunswick tears from it the pillars of honor. And because here both voice and instrument flourish equally, This place may be considered a little Italy. I thus became acquainted with the French style from the former, with the Italian and theatrical styles from the latter, and from both I learned the diverse natures of various instruments, which I spared no effort to master myself. To this day I am still learning how necessary and beneficial it is to be able to differentiate the essential elements of these styles, and I believe that no one can be fluent and felicitous in invention without it.6 [At Hildesheim] I chose to study the works of Steffani, Rosenmüller, Corelli, and Caldara as models for my future church and instrumental compositions, both of which types occupied me daily. The two neighboring Kapellen at Hanover and Brunswick, which I visited during special celebrations, during all fairs, and at several other times, provided me with the opportunity to become better acquainted with and learn to distinguish between the French style (at the former court), the theatrical style (at the latter court), and the Italian style (at both courts).7

The court of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel had employed several notable composers in the two decades preceding Telemann’s Gymnasium years, among them the Kapellmeisters Johann Rosenmüller and Johann Theile and the opera Kapellmeister Kusser. The “theatrical style” could be sampled not only at Wolfenbüttel, where the court opera maintained an exclusively Italian repertory (following productions during the 1680s of Lully’s Proserpine, Psyché, and Thésée), but also at the new public opera house at Brunswick’s Hagenmarkt, one purpose of which was to provide entertainment during the trade fairs attended by Telemann.8 During the late 1690s the Brunswick opera presented both Italian and German works, with many of the German librettos provided by the court poet, Friedrich Christian Bressand, and Italian librettos often translated into German. Telemann might have heard such operas as Steffani’s Henrico Leone (Hertzog Heinrich der Löwe; 1697

16 The Overture-Suites

and 1699), La superbia d’Alessandro (Der hochmüthige Alexander; 1699), Orlando generoso (Der grossmüthige Roland; 1697 and 1698), and La libertà contenta (Der in seiner Freyheit vergnügte Alcibiades; 1700); Carlo Francesco Pollarolo’s Il Pastore d’Anfriso (Der Schäfer an dem Fluss Amphriso; 1697 and 1699) and Ottone (1697); Reinhard Keiser’s Orpheus (1698; revised in 1699) and Arcadia, oder Die königlische Schäferey (1699); and Endimione (1700) by Georg Caspar Schürmann, conductor of the Brunswick Opera. Among the “special celebrations” Telemann possibly witnessed were the Türken-Ballet und Bauern- oder Hirten-Masquerade (Brunswick, Carnival 1697) and the ballets Tempel der Tugend und Ehre (1697) and Die sich erfreuende Jahreszeiten (1700), performed at Wolfenbüttel for the birthday of Duke Anton Ulrich.9 The Francophile Hanover court also boasted a new opera house, but this was closed for years following the death in January 1698 of Elector Ernst August.10 Nor would the teenaged Telemann have met the Kapellmeister Steffani, who was absent from the court on diplomatic service during the years around 1700. Yet Hanover’s musical life remained rich, thanks to such musicians as the maître des concerts Jean-Baptiste Farinelly (Farinel; 1650–1725 or 1726) and his pupil and eventual successor, Francesco Venturini (ca. 1675–1745). In all, twenty-three instrumentalists were employed by the Hanover court in 1698; of the ten string players and four oboists, a large majority were of French origin.11 Lully’s music was indeed favored at Hanover: a 1765 court inventory lists scores to seventeen operas, and a bookshop in the city sold dances from the dramatic works in manuscript.12 A score of eleven anonymous overture-suites copied in 1689 by the court oboist Charles Babel provides a further indication of what Telemann might have heard during his visits. Lullian in style, but scored for strings in four rather than five parts, the suites appears to have been composed by the French violinist Stephan Valoix for court ballet performances during the 1680s.13 Twelve more anonymous overture-suites, copied by the Hanover oboist “Mr. Barre” in 1689, may contain works by Farinelly.14 Babel also transcribed numerous movements from Lully’s stage works for harpsichord or instrumental trio. After leaving Hanover, he published two sets of Trios de differents autheurs in Amsterdam (1697 and 1700), both dominated by Lully’s music. Babel’s two undated manuscripts of trios contain, in addition to many movements by Lully, extensive excerpts from Marin Marais’s Pièces en trio (1692) and Michel de La Barre’s Premier Livre des trio (1694).15 These and similar works may therefore have been performed at Hanover during the last years of the seventeenth century. The French instrumental style could also have become familiar to Telemann during his Gymnasium years through the many Amsterdam editions of overturesuites assembled from instrumental movements in Lully’s operas, as well as

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 17

through overture-suites composed ab initio by German composers. The Lully compilations began appearing in 1682, when Jean Philip Heus published his first two collections entitled Ouverture avec tous les airs, consisting of excerpts from Cadmus ed Hermione and Persée. Over the next thirty years Heus, Antoine Pointel, and Estienne Roger issued suites of seventeen to thirty-two movements each, in most cases reducing the texture to four parts by omitting Lully’s quinte line and suppressing indications for wind instruments.16 German musicians also fashioned their own overture-suites from the full-score editions of Lully’s operas issued by Christophe Ballard and Henri di Baussen. At the Dresden court, for example, a number of such compilations were performed with winds and a five-part string ensemble (in the Italianate configuration of two violins, two violas, and bass).17 Appearing in print during the quarter century between 1682 and 1706 were collections of overture-suites for four- or five-part strings (and occasionally winds) by Kusser, Mayr, Erlebach, J. C. F. Fischer, Aufschnaiter, Muffat, Schmierer, Fux, Johann Fischer, and Steffani, a lineup that probably included some of the “new German” masters whose works Telemann studied at Hildesheim and, no doubt, immediately afterward as a university student in Leipzig (1701–05).18 Indeed, almost half the publications listed in Table 1.1 appeared during Telemann’s Gymnasium years. Such music speaks to the enthusiastic cultivation of the French instrumental style at many German courts during the late seventeenth century. Around 1690 Johann Beer, Konzertmeister at Weissenfels, observed that “just as French music is a special art, so it requires special admirers. Their suites sound well during meals. . . . And whoever is an admirer of them can presently derive great satisfaction from such compositions at many German courts.”19 After arriving at Leipzig University in 1701, Telemann gained further exposure to the French style though visits to the Berlin court, where the Belgian dancing master Jean-Baptiste Volumier had introduced the French manner of performance;20 it was Volumier, in fact, who later directed performances of Lully’s overture-suites at the Dresden court. Telemann may also have traveled from Leipzig to Dresden, for he noted in his 1718 autobiography “the approval of the virtuosos in Dresden, who combined Italian delicacy with French liveliness, as if to join the two at their midpoint. . . . I must admit that this approval of theirs, with which they honored my works, has aided me considerably in my subsequent progress.”21 If the young composer had not written his own overture-suites by the start of his university studies, he would soon have the opportunity to do so, for he founded a collegium musicum (precisely when is unknown) that gave public

18 The Overture-Suites Table 1.1 Overture-suite publications of German Lullists, 1682–1706 Composer

Publication

Johann Sigismund Kusser

Composition de musique, suivant la méthode françoise, contenant six ouvertures de théâtre accompagnées de plusieurs airs (Stuttgart, 1682) Pythagorische Schmids-Füncklein, bestehend in unterschidlichen Arien, Sonatinen, Ouverturen (Augsburg, 1692) VI Ouvertures begleitet mit ihren darzu schicklichen airs, nach französischer Art und Manier eingerichtet (Nuremberg, 1693) Le Journal de printems consistant en airs, & balets à 5 parties, & les trompettes à plaisir (Augsburg, 1695) Concors discordia, amori e timori (Nuremberg, 1695) Suavioris harmoniae instrumentalis hyporchematicae florilegium primum (Augsburg, 1695) Suavioris harmoniae instrumentalis hyporchematicæ florilegium secundum (Passau, 1698) Zodiaci musici, in XII partitas balleticas (Augsburg, 1698) Neu-verfertigtes musicalisches Divertissement, in sechs sehr anmuthig- und Gehör-vergnügenden Ouverturen, Entrée, Air, Gavotten, Sarabanden, Chaconnen, Rondeau, Menueten, Trio Bouréen, &c. bestehend (Augsburg, 1700) Apollon enjoüé, contenant six ouvertures de théâtre accompagnées de plusieurs airs; Festin de muses, contenant six ouvertures de théâtre accompagnées de plusieurs airs; La cicala della cetra d’Eunomio (all Stuttgart, 1700) Concentus musico-instrumentalis, enthaltend sieben Partiten und zwar, vier Ouverturen, zwei Sinfonien, eine Serenade (Vienna, 1701) Tafel-Musik bestehend in verscheidenen Ouverturen, Chaconnen, lustigen Suiten, auch einem Anhang von Pollnischen Däntzen à 4. & 3. Instrumentis (Hamburg, 1702) Sonate da camera à tre (Amsterdam, ca. 1705) Musicalische Fürsten Lust, bestehend anfänglich in unterschiedenen schönen Ouverturen, Chaconnen, lustigen Suiten und einen curiosen Anhang Polnischer Täntze mit 3 und 4 Instrumenten (Lübeck, 1706)

Rupert Ignaz Mayr Philipp Heinrich Erlebach Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer Benedict Anton Aufschnaiter Georg Muffat Georg Muffat Johann Abraham Schmierer Johann Fischer

Johann Sigismund Kusser

Johann Joseph Fux Johann Fischer

Agostino Steffani Johann Fischer

concerts and, from 1704, provided music for Leipzig’s Neue Kirche. In his 1718 autobiography he described the “still flourishing” ensemble: Although it consists of nothing but students, occasionally numbering as many as forty, this collegium is nonetheless very pleasant to listen to, and one could not easily find an instrument—not to speak of the mostly good singers—that it does not include. On many occasions it has had the honor to entertain His Majesty, the king of Poland and other great rulers. It otherwise provides the music in the Neue

O ne Acquiring a Mixed Taste 19 Kirche. Finally, it redounds to the ensemble’s glory that in many places are former members now counted among the most famous musicians. In Dresden, Mr. [Johann Georg] Pisendel excels upon the violin; in Darmstadt, Mr. [Johann Michael] Böhm on the oboe, flute, and recorder; Mr. [Salomo] Bendler and [Martin] Petzold in Wolfenbüttel and Hamburg as tremendous basses and actors. Among those who are presently members, the ensemble’s director, Mr. [Johann Gottfried] Vogler, is a lively composer and strong violinist; Mr. [Johann Gottfried] Riemenschneider, already admired in the Hamburg theater, is a pleasant bass; and Mr. Schneider is one of the best contraltos.22

Unclear from Telemann’s account is whether the collegium could muster forty instrumentalists and singers in 1701–5. But Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel noted that this was occasionally the case under Telemann’s successor, Melchior Hoffmann: “At that time [1707–10], such an ensemble [Chor] was heard in the Leipzig Neue Kirche only on high feast days and during the trade fair.”23 In 1716 the Leipzig chronicler Christoph Ernst Sicul claimed that under Hoffmann the collegium had performed two evening concerts each week with fifty to sixty musicians.24 The precise makeup of the collegium cannot be established, but Johann Kuhnau’s 1709 complaint of the inadequacy of the Leipzig civic musicians (four Stadtpfeifer, three Kunstgeiger, and an apprentice) for performing orchestral music implies that Hoffmann’s ensemble included more than a dozen string players: “it is hard to see how a string band, which is so agreeable, can be assembled, because throughout Europe and here too a string band requires many players: at least eight persons on the two violin parts, and furthermore violas two on a part and violoni, cellos, colascioni, timpani, and more, and these people are tied up in the Neue Kirche.”25 Although we have no concrete evidence that Telemann wrote overture-suites for his collegium, Johann Friedrich Fasch’s recollection of his student days in Leipzig suggests as much. The playful deception Fasch describes here probably took place between Telemann’s June 1705 departure for the court of Count Bal. thasar Erdmann von Promnitz at Sorau (now Zary) in Upper Silesia and his own enrollment at the university in autumn 1708: Because Telemann’s Ouverturen were well-known, I was at last bold enough to take a stab at writing such a work. I offered it under his name at a rehearsal of the firstform students’ collegium musicum, and much to my joy, they believed that it was by him. On this occasion I cannot avoid publicly confessing that at that time I learned most everything from the beautiful works of my most esteemed and dearest friend, Herr Kapellmeister Telemann, for I constantly took them as my model, especially the Ouverturen. When the Swedes departed, I enrolled at the university

20 The Overture-Suites and started a collegium musicum that met in my quarters on Sundays following church, and which gradually increased in size to twenty students.26

However likely it may be that Telemann began composing overture-suites at Hildesheim or Leipzig, he does not mention such works in his autobiographies until the passages recounting his years at Sorau (1705–8): Indeed, here I really began to be prolific for the first time, and that which I had done in Leipzig with vocal works I set out to do here with instrumental music, especially with Ouverturen, for His Highness the Count had recently returned from France and therefore loved them. I got hold of works by Lully, Campra, and other good composers, and although I had just acquired a considerable taste of this style in Hanover, I now studied it more closely and completely devoted myself to it, not without good success. This has, moreover, remained my inclination in subsequent periods, so that I have been able to produce up to 200 Ouverturen from my pen. Contributing greatly to my productivity and growth at that time was undoubtedly my marital love for my late wife. For one considers that love enlivens the spirits.27

In the briefer 1740 version of this account Telemann attributed his musical motivation to “the dazzling nature of this newly and lavishly equipped court” and now claimed that he “produced about 200 Ouvertüren in two years.”28 Both accounts seem to provide startling evidence for what has been lost, for if we take Telemann’s initial word for it that he composed 200 overture-suites between 1705 and 1718, and if we further assume that he produced additional works at a steady, if perhaps slower, pace during the following two decades at Frankfurt and Hamburg, then we must now possess only a small fraction of what once existed. On the other hand, the round figure of 200 could easily be exaggerated, and “Ouverturen” may refer either to suites in all scorings or just to French overtures. Whatever the case, it seems unlikely that Telemann’s total output of overturesuites amounted to the 600 pieces with which he is sometimes credited.29 Before considering the music of Telemann’s overture-suites, it will be instructive to turn to one of his earliest extant vocal works, the Whitsun cantata Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz, TVWV 1:1241, a Hildesheim or Leipzig composition that reveals much about the young composer’s stylistic orientation.30 The cantata opens with one of the most striking movements in Telemann’s early vocal music: a choral chaconne in which voices and strings present a series of variations to a text based on Psalm 51:1–10. Although choral chaconnes are far from unknown in the sacred cantata repertory of the time, few works begin with such movements. In this respect, the closest analogs to Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz are

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 21

J. S. Bach’s later cantatas Weinen, klagen, sorgen, zagen, BWV 12 (1714; later adapted as the “Crucifixus” segment in the Credo of the Mass in B Minor) and Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78 (1724). Telemann’s chaconne consists of twelve strict statements of an eight-measure ostinato that is nothing more than a descending Gmajor scale—much the simplest bass pattern among Telemann’s chaconnes and passacailles in all scorings. As Example 1.1 shows, the movement owes a debt to the French theatrical chaconne in its five-part string complement of violins in unison, three violas, and bass notated in G2, C1, C3, C4, and F4 clefs. This configuration, apparently unique in Telemann’s output, is employed in overturesuites by Muffat and J. C. F. Fischer; Erlebach, following Lully’s practice, notates the same instruments in G1, C1, C2, C3, and F4 clefs. Telemann’s grouping together of adjacent couplets through common melodic material is also reminiscent of French theatrical chaconnes. But he otherwise avoids typically Lullian features such as an ascending opening gesture beginning on the second beat, suggestions of tutti-solo contrast, alternations of instrumental with vocal segments, a rhythmic accelerando from quarter-note to sixteenth-note motion, and a section in the parallel mode. The absence of these features, together with the strict ostinato bass and combination of variation with rondeau structure (in which the violin’s melodic refrain, given varied accompaniments by the inner voices, alternates irregularly with variation couplets), points strongly to the related traditions of the German sacred concerto and organ variation.31 Telemann’s chaconne is therefore only superficially French in style, and is in fact more closely allied to roughly contemporaneous German chaconnes and passacailles such as those in Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Sonatae a Violino Solo (Salzburg, 1681), Dieterich Buxtehude’s VII Suonate à due (Hamburg, 1696), and Johann Pachelbel’s Musicalische Ergötzung (Nuremberg, 1695). Especially close in conception is the ciaccona in the third of Erlebach’s VI Sonate à violino e viola da gamba col suo basso continuo (Nuremberg, 1694), the beginning of which is shown in Example 1.2. As for vocal antecedents, the soprano aria “Mein Freund ist mein und ich bin dein” from the wedding cantata Meine Freundin, du bist schön by Johann Christoph Bach (1642–1703) is remarkably similar to Telemann’s chorus in being a variation-rondeau hybrid over a strict ostinato bass, with three violas and bass supporting figuration in the violin part; both composers alternate division variations with refrains and couplets in longer note values. Just how thoroughly the French theatrical style penetrated Telemann’s later chaconnes becomes apparent when we survey his instrumental ensemble music, where we find surprisingly few examples of the chaconne and passacaille (the keyboard suites contain none). Besides the burlesque “Lilliputsche Chaconne” in the

22 The Overture-Suites example 1.1. Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz, TVWV 1:1241/i, mm. 1–16 Giaconna     Violino in   unisono

  23          23       23       23        3     2

Viola 1

Viola 2

Viola 3

Organ

6

                    

   7



                                               6

6

                    

6

5



´



12

 5 3

6 4

          

 

6

6

 

5

                                6

 5

6





violin duet 40:108, the chaconnes or passacailles in the solo suite 41:Es1, the trio 42:d6, and the quartet 43:e4 all fall squarely within the French tradition. The same is true of the eleven chaconnes (44:1; 50:2; 55:D4, f1, F6, G3, G7, G9, g9, a5, h1) and four passacailles (55:D18, D23, e4, g8) found among Telemann’s overture-suites, concertos, and divertimentos.32 Of these, five (44:1; 55:D18, f1,

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 23 example 1.2. Erlebach, Ciaccona in A major for violin, viola da gamba, and continuo from VI Sonate no. 3 (Nuremberg, 1694), mm. 1–15

 3Ciaccona        Violin  4   3                     Viola da gamba   4       43    Continuo 

6

               6



7

6

6

6

                                     

6

7

6

7

6

                                 

11

7 §

7

6

7

6

                     

6

g9, h1) recall Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz through their rondeau structures. But none harks back to the seventeenth-century variation tradition that so strongly informs the cantata chorus. If the style of Telemann’s vocal chaconne illustrates his early response to the French and German traditions, aspects of the movement’s scoring and manuscript transmission hold clues to its original performance contexts. The sole source for Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz is a set of fourteen manuscript parts copied by 1725 (the date of a performance recorded on the title page) by ten different scribes, including Johann Caspar Dietel (d. 1760), organist and cantor at Calbitz and, from 1719, at Falkenhain (both near Wurzen).33 The work apparently belonged to an annual cycle of sixty-three Telemann cantatas sold by Dietel in March 1723 to Johann Ulisch, cantor at the Fürstenschule in Grimma. Such a large number of copying hands, together with the presence of a seemingly unnecessary duplicate alto concertist part, suggests that the manuscript may have been assembled from two or more incomplete sets of parts. Of particular interest is a note at the top

24 The Overture-Suites

of both violin parts indicating that six instruments should play the violin line (“Violino in unisono 6 Fach zu bestellen”). This extraordinary directive appears to have only one parallel among Telemann cantata sources: a set of parts to Kommt, die Tafel ist gedeckt, TVWV 1:1006, also copied by Dietel and several anonymous scribes. Here the violin line is to be realized by six to eight players.34 One naturally wonders whether anyone in small Saxon towns such as Calbitz, Falkenhain, and Grimma could have mustered an ensemble including, for Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz, a minimum of six violins, three violas, cello and/or bass, and organ in addition to six vocalists (four concertists with soprano and bass ripienists). Such a string complement is comparable to that available at the well-outfitted court Kapellen at Berlin, Darmstadt, Dresden, and Stuttgart during the first two decades of the eighteenth century.35 And it closely approximates that desired, but presumably rarely attained, by Bach in Leipzig in 1730.36 German sacred cantatas were usually performed with small ensembles, and in fact a large majority of the Telemann cantata manuscripts stemming from Dietel and the Grimma cantors provide only single parts for each instrument.37 Of course, it is possible that Dietel, who moonlighted as a music dealer, obtained the two cantatas only to sell them to other cantors, and that neither he nor Ulisch ever performed them with such heavy string doublings (the presence of only two violin parts in the Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz set suggests as much). But if so, then where did the scoring indications for six to eight violins originate? The most likely answer is Leipzig, Dietel’s undoubted source for many of the Telemann cantatas he sold to Ulisch in 1723, and the city in which two of his sons (including Bach’s pupil and copyist Johann Ludwig Dietel) later attended the Thomasschule.38 There Telemann’s collegium musicum, under either the composer or his successors, could presumably have performed Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz and Kommt, die Tafel ist gedeckt with the indicated string doublings at the Neue Kirche. The fact that the continuo organ part to Kommt, die Tafel ist gedeckt bears Telemann’s name—a rarity in the Grimma collection—may be a further indication of the manuscript’s Leipzig connection, for this is the instrument (along with violin) that Telemann is most likely to have played during Neue Kirche services. Finally, let us return briefly to the chaconne’s Gallic scoring. Other than in the opening and closing measures of the movement, which function as framing ritornellos, the violas seem oddly underutilized: they normally drop out during imitative passages, and in more homophonic passages they strictly double the voices, sometimes allowing them to begin a couplet or refrain alone. Moreover, in the last four of these homophonic passages, the vocal parts are curiously devoid of melody and function essentially as parties de remplissage (see Example 1.3). The effect

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 25 example 1.3. Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz, TVWV 1:1241/i, mm. 73–80

    23    Canto, 3  Canto Ripieno,   2 Viola 1 Alto,   23  Viola 2   23    Tenor, Viola 3  23 und nimm Bass, Basso Capella  3   Organ  2 73

Violino in unisono



            Geist nicht von       hei -  li - gen    dei - nem hei li - gen     77



7

6

                und nimm dei - nem hei - li - gen       



und nimm

 6

7

dei

-



nem

6

            mir nicht von    Geist nicht von       hei li - gen Geist nicht von     Geist



7

dei

    hei - li - gen Geist       und nimm dei 

6



7

nicht

von 6

7

-

nem

 -

nem 6

     mir  mir    mir    mir und nimm 

here of concentrating much of the melodic and rhythmic interest in the violin part at the expense of the vocal parts—especially pronounced during the two couplets featuring eighth-note divisions—leads to the suspicion that the movement has not come down to us in its original form. That is, it might have begun life as a work for five-part strings. To arrange the chaconne for chorus, Telemann would have assigned the viola lines to soprano, alto, and tenor, then added the vocal bass line, which is for the most part closely tied to the continuo. This hypothetical scenario explains both the violas’ odd role and the often accompanimental nature of the vocal lines. If the chorus did indeed originate as a purely instrumental movement, perhaps as part of an overture-suite, then it must have been among Telemann’s earliest works for instrumental ensemble. As for the overture-suites that survive intact, at least a handful appear to date from the first decade of the eighteenth century. But here one must proceed with

26 The Overture-Suites

caution, for in the absence of manuscript sources datable to before about 1712, any such determination must rely heavily on stylistic criteria.39 And if style is often an unreliable guide in matters of chronology and authenticity, it is particularly so in the case of the overture-suite, a genre that was to some degree retrospective for much of its history. Yet, in Germany during the first two decades of the eighteenth century, the overture-suite was gradually transformed from a collection of brief, theatrical movements (whether adapted from a stage work or freshly composed) into a concert piece of greater dimensions and stylization. The practice, frequently encountered in the works of Lully and the German Lullists, of writing bipartite overtures concluding with a fast, lightly imitative section gave way to a standard slow–fast–slow organization in which the second section was expanded in length and became more contrapuntally rigorous, often resulting in a fully worked out fugue. Movements following the overture were also subject to a process of expansion, doubtless in part because they were no longer conceived as accompaniment for dancing. A larger palette of coloristic and textural effects became available through the more frequent deployment of concertante instruments, including not only string trios and the trio des hautbois or “French” wind trio of two oboes and bassoon, but also recorders, flutes, horns, and trumpets.40 What Telemann would later call the “true French style” was further diluted by mixedtaste explorations of the Italian, English, Polish, and other national styles, most notably through the use of ritornello forms and slow Italianate “arias” in place of French “airs.” Some of the earliest eighteenth-century German descriptions of the French overture bear witness to its late seventeenth-century configuration. Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann, writing in 1706, speaks of the “Ouverteur” (apparently meaning an overture-suite) as a “French sonata commonly beginning in duple meter, continuing fugally in a fast triple meter, and finally concluding with a ciacona.”41 Johann Mattheson noted in 1713 that the second part of the overture “consists of brilliant themes created by the composer’s free invention, and may be either a regular or irregular fugue, and often only a simple yet lively imitation. Most French overtures conclude after the Allegro, or second part, with another brief Lentement or serious section; however, it appears that this fashion will find few adherents.”42 Although Friedrich Erhardt Niedt had written in his 1706 Handleitung zur Variation that overtures conclude with a “serious section” resembling the first, Mattheson’s 1721 second edition of the treatise emends the definition to note that the conclusion is “optional [arbitrair], and nowadays most overtures end with the fast section, without special ceremony.”43 Mattheson’s and Fuhrman’s descriptions of bipartite overtures are to some degree borne out by German overture-suites published during the 1690s: all five of the overtures in Muffat’s Flori-

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 27

legium primum (1695) are in two parts, as are a majority of overtures in the Florilegium secundum (1698) and J. C. F. Fischer’s Journal du printems (1695); two-part overtures are also found in such collections as Schmierer’s Zodiaci musici (1698) and Erlebach’s VI Ouvertures (1693). J. S. Bach’s keyboard suite in F major, BWV 820, a work thought to have been composed shortly after the turn of the eighteenth century, also begins with a two-part overture. Only two of Telemann’s extant overtures are bipartite: those beginning 55:D4 and the C-major keyboard suite, 32:11. Yet several overture-suites display other hallmarks of the Lullian style—and a corresponding absence of Italianate elements—that suggest their origins before 1715. One of these characteristics is an overture with a second section that commences in a closely imitative texture (Mattheson’s “simple yet lively imitation”) but is otherwise predominantly homophonic (55:C1, C2, D16, F2 [= 44:6], f1, G9, a7, B9, h1, h3). Not only are these second sections less consistently fugal than most others by Telemann, but they also tend to be significantly shorter: several (55:C2, D16, F2 [= 44:6], B9, h1, h3) are a scant twenty to thirty measures in length, comparable to those in many seventeenth-century overtures by Lully and his followers. Observe in Example 1.4, showing the beginning of a fast section, that the imitative opening gives way to an essentially homophonic texture in which the brief imitative subject is confined to the outer voices. Notice also the scoring with two viola parts, found in only three of Telemann’s overture-suites (55:D16, G7, G9). This in itself suggests a composition date of no later than 1715, for after the so-called französischer Jahrgang of sacred cantatas for 1714–15—half of which include two viola parts—Telemann appears consistently to have adopted a four-part string scoring in his instrumental and vocal works. Another archaic scoring is found in 55:C1, where the combination of three violins and bass recalls the seventeenthcentury German ensemble suite. Here the unusually compressed range of the violin parts (d⬘–b⬙) makes them performable with oboes or flutes. Also likely indicating an early origin is the practice in several works of notating the second part (sometimes labeled “Haute Contre”) in C1 clef, and the third part in C2 clef (55:C4, d1, e3, F3, G5, G9, a3).44 If other archaic stylistic features of the overture-suites prove less reliable as guides to chronology, they nevertheless document Telemann’s participation in seventeenth-century traditions. Among these are the petite reprise (“Brandle” of 55:D9 and “Les Augures” of 55:G5) and menuets with a characteristic rhythmic pattern consisting of an iamb followed by a trochee (a 1–2–2-1 pattern over six beats).45 The iamb-trochee pattern, common in late seventeenth-century menuets, is found in the dance step of Jean Favier and in works by Lully, Campra, Michel-Richard de Lalande, and André Danican Philidor.46 What might be

28 The Overture-Suites example 1.4. Suite in D major for strings and continuo, 55:D16/i, mm. 18–28

   C         C         C      C      C    18

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola 1

Viola 2

Continuo



                                                                                 

                                                                                                22



                                      

                                                                                                        25



                 

        

termed Favier-type menuets are found in thirteen of Telemann’s overture-suites, including several of those discussed in the previous paragraph.47 There are other old-fashioned dance types as well, including the allemande (55:C4, F13, f1), amener (55:C2), branle (55:D9, G2, A1), courante (seventeen examples), and galliard (55:D23, A1). Although the allemande and courante remained fixtures in the eighteenth-century keyboard suite (as in Telemann’s own 32:12–15 and 32: 17–18), they became increasingly uncommon in German ensemble music, where

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 29

the sarabande, gigue, and Galanterien such as the bourrée, gavotte, loure, menuet, and passepied predominate. The allemande, in fact, appears only occasionally in overture-suites published during the 1690s. Among later works, Graupner’s eighty-odd overture-suites contain only four courantes and no allemandes, just as many by Fasch include no examples of either dance, and the eight overture-suites by Johann Bernhard and Johann Sebastian Bach yield two courantes and no allemandes.48 Some of Telemann’s older dance types are easily heard as direct continuations of seventeenth-century tradition, while others (particularly the branles and galliards) may represent historicizing invocations of the past. The courantes mostly avoid the flowing eighths of the Italian corrente in favor of the dotted rhythms of the French dance, and several (55:C4, C7, c1, G2, G9, Anh. 55:A1, h1) hark back to seventeenth-century examples through frequent hemiolas effecting metrical shifts between 3/2 and 6/4 or 3/4. Another of Telemann’s nods to the past occurs in 55:F13, where an allemande and courante are paired in the manner of a variation suite (Example 1.5). Yet these two movements, essentially the same dance in contrasting meters, cannot be understood merely as pure

example 1.5. Suite in F major for violin, strings, and continuo, 55:F13: (a) Allemande, mm. 1–4; (b) Courante, mm. 1–4 (a)

(b) Violin Solo, [Oboe 1], Violin 1

[Oboe 2], Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

  43     43   3    4     43  



                               5

6

4 2

6

                  5

6

             5 4

3

30 The Overture-Suites

representations of the “true French” or archaic German styles, for the concertante violin part introduced for the repeat of each binary half comes from the world of the Italian concerto. In a similar mixture of the old (French) and new (Italian), the allemande and Favier-type menuet of 55:C4 give way to a concertostyle concluding movement.

Tradition versus Innovation On the face of it, few instrumental genres of the early eighteenth century seem to have been so strictly governed by convention as the overture-suite. Both the overture and the accompanying dances followed prescribed forms and individually, if not collectively, conveyed a relatively circumscribed range of affects. One might consider that the genre’s balance of contrast (within the overture and between the dances) and predictability (of affect and form) was at once its greatest strength and ultimate undoing. Writing in 1739, Mattheson lauded the overture’s uplifting rhetoric of alternating affects: When listening to the first part of a good overture, I feel a special elevation of the spirit. The second part on the other hand expands minds with great joy; and if a serious ending follows, then everything is brought together to a normal restful conclusion. It seems to me that this is a pleasantly alternating movement that an orator could scarcely surpass. Anyone who is paying attention can see in the face of an attentive listener what he perceives in his heart.49

Yet by this time both the overture and overture-suite had begun to outstay out their welcome. We have already seen Quantz lament the overture’s virtual disappearance by the 1750s, and as early as 1740 Scheibe tempered his praise for it with an explanation of why “many musical connoisseurs . . . regard overtures as antiquated and ridiculous pieces”: One could accuse [the first section] of causing every overture to begin in the same manner. Thus a certain variety is lacking that is otherwise constantly necessary in composition, if all works are not to sound of a piece. This is why, when one has not heard any overtures for a long time and an entirely new work is finally played, it nevertheless seems to the ears as if one had heard it long ago. And this only results in an overly precise, restricted uniformity, which is in fact a fundamental part of the overture’s style. Perhaps this very great similarity that the beginnings of all overtures have with one another has contributed significantly to their no longer being as popular as they used to be.50

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 31

Like other successful composers of overture-suites, Telemann transcended the genre’s shortcomings through the strength of his invention. But no one else seems to have been so willing to stretch and even explode its conventions. If the jerky, dotted rhythms (rhythmes saccadés or sautillants) of the overture’s slow sections are chiefly responsible for the spirit’s elevation (Mattheson), this did not prevent Telemann from occasionally upstaging them with other types of introductory gestures (55:D18), or even doing away with them altogether (44:8 = 55:F5, 44:14 = 55:F18). At the other extreme, the convention of embellishing the outer voices with thirty-second-note tirades is taken to nearly parodistic heights in 55:C6; in the “Entrée” of 55:C4, one of only a few such movements to imitate the archaic overture’s slow–fast bipartite structure, Telemann elevates the humble tirade to thematic status during a brief fugato (Example 1.6). Elsewhere, diatonically or chromatically descending bass lines render the beginnings of several minor-mode overtures darkly expressive, almost lament-like (55:c3, c4, e7, f1, fis1). And unexpected opening gestures occasionally confound the expectation of harmonic stability at the start of an overture’s slow section: both 55:d2 and e10 have off-tonic beginnings (V42 and V6/iv chords, respectively), while a number of concluding sections deflect the tonic’s return following the fugal second section (55:d3, e3, F9 = 44:10, a5, B9, B13, h1).51 The latter effect, illustrated in Example 1.7, is endorsed by Scheibe: It is also very pleasant if one lets the second, fugal section collapse immediately into the concluding section through a certain figure called fleeing from the cadence (which I have already described elsewhere), thereby surprising the listener and placing him in a state of astonishment [Verwunderung]. One may also choose to achieve this aim more surely through [replacing] the pitch from which one had fled at the cadence [with] a very distant, and often very strange, dissonant chord that one then endeavors cleverly to resolve by progression to the tonic key, or to its fifth.52

Given the apparent rarity of such harmonic Verwunderung in overture-suites by other composers (one example is Johann Bernhard Bach’s overture-suite in E minor), one wonders if Scheibe was thinking specifically of Telemann’s works. Rather more possibilities for overstepping the boundaries of convention were offered by the overture’s second section, where Telemann ordinarily writes fugues or fugatos that vary in the degree of their contrapuntal rigor. With few exceptions (55:c3, D10, D15, g6, B2), fugal imitation proceeds in strict order from the top voice down to the bottom. The subject is most often stated by all four voices, but three-part imitation may result from pairing the viola and bass parts (55:Es2, e8, F10, G4), and two-part imitation by restricting the subject to the two outer

32 The Overture-Suites example 1.6. Suite in C major for 2 oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo, 55:C4/iv, mm. 12–15 2.

12

c  c  c  c 



Oboe 1 and 2, Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Bassoon and Continuo



Vistement

       













 









 



  

   













 



                        

 

    

14 

       







      



              

















voices (55:D11, E2, e2, B5).53 Although episodes tend to be motivically independent of the subject, there are cases in which virtually all episodic material derives from the opening point of imitation (55:C4, C7, c3, D10, D11, D13, Es4). In keeping with the brevity and lightheartedly galant nature of many subjects, learned devices play little role in the contrapuntal discourse, but there are the occasional stretto (55:d2, Es4, e2, G8) and canon (55:c2, Es4).54 Some of Telemann’s more interesting departures from this paradigm find him dispensing entirely with fugal imitation. The homophonic second section of 55: D9, for example, resembles nothing so much as a fast sinfonia movement. Similarly devoid of imitation is the second section of 55:fis1, one of about twenty examples that adopt the rhythmic characteristics of the giga or gigue (Example 1.8). Here there are several other strikingly unconventional features, including initial chromatic motion in the bass (F
–E
–E) that echoes the opening section’s descending lines; a rhythmically and harmonically halting “subject” built upon this bass; and two trios for low-lying violins with viola bassetto (not shown in the example). In combination with the darkly expressive slow sections, these features produce a kind of chiaroscuro effect totally at odds with Mattheson’s description of the French overture as elevating and joyful. Equally foreign to the overture’s standard

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 33 example 1.7. Suite in B minor for 2 violins, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, strings, and continuo, 55:h1/i, mm. 46–49

   C                                               C   C                                C                             C      C  C   46

Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Violin 1 Solo

Violin 2 Solo

Violin 2 Ripieno

Viola

Continuo



                            48



 



      

Lentement

   C     C  C  C 

[Tutti]

C C  C

           

   

7

affective vocabulary are several movements referencing the pastoral style. Two pastoral topics make unexpected appearances in the second section of 55:g2: the siciliana (mm. 34–41) and the peasant dance, featuring typically excessive melodic and rhythmic repetition, wide leaps, and drone accompaniments (mm. 50–60). Pomp is more thoroughly replaced by pastoral in the overture to 55:F7, where the first and third sections feature a rustic melody supported by paired quarter notes and slow harmonic rhythm; the ensuing fugal subject is suggestive of a horn signal and gives way to various other fanfare-like gestures evocative of the hunt.

34 The Overture-Suites example 1.8. Suite in F-sharp minor for strings and continuo, 55:fis/i, mm. 26–30

   46     46    46   46 

26



Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo











       

                                             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 























By the early Frankfurt period, Telemann began to introduce ritornello form into the overture’s second section. This would seem a logical extension and formalization of the common practice of alternating between strings (fugal subject entries) and concertante winds (episodes), and perhaps inevitable given the popularity of the solo concerto in Germany from about 1710. Possibly the earliest such work is 55:e3, featuring a homophonic ritornello largely given over to Italianate Fortspinnung, and pairs of concertante flutes, oboes, and violins (Example 1.9). Each pair of soloists is introduced in turn but, surprisingly, plays only “French” dotted rhythms instead of the expected display figuration. Here the mixed taste operates simultaneously on multiple levels, establishing the section as a gallicized concerto within an Italianate French overture. A more thorough encroachment of ritornello form upon the overture occurs in 55:B11, apparently written toward the end of the Frankfurt period. Here only the first tutti statement begins fugally, and the subject consists of broken-chord figuration suggestive of the concerto. (This was a second thought: the beginning of a more conventional fugal exposition is crossed out in Telemann’s composing score at Dresden).55 Beginning with the double-motto entrance of the concertante oboes—a further signifier of the concerto—any residual sense of Frenchness evaporates, and the section proceeds as a concerto-allegro. Similar to the B-flat overture is that of 55: D4, with fugal ritornellos and pairs of concertante violins and oboes. Remarkably, the overture’s first section hints at the Italianate orientation of what follows when its sautillant rhythms are interrupted by tremolo chords over a dominant pedal. Without parallel in Telemann’s overture-suites is the manner in which the movement concludes: with a ritornello abruptly halting on a dominant seventh chord, resolved only in the first measure of the following menuet I. It is tempting to seek an extramusical explanation for this run-on effect: Could the overturemenuet complex originally have introduced a theatrical work? If so, might theatrical action also lie behind the suite’s odd concluding movement (“Air serieuse-

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 35 example 1.9. Suite in E minor for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 violins, strings, and continuo, 55:e3/i, mm. 24–42 Dessus Premier, Dessus pour l'Accomplissement, Hautbois 1 and 2, Flutes traversieres 1 and 2 Hautecontre Taille Basse pour les Hautbois Basse pour le Clavessin

               43            43                  43                             3                 4    24



6

6

#

6

#

6

                                                                                                          28



#

6

6

#

                           33



6

#

6

#

         

6

¿

      []                      []              Basse pour les Hautbois                   Hautbois 1 and 2

6

Tutti

                                            38



6

#

   

                                        Basse pour le Clavessin            Violons concert

6

#

#

36 The Overture-Suites

ment”), in which a siciliana alternates with a bourrée/rigaudon? We shall take up the relationship of Telemann’s overture-suites to the theater more fully in chapter 2. Movements seemingly imported from the Italian concerto also occasionally displace French dance types following the overture. Among the most affective slow movements is the “Avec douceur” of 55:g2, essentially a da capo–form aria in which the first violin “sings” a double motto upon its first entrance. Similar in conception, though more richly realized, is the aria-like “Air à l’Italien” of 55:a2 (see below). Less common are concerto-allegro movements such as the concluding “Air italien” of 55:C4, a ritornello–da capo structure highlighting two oboes and bassoon as soloists. Not only is the movement’s form “Italien” (and strikingly so: both the A and B sections commence with double mottoes), but the strings’ material seems almost parodistically concerto-like as well, with the violins playing mostly rushing scalar figures in unison. In most of these aspects, the movement adumbrates the extraordinary “Combattans” of 55:B10, to which we shall turn in the next chapter. On the whole, however, the mixed taste plays a limited role in Telemann’s suite movements, most of which provide relatively undiluted expressions of their respective national styles. Yet some of the most effective dances are marked by intensifications or exaggerations of an essential element of their type. Two examples may suffice here. To the extent that the sarabande is the most serious of dances (Walther describes it as “gravitätisch” or solemn),56 the example in 55:f1 can only be described as tragic in affect, for the combination of descending chromatic motion, suspensions, and expressively wide melodic leaps transports it to the realm of the lament (Example 1.10). The passepied, by contrast, achieves its lively effect in part by subtly disrupting the listener’s sense of meter through hemiolas. In the concluding dance of 55:B10, as in several other passepieds (55:D23, Es2, e8, F2 = 44:6, F13), hemiolas are notated as “double measures” of 3/4 within the context of 3/8. Here Telemann follows the practice of French composers such as François Couperin.57 But in this particular dance, the listener’s perception of meter is confounded from the outset with an incomplete measure in 3/4, leading to rapid alternations of 3/4 and 3/8 (Example 1.11). One of the least progressive aspects of Telemann’s suite movements is form, for the vast majority of dances have binary or rondeau structures. More galant types such as the bourrée, gavotte, gigue, menuet, passepied, and rigaudon may adopt either formal template, while allemandes, courantes, loures, and sarabandes are almost invariably binary (55:C4 furnishes a rare example of a sarabande en rondeau). Rounded binary forms are in the distinct minority but become more common and substantial in works apparently composed during the late Frankfurt or

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 37 example 1.10. Suite in F minor for 2 recorders (tacet), strings, and continuo, 55:f1/iv, mm. 1–8 Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

Sarabande            43         43           43       3                4  



                       5







 

  











   

  

 

   

example 1.11. Suite in B-flat for 3 oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo, 55:B10/ix, mm. 1–6 Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Oboe 3

Bassoon

Violin 1 Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

  38   38   38  3  8

                                            

  38   38  3  8   38

                  





Passepied I

6

   

   

        

      

                  

                                              

     6

38 The Overture-Suites

Hamburg period, such as the three-oboe suites 55:C6, D15, and B10; occasionally the “double return” of tonic and opening material is indicated by a da capo.58 Bourrées, gavottes, menuets, passepieds, and rigaudons are often paired alternativement to create a large-scale ternary structure. But the menuets of 55:C4, c1, and G5 and the rigaudon of 55:a3 are all five-part forms in which the first dance alternates with two others. This rondeau-like structure, to which Telemann later returned in scherzos 2–4 of the A-major divertimento, 50:22, is not unlike the larger alternativement complex of dances concluding the First Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1046 (Menuet–Trio–Menuet–Polonaise–Menuet–Trio–Menuet). Aside from the “Air serieusement” of 55:D4, mentioned earlier, several suite movements take on interesting compound structures. Capriccio-like alternations of contrasting material are found in “Invention III” of 55:A7 and in characteristic movements of 55:C5, D22, and B5 (see chapter 2). Run-on effects occur in the “Air en sarabande” of 55:G1, where a sarabande unexpectedly gives way to what resembles an overture fast section in ritornello form. And alternativement pairs of dissimilar movement types are found in the “Plainte-Galliard” of 55:D23 and the “Plainte-Presto” of 55:B13. These last two patterns are also represented in characteristic movements of 55:B5. Many of the non-French dance types reference Britain, perhaps not surprising given Hamburg’s close trading ties and proximity to England (though at least a few of these dances appear to have been written at Frankfurt). Most numerous are movements entitled “Angloise” (55:C7, D13, E1, fis1, g1, A3, a3) and “Horn[e]pipe” (55:D2, d3, e3, g2, a3, B10), and there are single examples of the “Irlandoise” (55:d2) and “Ecossaise” (55:D19), the latter including obligatory Lombard or “Scotch snap” (reverse-dotted) rhythms and a suitably pentatonic melodic contour. Syncopation, hemiola, and overall rhythmic liveliness often play important roles in conveying rusticity and otherness in these country dances, as do occasional “barbaric” effects such as passages in octaves and the 7ˆ–1ˆ octave leap at cadences in the D-minor hornpipe.59 Metric displacement animates the hornpipes of 55:e3 and B10, both of which initially emphasize the second beats in 3/4 and 3/2. Delightfully disorienting in this respect is the B-flat movement, where the half note in the top voice is first heard as a downbeat and then, starting in measure 4, as a syncopation (Example 1.12). Most of these effects are combined in the lusty A-minor hornpipe, where rustic drones producing “crude” harmonies unexpectedly interrupt the musical flow. The exotic may also take the form of dances representing Turkish, Russian, or Polish music, examples of which are discussed in chapters 2 and 9. But even courtly dance types are sometimes defamiliarized through the introduction of “foreign” elements. For example, the pastoral style, in its most courtly-idyllic mode, inflects the second bourrée of 55:g5 and the second gavotte of 55:A5. Uniquely among Telemann’s

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 39 example 1.12. Suite in B-flat for 3 oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo, 55:B10/iv, mm. 1–4 Hornpipe   3                        Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Oboe 3

Bassoon

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

  2  23       23       3     2    3      2  23      3        2  23     



                                  

                          

           





              

¿

sarabandes, that of 55:D12 includes bolero rhythms evocative of castanets, an apparent reference to the dance’s Latin American and Spanish roots (the sarabande of 55:C6 is titled “Espagniol,” even though the music lacks any sense of exoticism). One aspect of Telemann’s overture-suites that sets them apart from those of other composers is the myriad scorings they encompass. Nearly half are for strings alone, but there are substantial numbers for one soloist and strings; for the “classic” combination of strings with two oboes, flutes, or recorders, often expanded to a wind trio with bassoon (accounting for about twenty works); and for strings with three to six concertante instruments (winds, strings, brass, or a combination of these). Particularly interesting are Telemann’s approaches to scoring in several overture-suites with three or four concertante wind instruments. In 55:F3, an attractive work for pairs of oboes and horns with strings, the horns’ unusual prominence suggests that the parts were written for virtuoso players. Indeed, Telemann often treats the three instrumental groups (strings, winds, and brass) as equally important; unexpectedly, it is the horns, not the oboes, that have independent lines in the lovely sarabande. As in 55:F11 (for two oboes, four horns, and strings), the slow section of the overture includes triadic horn fanfares over the standard sautillant rhythms. Similar three-way antiphony (recorders, oboes, strings) informs several movements of 55:a4, including the slow section of the overture.

40 The Overture-Suites

Among Telemann’s most colorfully scored overture-suites are five works for three oboes and strings (55:C6, D15, d3, g4, B10). They may be considered here as a group, even though stylistic differences suggest they were composed over a period of some years.60 Much the simplest in terms of texture is 55:d3, where the concertato writing often involves straightforward alternations of material between oboes and strings. In 55:C6 and g4 the two groups are treated more or less interchangeably, with especially effective antiphonal writing in the lively “Harlequinade” and “Bourrée en Trompette” of the C-major suite, and in the witty “Les Irresoluts” and “Gasconnade” of the G-minor suite. The antiphonal technique is handled with complete fluency throughout the suites in D major and B-flat major, which may be the latest of the five works. Note in Example 1.13 that the D-major “Rejouissance” opens with a five-measure passage that is immediately repeated in the dominant, but with the instrumental alternations reversed. Typical of these works is the varying length here of antiphonal blocks of material. Each of the overtures takes a different approach to distributing material among the seven instrumental parts. Often the oboes take the lead in concertato exchanges, as in the first and second sections of 55:C6 and B10 and the second sections of 55:D15 and d3. The three fugatos (55:C6, D15, d3) all treat the winds as independent contrapuntal voices to a greater degree than suites with only two oboes, with the D-minor overture presenting the subject in a predominantly homophonic texture culminating in a quasi-stretto effect. The D-major fugato commences with separate oboe and string expositions, and the antiphonal alternation of material between the two groups remains a structural principle throughout. Different formal and textural processes are at work in the second sections of 55:g4 and B10. In the G-minor overture, the oboes function as concerto soloists (they enter with a modified double motto), and the strings provide a lightly imitative ritornello. The French-style gigue of the B-flat overture completely replaces imitation between individual voices with antiphonal exchanges between the two instrumental groups—a marvelously variegated texture in which some of the material is presented in seven parts. No less varied than the overtures are the second dances in the five menuet pairs. The G-minor pair provides a wry commentary upon the principle of interchangeable oboe and string choirs by flipping the first dance upside down in the second: melody now becomes accompaniment (a bassetto provided by the violins and viola), and accompaniment becomes melody (first oboe). Three other dances display contrasting approaches to bassetto accompaniment: quasi-canonic imitation (violins in 55:C6), four-part harmony (violins, presumably divisi, in 55: D15), and broken chords (alternating between violins and viola in 55:B10). Slightly subversive in this respect is the reversed scoring of the D-minor menuet II, where oboes in unison provide a bassetto accompaniment for the violins.

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 41 example 1.13. Suite in D major for 3 oboes, strings, and continuo, 55:D15/viii, mm. 1–7 Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Oboe 3

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

Réjouissance      43       43       3   4       3     4   43    3   4     43     



                                             4



                      

                          

                                                 

                            

                        

The Concert en ouverture and Concerto en suite Telemann’s incorporation of Italianate elements into the overture-suite is not limited to the selected movements discussed earlier but is further reflected in works highlighting one instrument in the manner of a concerto soloist. These represent one of his most important and influential contributions to the German mixed taste. Such suites by Telemann and others commence with either an overture including a fast section in ritornello form or a full-blown concerto-allegro move-

42 The Overture-Suites

ment. The former variety survives in greater numbers, exemplified by Bach’s Bminor overture-suite for flute and strings, BWV 1067, and Telemann’s A-minor overture-suite for recorder and strings, 55:a2, two of the most frequently performed overture-suites in modern times. Part of these two works’ appeal no doubt centers on their finely calibrated tension between style and scoring, a subtle generic friction in which the detached suavity of the French suite and the assertive display of the Italian concerto rub together in several movements. This dynamic, also present to some degree in the overture-suite in D major for strings, BWV 1068, and in certain of the works discussed earlier, is of course absent in most overture-suites, where concertante instruments tend to be highlighted antiphonally rather than as virtuosic concerto soloists. Although the special properties of the B-minor and A-minor suites, in particular, have long been recognized, the compositional tradition to which they belong has remained very much in the background; the tacit assumption seems to have been that these works uniquely transcend the norms of their type. In fact, few eighteenth-century composers besides Bach and Telemann dealt in such concerto-suite hybrids, and only one writer of the time has left us a prescription for how these works ought to proceed. In analyzing the fast section of Handel’s overture to Rinaldo (1711) which includes several passages for a solo violin, Mattheson matter-of-factly observed that it is “an Italianized Ouverture, because no Frenchman may introduce such passages or soli in his Ouvertures.”61 It would therefore appear that soloistic writing was incompatible with the “true French style.” Confirming this view is Scheibe, who has the most to say regarding the advantages and drawbacks of introducing concertante instruments into the French overture. Writing early in his career, he warned that the improper handling of solo passages could undermine a suite’s French identity through excessive (Italianate) virtuosity: “If there are concertante voices [in an overture], such as oboes or recorders [Flauten], then they may be heard alone from time to time, with the violins or a bassoon providing the bass. If there is a concertante violin, no Italianate concerto figurations must be introduced; rather, one must adhere strictly to the French style.”62 In his later discussion of the “Concertouverture” in Der critische Musikus, worth quoting here at some length, Scheibe repeatedly stresses that concertante instruments in an overture-suite must not substitute Italianate bravado for Gallic order. He names Fasch and, especially, Telemann as excelling in such works: With regard to the concertante instruments, one easily observes their free, playful, and jocular singing in places where they are prominent. It is not their numbers that must stand out; rather, it is the varied entrance, the lively and natural parsing of the

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 43 harmony’s principal chord, and the cheerful, more or less flowing modulation of the concertante voices that give the Concertouverture a true beauty and the requisite fire. Of course, one must at the same time be mindful of the instruments’ nature. But one must also avoid proceeding in a manner that is as concerto-like, longwinded, and forceful as would be appropriate in a proper concerto. Here there is a certain balance to maintain, so that one does not overshadow the true disposition and nature of the Ouverture and lapse from a French style of writing into an Italian one, and consequently render the style of such a piece confused and disorderly. A Concertouverture with a concertante violin must therefore be distinguishable in its elaboration from an ordinary violin concerto; the same goes for overtures with other concertante instruments. In particular, such overtures are most pleasing if, during their course, a pair of oboes and a bassoon alternate now and then as a harmonizing trio. [These instruments] must not, however, work very hard, but proceed together in clear harmony or simply imitate each other; the rest of the instruments then alternate with them. . . . Among the Germans, Telemann and Fasch have distinguished themselves most of all in this type of Ouverture. The first in particular has made such works best known in Germany, and has thereby so distinguished himself that one may rightly say, without being accused of flattery, that as an emulator of the French he has finally surpassed these foreigners in their own national music. And who is unaware that France itself has granted him this praise, and that consequently no true connoisseur of music disputes his great strength in the composition of French musical works, especially as there is no type of such music that he does not understand and know how to practice, and in which he has not long ago left its originators far behind.63

The term “Concertouverture” may have been coined by Johann Philipp Eisel, who used it two years earlier to describe an overture-suite with a concertante instrument. Again, Telemann’s works are held up as exemplary: “One employs [the viola] in harmonious concertos not only as a mere middle voice, in order to fill in the alto or tenor [parts], but also as a concertante voice, of which the concertos and Concert-Ouverturen of the famous Kapellmeister Telemann give ample evidence.”64 Following Scheibe and Eisel, then, the term “Concertouverture” may be applied broadly to any overture-suite with at least one concertante string or wind part, which is to say that it describes a great many—perhaps even a majority—of works written during the 1720s and 1730s. Furthermore, we may infer from Scheibe’s strongly worded disapproval of concerto-like Concertouverturen that “confused and disorderly” works such as BWV 1067–68 and 55:a2 were not uncommon around 1730. Because my concern here is with this soloistic subset of overture-suites, I shall eschew Eisel’s and Scheibe’s general term (and the modern “Konzertsuite”) in favor of “concert en ouverture,” an eighteenth-century formulation found on a manuscript copy of Telemann’s overture-suite for violin and

44 The Overture-Suites

strings, 55:E3.65 For the purposes of the following discussion, a concert en ouverture may be understood as an overture-suite in which a single soloist assumes a concertante role in the overture and in most, if not all, subsequent movements. I shall refer to similar works commencing with a concerto-allegro movement by the term “concerto en suite,” the bilingual title of Johann Melchior Molter’s suite in A major for violin and strings, MWV VI/Anh. 1.66 Although considered here to be suites, all other surviving examples of this type are in fact called “concerto” in their manuscript sources. Even during their apparent heyday in the 1720s and 1730s, the concert en ouverture and concerto en suite seem to have found relatively few adherents. As Table 1.2 shows, Telemann was easily the most prolific composer of the former type. Though the surviving repertory is slight, there are indications that such works were familiar in many parts of Germany: beyond Saxony and Thuringia, represented by Johann Bernhard Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Johann Friedrich

Table 1.2 The concert en ouverture Composer

Work

Soloist(s)

Comments

Anonymous

55:A4 55:A8

Vn Vn

J. B. Bach J. S. Bach

Suite in g BWV 1067 BWV 1068 Suite in F FWV K:A1 55:D1 55:D6 55:D14 55:Es2 55:E3 55:e1 55:e10 55:F13 55:G6 55:G7 55:g7 55:g8 55:A7 55:a2 55:B1 55:h4

Vn Fl/vn [Vn] Vn Vn Ob, tpt, 2 vn Va da gamba Vn Fl pastorelle Vn 2 fl, 2 vn Ob/fl Vn Vn Vn, 2 ob Vn 2 vn Vn Rec 2 ob, 2 vn Vn

Unattributed Unattributed at D-MÜu; attributed to Telemann at D-SWl D-B, Mus. ms. Bach St 320

J. M. Doemming J. F. Fasch Telemann

Soloistic violin 1 part D-MÜu, Rheda Ms. 172 (dated 1733) Musique de table

Musique de table

Musique de table

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 45

Fasch, examples were composed by Telemann in Frankfurt and Hamburg (with many performed at Darmstadt) and by Johannes Martin Doemming in HagenHohenlimburg;67 the origins of two concerts en ouverture evidently misattributed to Telemann (55:A4 and A8) are unknown.68 To be sure, a certain number of works have been lost, including four overture-suites by the violinist Johann Christian Hertel (1699–1754) entitled “Ouverture alla Concerto” or “Ouverture alla Concertino” (another interesting hybrid title) and scored for “Violino Concertato” or “Violino Principale” with strings.69 Still, it is unlikely that concerts en ouverture were ever composed in great numbers. Nor is the corpus of extant concertos en suite large, consisting of three examples by Telemann (43:g3, 51:F4, and 54:F1) and one apiece by Fasch (FWV L:B3), Johann David Heinichen (Seibel 213), and Molter.70 Additionally, Bach’s First Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1046, is at least related to the genre through its concluding alternativement complex of dances. The earliest of these mixed-taste works appear to date from the second decade of the eighteenth century. A prototype for some examples may have been Francesco Venturini’s twelve Concerti da camera, op. 1 (Amsterdam, ca. 1713). Featuring concertante writing for oboe, violin, or a pair of oboes with bassoon, these works follow an “ouverture” or “concerto” with a series of dances, arias, and characteristic pieces. As we have seen, Handel included a concertante violin in the overture to Rinaldo (1711), and Telemann appears to have introduced violin soloists into his overtures around the same time, as in 55:c4 (“Violino Primo Concertat[o]”) and 55:D4 (two violins “concert[ant]”); in a scoring that recalls BWV 1068, the overture to 55:B13 includes a concerto-like episode for first violin. But the idea of writing for a soloist throughout an overture-suite may also have been a natural outgrowth of the inclusion in many conventionally scored works of one or two solo movements following the overture. Sebastian Bodinus’s A-major overture-suite for flute or violin and strings is typical in this respect: the soloist is concertato only in a florid Adagio (soloist and continuo) and in a single couplet of the “Ciacone”; it doubles the first violin in the overture, entrée, and concluding pair of bourrées.71 Fasch’s overture-suite FWV K:G2 also contains one movement highlighting a solo violin, and Telemann writes soloistically for the first violin in one or more dance movements of 55:g3, A5, B13, and h3. Before examining the concert en ouverture in some detail, let us consider Telemann’s three concertos en suite, each of which offers a different perspective on the type. The earliest and slightest among them is the “Concerto di camera” for recorder soloist, two violins that are often in unison, and continuo, 43:g3, a work that has been mistaken for a quartet owing to its four-movement scheme and lack of a viola part. The thin scoring, while unusual, allies the piece with several of

46 The Overture-Suites

Telemann’s concertos discussed in chapter 6. Noteworthy from a structural point of view is the combination of ritornello and rounded-binary forms in the first two movements, an untitled allegro and siciliana that are further linked to each other (and to the following bourrée) by an initial 1ˆ–5ˆ –1ˆ melodic descent, bringing to mind the archaic variation suite tradition.72 The more ambitious 54:F1 is effectively a cross between the overture-suite and the concerto con molti istromenti, Vivaldi’s title for RV 558, including eleven concertante instruments. This and similar works by Vivaldi were presumably the inspiration for concertos (en suite) by Heinichen, Fasch, and other composers associated with the Dresden court. Telemann’s scoring, as given on the title page to a manuscript set of parts at Schwerin, is very much in the same tradition: oboe doubling on recorder, two chalumeaux, two horns, two concertante violins, two concertante cellos, strings, and continuo. However, both of the surviving sources for the work transmit arrangements: at Schwerin, Peter Johann Fick omitted the chalumeaux and replaced the second concertante cello with bassoon; and at Dresden, Johann Georg Pisendel appears to have arranged the lost chalumeau parts for oboes, transferred the recorder part to oboe, altered details of instrumentation in several movements, and moved the menuet to the end of the suite.73 Furthermore, neither of these arranged versions transmits the complete work, for the second menuet is fragmentary at Schwerin, and both this music and the pair of bourrées are completely lacking at Dresden. The opening Vivace, with solo passages for oboe, violin, and horns, is in a type of ritornello–da capo form familiar from Telemann’s Hamburg concertos: after a third ritornello confirms a modulation to the mediant (m. 128), a final episode commencing immediately in the tonic turns out to be a nonmodulating version of the first episode, which is followed by the complete ritornello to conclude the movement. The iii–I progression recalls da capo form, while the final episoderitornello complex has the effect of a sonata-form recapitulation. What is more, Telemann’s directive “Si replica’l Concerto precedente” after the following “Scherzando” creates the kind of large-scale da capo structure found in the Musique de table and keyboard fantasies (see chapter 8). This brief, rounded-binary “Scherzando” is not so much jocular as a light and unpretentious foil to the Vivace, though one might hear as mock-serious its canonic trio passages for recorder/oboe and concertante violin over pizzicato bass. Subsequent movements, apart from the menuet, feature different combinations of soloists: cellos in the first bourrée, paired with violins in the second; cellos again in the loure; and horns in the gigue, an alla caccia movement thoroughly interwoven with motives recalling horn signals. Worthy of more extended consideration is 51:F4, next to the First Branden-

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 47

burg Concerto the most impressive example of the concerto en suite. Despite the fortunate survival of a composing score at Dresden, the work’s genesis has been the subject of much speculation. Arnold Schering, who edited the suite in 1906 (making it the first orchestral work by Telemann to appear in a modern edition), placed 51:F4 late in the composer’s career on the basis of its “transitional style”; Schering’s view was later lent support by Günter Fleischhauer, who found the handwriting in the score characteristic of the elderly Telemann. Wolf Hobohm subsequently based his dating of the suite to the 1730s on watermark evidence (inaccurate, as it turned out), on Telemann’s use of Lombard rhythms and the “Telemannscher Bogen” (a bass figure invented by Telemann), and on a possible link of the second movement (Corsicana. Un poco grave) with the 1736 Corsican rebellion against Genoese rule, which led to the short-lived reign of Theodore I (the German adventurer Theodor von Neuhof, who unsuccessfully tried to regain the throne in 1738 and 1743).74 Undermining such slender evidence is Hobohm’s own observation that the composer’s handwriting is equally indicative of the 1730s, 1740s, and 1750s. Indeed, Manfred Fechner views Telemann’s script as that of a hurried, rather than elderly, composer. That the composer was in fact well into his sixties when he composed the suite is suggested by the watermark studies of Wisso Weiss, who has noted that the score’s Bohemian paper was also used by Telemann for the 1749 St. John Passion, TVWV 5:34.75 Although such evidence is not free of ambiguity (the paper type in question had been available for decades), it does align well with the music’s progressive style. If, as seems probable, the suite was intended as a vehicle for Pisendel and the Dresden court orchestra, then we may reasonably place its composition within the decade preceding the violinist’s death in 1755, a period during which Telemann and Pisendel are known to have been in close correspondence.76 From this correspondence it emerges that Pisendel supplied Telemann with music paper, possibly that found in the suite and Passion manuscripts (Bohemian paper was frequently used at the Dresden court). In a letter of 16 April 1749, the violinist told his friend, “I will derive great pleasure if I should see that the already supplied paper is taken up and used for the greater good of music by Herr Kapellmeister Telemann, [who] in this respect [is] above all others most skillful and incomparable.”77 A number of the first movement’s stylistic features significantly depart from Telemann’s compositional idiom of the 1730s. For example, the very active pairs of flutes, oboes, and horns are granted a large measure of autonomy from the strings and from each other, each taking turns as secondary soloists. This is an orchestral effect more redolent of midcentury operas and symphonies than latebaroque concertos and suites.78 In one especially colorful passage during the second solo episode (mm. 124–28), the flutes and solo violin form a close, three-part

48 The Overture-Suites

canon at the unison based upon a motive from the ritornello. Not only do the ritornellos and episodes exhibit all the galant stylistic traits of Telemann’s earlier Hamburg works—extreme thematic and motivic variety; drum basses and slow harmonic rhythm; and modish triplet, alla zoppa (syncopated), and Lombard rhythms—but there are also passages bringing to mind the midcentury empfindsamer Stil, most notably a I–V7/ii–ii6 progression that swiftly undermines the tonic in the movement’s fanfare-like opening measures, and a chromatically inflected cantabile theme introduced at measure 15.79 Although all three ritornellos present the material in complete form, the last two develop certain motives through techniques of extension or reorchestration. Without parallel in Telemann’s concerto-allegro movements is the indication that a “cadenza se piace” should be inserted following a tonic six-four chord near the movement’s end (m. 193). Equally extraordinary is the following “Corsicana,” which suggests a folk idiom through its irregular scansion, melodic and rhythmic repetition, and simplified harmonic motion. The angular, eight-measure melody of the movement’s first half, given in Example 1.14, thoroughly undermines the notated meter of 3/2, first with a four-beat melodic unit divided in half harmonically. One therefore hears the melody’s first three and a half measures as containing two two-measure phrases in 2/2 or 4/4, separated by a one-measure “filler” (notated m. 22–3). A sense of triple meter is established only in measures 4–6, where a sequential unit starts on the third quarter note of each measure (following an “extra” beat in the first half of m. 4). But here the halved rhythmic values and changes of harmony across the bar lines give the impression of two-measure units in 3/4. This pattern is broken in measures 7–8, which scan as three measures of 2/2 or 4/4. The solo violin emerges in the movement’s second half, where it plays rapid figurations to the accompaniment of pizzicato string chords—a colorful scoring that mitigates the static effect of the slow harmonic rhythm and aimless tonal progressions. Twice the opening melody interrupts the fiddling of the soloist, who is now assigned the “filler” measure. Following the “Corsicana” are two movements that explore different aspects of musical humor. The portrait of “Allegrezza” is not only full of “cheerfulness,” but also a bit silly. Part of the fun is the soloist’s unexpected subjugation to the winds in the movement’s trio, where the flute, oboes, and horns engage in a lively Harmoniemusik conversation, comically finishing each others’ thoughts. The accompaniment to all this chatter is a bassetto bass, provided alternately by the soloist and first violin. Silliness is combined with mock seriousness in the ensuing scherzo, a Polish-style rondeau that we shall consider further in chapter 9. Concluding the suite are three dances: an untitled giga en rondeau that is also alla

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 49 example 1.14. Concerto in F major for violin and orchestra, 51:F4/ii, mm. 1–8 Flutes 1 and 2

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

  23  3  2   3  2    23  3  2   23  

           

Corsicana.

  

Un poco grave

che taccono la 1. volta, e s[uo]nano la 2.

Oboes 1 and 2

che suonano la 1. volta, e taccono la 2.

Violin solo Violin 1

  

La 2da volta si suona piano.

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

4

              

     

                                            7



                                



        

    

50 The Overture-Suites

caccia; a “Polacca” bearing the dance’s characteristic rhythms and allowing for the two “trombe di caccia” (horns) to be replaced with “trombe ordinaria piccola” (trumpets), now with the accompaniment of timpani; and a “Minuetto,” also employing timpani. As is common in the concert en ouverture, the last two movements include alternativement trios featuring the soloist playing divisions of the first violin’s melody; both sets of divisions are particularly fine, with those in the menuet including examples of written-out rubato. To judge from the extant sources, Telemann was not only the most prolific composer of concerts en ouverture, but very possibly also the first. And considering how influential his overture-suites were during the eighteenth century, it would hardly be surprising if the works by other composers in Table 1.2 owed their inspiration to him, at least indirectly.80 Perhaps the earliest among Telemann’s concerted suites are 55:C2 and G7; the latter, noted earlier for its archaic five-part string scoring, is also unusual for including three concertante instruments, though it is the violin that assumes the role of principal soloist. At the opposite end chronologically are the three Musique de table suites (55:e1, B1, D1) and 55:A7. The A-major work, featuring the galant rhythmic language typical of Telemann in the 1730s, is distinguished by several unconventional features: the title “Invention” for each of the six movements following the overture, disguising dances such as the rigaudon, passepied, gavotte, and giga; a capriccio-like movement (“Invention III”) alternating slow and fast sections; and a rational but wide-ranging key scheme (A major–D major–F-sharp minor–B minor–E major–A minor–A major).81 Some norms for the genre, insofar as the modest repertory allows us to generalize, may be established by an overview of Telemann’s works. First, and most obviously, the violin was the instrument of choice for the solo role. (The heavy representation of concerts en ouverture with violin soloist in Dresden sources suggests that such works resonated with the court’s—and especially Pisendel’s—leanings toward the mixed taste.) Wind instruments make a few appearances in Table 1.2, but as will be discussed later, some of the works in question are likely arrangements of more conventionally scored overture-suites. Other than in the fast section of the overture, usually in ritornello form with two to four episodes, the soloist is often featured during the second dance in each of two or three alternativement pairs, where it either plays divisions of the first violin’s melody or takes the leading role in a duet or trio texture; this is also the pattern in the suites by Johann Bernhard Bach and Doemming.82 In rondeau forms, the soloist is usually featured in the episodes. Apparently reflecting the relative modernity of the concert en ouverture as a generic offshoot is the paucity of older dance types such as the allemande and courante, which turn up only in 55:D6 and F13. On the other hand, the presence of a soloist seems in many works to have foreclosed the pos-

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 51

sibility of including characteristic movements, which are more common in Telemann’s overture-suites without a soloist. Aside from BWV 1067, the locus classicus for the concert en ouverture is the justly celebrated 55:a2. Unlike Bach, Telemann displays his soloist in every movement, following the overture with Galanterien (paired menuets, passepieds, and polonaises), dance-like characteristic pieces (“Les Plaisirs” and “Rejouissance”), and an aria-like slow movement in ritornello–da capo form (“Air à l’Italien: Largo. Gracieusement—Allegro”). In this last movement, the many punctuating rests and deceptive cadences in the recorder’s ornamental melody suggest both breathlessness and unfulfilled desire, operatic emotions finding momentary release in the twittering Allegro, functioning as the form’s B section (Example 1.15). Noteworthy, too, is the recorder’s remarkably varied accompaniment, alternating between continuo, simple chordal accompaniment provided by strings (with or without continuo), and unison violins with continuo (not shown in the example). Elsewhere, as in the overture’s episodes, “Les Plaisirs,” and the second passepied, Telemann writes for the attractive duet texture of recorder with violin bassetto. Although none of the suite’s other movements project such a serious affect as the “Air à l’Italien,” there is nevertheless the tragic descending bass of the overture’s opening (mm. 1–10), later echoed in the fast section by descending chromatic lines (mm. 89–91 and 129–33). One is of course tempted to imagine Bach’s contact with 55:a2, given its similar scoring to BWV 1067 and inclusion of paired polonaises (a dance not otherwise found in the works listed in Table 1.2). But it is unclear whether Telemann’s suite circulated widely: its only eighteenth-century source is a score copied at the Darmstadt court around 1725, probably not long after the work was composed. Might it therefore have been intended for the recorder virtuoso Michael Böhm, Telemann’s brother-in-law and a highly regarded member of the Darmstadt Hofkapelle until 1729? Another work now frequently heard in concerts and on recordings is the suite in D major for viola da gamba and strings, 55:D6, also likely dating to the late Frankfurt or early Hamburg years. If Telemann’s recorder suite emphasizes the soloist’s facility in the Italian concerto style, this one seems consciously to exploit the gamba’s association with French music by adopting an unusually Gallic idiom, particularly in the sarabande, courante, and gigue; Scheibe no doubt would have approved, some Italianate passagework in the overture notwithstanding. But during the eighteenth century, the best-known examples of the concert en ouverture may have been those published in the Musique de table. Despite scorings resembling more conventional overture-suites with multiple concertante instruments, these works are aligned with the concert en ouverture through their concerto-like handling of the soloists in each movement.83 In 55:D1 Telemann comes closest to dissolving the

52 The Overture-Suites example 1.15. Suite in A minor for recorder and strings, 55:a2/iii, mm. 5–11 5

Recorder

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

 c   c         c           c  c     

                       











   

p

           p                 p

                                                  8

                         

                          

              

10







  

        

       

                                   

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 53

barrier between suite and concerto by following the overture with a bourrée and giga in ritornello–da capo form (“Air. Tempo giusto” and “Air. Allegro”), a passepied en rondeau (“Air. Vivace”), and what is essentially a fast concerto movement in ritornello-da capo form lacking any dance associations whatsoever (“Air. Presto”). These suites will warrant a closer look in chapter 8. Measured against the practices of Telemann and others, BWV 1067 will strike us as unusual in several respects. Unconventional is the limited use to which Bach puts his soloist, for although the flute plays in each movement, only four of six dances following the overture have concertato parts. There is, furthermore, only one alternativement dance pair instead of the usual two or three. Of the other works listed in Table 1.2, just three (FWV K:A1, 55:D6, and 55:h4) fail to include a solo part in every movement (or alternativement movement pair), and only one of these (FWV K:A1) allows the soloist to remain mute, as it were, for longer than one movement. Following his overture, Bach holds the soloist in check for almost all of the rondeau and the entirety of the sarabande. The absence of solo writing in Bach’s menuet is particularly striking, for the conventions of the concert en ouverture would seem to dictate the inclusion of a second menuet featuring the soloist. This is the case with all thirteen of Telemann’s works to include the dance, as it is with Doemming’s suite. It is perhaps less surprising that Bach writes exclusively for the tutti in his sarabande, given that this dance normally lacks an alternativement partner. All five of Telemann’s sarabandes (55:D6, D14, Es2, E3, g8) nevertheless feature the soloist(s) in some way. Whereas Bach’s overture, second bourrée, and polonaise-double fully exploit the presence of a concertato instrument, the rondeau and “Battinerie” feature textures in which the flute is closely tied to the violin 1 line. The only solo writing in the rondeau, in fact, comes more than midway through the movement in a brief passage (mm. 32 through 362) where the texture is suddenly reduced to three parts: flute, violin 1, and violin 2. The emergence here of the soloist is incongruous, even musically unmotivated, and indeed there is no reason Bach could not have scored the passage more conventionally for violins 1 and 2 with viola. This may, in fact, have been the movement’s original reading; for if Bach had been concerned from the outset with including a soloist in his rondeau, it would have been more natural to have the concertante instrument dominate the episodes, as is almost invariably the case with rondeau movements in concerts en ouverture.84 Similarly, for much of the “Battinerie” the flute is closely shadowed by violin 1, which even overshadows the soloist at times (mm. 6–9 and 28–31). It is as if Bach has created two parts from one, especially because only one brief passage toward the end of the movement (mm. 33–37) takes real advantage of the five-part scoring. Per-

54 The Overture-Suites

haps, then, an early version of the “Battinerie” was also scored for four-part strings. The implications of this line of argument are clear enough: BWV 1067 could have been assembled in part from movements originally lacking a concertante instrument, two of which (the rondeau and “Battinerie”) Bach revised to accommodate one.85 The idea of arranging an overture-suite to include a concertante part may have been relatively widespread during the eighteenth century. As is well-known, two midcentury copies of BWV 1068 in the hand of Christian Friedrich Penzel rechristen Bach’s “Violino 1” as “Violino Concertato” and include a new violin 1 part that doubles violin 2 during the overture and following air, the two movements featuring soloistic writing.86 The anonymous copyist of the Berlin set of parts to 55:D6 took a similar approach when he created a flute part that doubles the first violin almost continuously but replaces the violin in the minore section of the sarabande and alternates with it (dividing up a single musical line) in the bourrée. Two other Telemann concerts en ouverture with wind soloists appear to be arrangements—probably not by the composer—of works for string ensemble. In 55:E2 the oboe d’amore doubles violin 1 or, as in the fast section of the overture, all three upper string parts in turn. Oddly, it does not play at all in the second rigaudon, where the running eighth notes in violin 1 might have been turned into a wind solo. Another work for oboe and strings, 55:C2, resembles the Bodinus suite in following an overture lacking solo episodes with a slow movement for soloist and continuo, then making little subsequent use of the soloist.87 Three works listed in Table 1.2—55:Es2, e10, and g8—seem to bear witness to a rather more sophisticated arranging process. Both the “flûte pastorelle” (recorder) soloist in the E-flat suite and the concertante oboe/flute in the Eminor suite have independent solo writing in the overture but are often tied to the violin 1 line during the following dances.88 In a number of movements (including the E-flat Menuet I, Passepied II, and Gigue; and the E-minor Carillon, Menuet I, and Gigue) the soloist either doubles violin 1 or alternates with it. Elsewhere in these two suites there is evidence of the rewriting of ripieno string parts to accommodate the addition of a soloist.89 In both works, the most soloistic writing outside of the overture movements occurs in alternativement dances scored for soloist and continuo (the E-flat Bourrée II and the E-minor Rigaudon II). The G-minor suite is unique among concerts en ouverture in having only three real parts throughout: two solo violins, doubled in tutti passages by ripieno violins, and continuo. Although both the overture and Passacaglia contain soloistic writing, elsewhere the two lead violins seem underemployed, often repeating (in the sarabande) or echoing (in the “Eccho”) music played by the tutti. This unusual scoring, when considered alongside the unusually prominent role assumed by the

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 55

second violin throughout, suggests that the work may be an orchestral arrangement of a trio.90 It also seems possible that 55:E3, ironically the suite with a solo violin part including the title “Concert en Ouverture,” was also originally for four-part strings: the overture awkwardly incorporates the soloist into a fugal texture (there is no sense of ritornello form), and the following dance movements are all in four real parts, with violins 1 and 2 often doubling each other when the soloist has an independent line. Two unusual features of FWV K:A1 raise doubts as to whether its present form reflects Fasch’s original conception of the piece. First, the “Violino Concertino” doubles the “Violino 1mo” for much of the work, receiving solos only in the overture, Gavotte I, and Air. Andante (the suite also includes another air, a second gavotte, a bourrée, and three menuets). Stranger still, the solo passage in the gavotte occurs in the “wrong” dance of this alternativement pair, for without exception, concertante instruments in other concerts en ouverture assert themselves only in the second of paired dances. Given that Pisendel did not hesitate to recompose the solo violin part in the “Air” of Fasch’s overture-suite FWV K:G2, we should not be surprised if the A-major suite was also subjected to an arranging process at the Dresden court. A further possible instance of arrangement in BWV 1067 deserves mention here. It has been proposed that the putative violin soloist in an early, A-minor version of the piece would have played the polonaise in unison with violin 1.91 Indeed, Bach may have taken the solo part up an octave in the B-minor version solely to avoid two pitches in measure 12 (c
⬘ and b) that lie below the flute’s compass. But might not the octave doubling have been designed, in both versions, to convey its own musical meaning—perhaps a rustic effect characteristic of the Polish style? One thinks, for instance, of the “Polish” fourth movement of 52:e1, in which the flute and recorder soloists double violin 1 at the octave in each statement of the rondeau refrain and are themselves heard in octaves during the third and final solo episode. Alternatively, Bach’s octave doubling might have been intended simply to distinguish the soloist from the full ensemble, as is apparently the case in the first menuet of 55:D4, where the “Violon 1 concert” frequently doubles “Dessus” and “Hautbois 1” at the octave. That the concert en ouverture and concerto en suite seem to have enjoyed briefer and less widespread popularity than other hybrid genres such as the Sonate auf Concertenart (the subject of chapter 6) is hardly surprising, for they were essentially generic dead ends, simultaneously choking off the suite’s programmatic potential and diluting the French style through what seemed, at least to those in sympathy with Scheibe’s view, like gratuitous displays of virtuosity. Indeed, by the early 1730s Telemann appears virtually to have exhausted the possibilities offered by

56 The Overture-Suites

the concert en ouverture, and his Musique de table suites may be viewed from this perspective as late attempts at reinvigorating the genre; the later 51:F4 is, as we have seen, exceptional in many respects. Bach’s confinement of soloistic writing in BWV 1067 and 1068 to selected movements might therefore be due in part to his acknowledgement of the genre’s intrinsic limitations.

The Overture-Suite in Retrospect So far as the surviving sources allow us to determine, Telemann stopped composing overture-suites in the late 1730s or early 1740s, around the time that such works were beginning to pass out of fashion. Yet a parcel of nine composing scores at Berlin documents his return to the genre toward the end of his life. We owe the survival of this music—including five overture-suites (55:D21–23, F16, and g9), a C-major “Sinfonia melodica” (50:2), and three divertimenti in E-flat, A major, and B-flat (50:21–23)—to the composer’s grandson, Georg Michael Telemann (1748–1831), who appears to have assembled the parcel from separate manuscripts he inherited in 1767.92 Why Georg Michael owned these works is unclear, for practically without exception all of the music he inherited was vocal. Perhaps he felt a special attachment to them, as they were composed while he was a teenager living in his grandfather’s household. Additional instrumental works belonging to Telemann’s estate probably went to other heirs or were auctioned off in 1769; a published announcement of the upcoming auction, dominated by vocal music (but excluding church cantatas) noted that “also available is an appendix of several old [and] for the most part incomplete things, for example from German operas, concertos, ouverturen, etc., mostly for gambas.”93 As his title page to the parcel reveals, Georg Michael had some difficulty with classifying the nine works by genre: three two Six Five Ouvertürs, a Sinfonias, and mostly three Divertimenti, which in the hand of the late Telemann, which he composed in the 86th year of his life for His Highness the Landgrave of Darmstadt, Ludwig VIII.

In fact, all of the works belong to the overture-suite tradition, even though the sinfonia and divertimenti replace the overture with different kinds of introduc-

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 57

tory movements. Some of the suites might indeed have been composed during Telemann’s eighty-sixth year (1766–67), but at least some date from slightly earlier: the composer dated the score to 55:D23 “1763”, and a set of copyist’s parts to 55:D21 now at Darmstadt bears the inscription “par moi Telemann Anno 1765.” These dates are in keeping with the paper of the parcel, which is of a type Telemann used in the St. Luke Passion of 1764 and the St. John Passion of 1765.94 To varying degrees, all of the scores reveal the elderly composer’s physical infirmity. But none bears witness to any diminished powers of musical invention. In keeping with Georg Michael’s title page, four of the works (50:2 and 23; 55:D21 and F16) are inscribed to Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. Further evidence that all nine works were intended for the Landgrave is provided by an accompanying leaf containing a fragmentary, undated draft letter in Telemann’s hand. The addressee is an unnamed Darmstadt Kapellmeister, probably Johann Samuel Endler (who died in April 1762) or his successor Wilhelm Gottfried Enderle: I was prepared to let my pen rest for a while, for in composing the music I last dispatched (the first part of which I sent along with a local merchant, Herr Schmidt, who is well-known out there), I became conscious of a quite noticeable decline in my vision. However, a newspaper fell into my hands, where I read: His Highness the Landgrave of Darmstadt, Ludwig VIII, will celebrate his name day on 25 August. Almost immediately I became filled with enthusiasm and made a draft of the enclosed works.95

Since the reverse of this leaf contains a sketch of the movement order for 50:21, it is likely that the parcel contains a mixture of the works Telemann had “last dispatched” and those written for Ludwig VIII’s name day. The composer’s reference to his failing eyesight echoes his comment “with weak [blöden] eyes” on the autograph scores to the 1760 cantata on the death of King George II of England, Lieber König, du bist tot, TVWV 4:15, and the 1762 St. Matthew Passion, TVWV 5:47.96 Much of the music in the parcel is, as one might expect, retrospective in nature. Notably backward-glancing are 55:D23, F16, and g9, with their lineups of courtly dances culminating in a chaconne (g9), tempête (F16), or passacaille (the penultimate movement of D23). Especially archaic in the 1760s were such dances as the courante (F16), galliard (D23 and 50:22), and branle (50:21); Telemann’s inclusion of them alongside somewhat less old-fashioned movements may have been a deliberate attempt to historicize the suite and, perhaps, his own contributions to its story. He retains his long-standing preference for the loure (50:2; 55:D21, D22, F16, and g9)—the F-major suite even includes a rare alternating

58 The Overture-Suites

pair of the dances—and for suites with an extramusical program (50:21 and 55:D22, considered in the following chapter). But there are also signs that Telemann did some reconceptualizing of the genre while composing these works; that he now viewed stylistic conventions with fresh, if weaker, eyes. Besides a tendency toward greater rhythmic variety in the overtures (including healthy doses of galant triplets), there is the unorthodox tonal plan of 55:D21, with movements in B minor/major, G major, and D minor; an imaginative use of pizzicato in the “Carillon” of the same suite; the treble-dominated scorings of the sinfonia and the string divertimenti 50:22–23 (largely in an orchestral trio texture with violins in unison); the unlikely alternativement pair of a plainte and galliard in 55:D23; the Harmoniemusik scoring in the second menuets of D21 and D23; the five-measure bass pattern of the passacaille in D23 (Telemann’s other passacailles and chaconnes all have patterns with an even number of measures); and the miniature “Chaconnette” of 50:2. Telemann’s familiarity with Darmstadt taste may explain why he opened his sinfonia and divertimenti with movements in ritornello or sonata form, for many of Endler’s suites also do away with the French overture.97 The ritornello-form movements at the start of 50:2 and 50:21 recall the concerto en suite by highlighting wind instruments in two solo episodes, whereas the Presto of 50:22 and the Allegro assai of 50:23 invoke the midcentury symphonic style while providing the clearest instances of sonata form in Telemann’s instrumental music. Note in Example 1.16 the opening “theme” of repeated half notes alternating with disjunct quarter notes, a rhetoric of contrast that characterizes the movement’s material as a whole and lends it a sense of Empfindsamkeit. Before this theme provides the basis for the development section (but not for the recapitulation!), the dominant arrival in measure 20 is immediately undermined by an unexpected shift to the parallel minor. The gigue-like Allegro assai of 50:23 is less concerned with rhythmic and affective contrast (at least in its exposition) and more with formal clarity: a new piano theme in the pastoral mode coincides with the arrival in the dominant, and the recapitulation encompasses a full-scale recapitulation of the opening period. The six dances that follow both of these movements offer an engaging mixture of the old and the new. Telemann labels them “Scherzo” and provides supplementary tempo or expression markings. In 50:22, the rondeau-form scherzo 1 (“Gagliardement”) is filled with affective contrasts of harmony and dynamic level, particularly at the sudden, empfindsam shift to the subdominant to start the first episode (Example 1.17). Scherzos 2–4 are, as Telemann’s note on the score observes, a trio of alternating “Danze Poloniche” performed in the order 2–3– 2–4–2. These invoke both the seventeenth-century Tanz-Nachtanz and French

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 59 example 1.16. Divertimento in A major for strings and continuo, 50:22/i, mm. 1–16 Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

                                

Presto

    

         

                                                  

7



            

    

                       

                                                                 12



                                                                   15



60 The Overture-Suites example 1.17. Divertimento in A major for strings and continuo, 50:22/ii, mm. 1–12 Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

   38     38   38   3   8 

Gagliardemente

       

    

           

    

                           p                          p                       p p                   7



[ ]

[ ]

                                           

double traditions by presenting three different versions of the same dance: scherzo 3 is a triple-meter version or proportio of scherzo 2, and scherzo 4 (“Pol[nische] Sarras”) is a variation of scherzo 3.98 The work concludes with a forlana (scherzo 5) alternating with a duple-meter trio (scherzo 6). Unusual dance pairings are also found in 50:23, where scherzos 1 and 2 are alternating menuets, the first originally in “Tempo di Minuetto Tedesca” and the second in “Tempo di Minuetto Francese.” These indications were crossed out, however, and replaced by “Vivace” and “Moderato.” Hence the “German” menuet is to played faster than the “French” one, though little appears to separate the two stylistically. In scherzo 4, alternating with the bourrée-like scherzo 3, the bass line is divided to allow a tenor-register duet between the second violins/violas and “Violoncelli.” Before concluding with the jesting scherzo 6 (“Arlechinoso”; originally “Giocoso”), Telemann again glances toward the past in scherzo 5, a “Salta[rello]” (according to the cancelled original title) with the compound meter and dotted rhythms characteristic of the dance. We turn finally to another late orchestral work surviving in a composing score, the “Concert à 9 Parties,” 50:1, with the singularly eccentric instrumentation of flute (“ordinary, or that at the octave [i.e. piccolo], or the two combined”), alto chalumeau, oboe, two violins almost entirely in unison, viola, two concertante

One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 61

contrabasses, and continuo.99 The work is in fact a three-movement symphony, as indicated by the original title that Telemann crossed out before he began composing: “Grillen-Symphonie in the Italian, French, English, Scottish, and Polish styles.” Although this title was rejected, along with the jumble of national idioms, it helps explain the music’s curiously tongue-in-cheek style (Grillen, as used in this sense, are whims). Preceding the symphony in the manuscript is Telemann’s composing score of the cantata Der May, TVWV 20:40, a setting of Karl Wilhelm Ramler’s Der May: Eine musicalische Idyll, first published in 1758. Thus the cantata and symphony may be dated to between 1758 and 1766, when the Hamburg Unterhaltungen noted that “[Telemann’s] cantata Der May must already be known to our readers.”100 In the work’s first movement, a ritornello–da capo form, the three winds and double basses are treated as soloists on equal terms, quickly trading motives back and forth. Such rapid-fire exchanges between the darkest and brightest voices of the orchestra, in particular the scampering figures of the double basses, brings to mind a similar comedic effect in the scherzo to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (Example 1.18). The second movement’s title, “Tändelnd” (dallying or trifling), assures us that the disturbingly abrupt contrasts of dynamic level and descending chromatic lines are not to be taken too seriously. Apart from the punctuating wind chords, the scoring here is for orchestral string trio (the double basses have no independent lines). The finale returns us to concertante writing in a throughcomposed “trio” for the three winds and double basses; surrounding this is a binary dance in the rustic mode, the second half of which emphasizes the music’s uncouthness by commencing in the subdominant just after a modulation to the dominant. Whether or not Telemann intended this work to satirize the symphony of the 1750s and 1760s (in chapter 8 we shall find him criticizing the “rage of ordinary symphonies”), it is clear that his sense of humor remained intact as he entered his eighties. With this “concert” and the roughly contemporary suites and divertimenti at Berlin, we reach the end of a six-decade arc spanning almost the entirety of Telemann’s career. Our survey of his overture-suites composed between 1700 and 1765 has revealed an extraordinary diversity of approaches to the genre. Stylistically, this large repertory reflects everything from the Lullian overture and suite of the late seventeenth century, to the Vivaldian solo concerto of the early eighteenth century, to the north German symphony of the mid-eighteenth century. Yet no matter what their reference point, Telemann’s overture-suites invariably bear the stamp of originality. What is more, they appear to have played an important role in transforming the genre from a compilation of brief theatrical pieces into concert music of greater dimensions and richer scoring. Certainly no

62 The Overture-Suites example 1.18. “Concert à 9 Parties” for flute and/or piccolo, oboe, chalumeau, 2 violins, viola, 2 concertante contrabasses, and continuo, 50:1/i, mm. 36–41

 c   c 

                Oboe       Chalumeau  c               c        Contrabass 1       c       Contrabass 2        c        Violins 1 and 2                Viola  c  c          Continuo   36

Flute and/or Piccolo



                                                               



   

                                                                                                                         38



One Acquiring a Mixed Taste 63

                                                        40









           

    



        

      

                                                                

other composer did so much to make the overture-suite an important locus of the German mixed taste. The rigor with which Telemann incorporated concerto elements into such pieces, in particular, is characteristic of his abiding interest in generic amalgamation; we shall see him engaging in similar blending with the Sonate auf Concertenart in chapter 6. Equally characteristic is his propensity to critique convention more broadly in the service of expanding the music’s expressive range. Such critiques often reveal much about both music and composer, as when Telemann seems to comment upon the past’s relationship to the present in his latest overture-suites. Textless narratives were especially well suited to the genre, and the composer exploited this potential more fully than any of his contemporaries. It is to these stories—both musical and otherwise—that we now turn.

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Chapter 2 Telemann’s Mimetic Art The Characteristic Overture-Suites

In the preface to the libretto for his 1727 Hamburg opera Calypso,TVWV 21:19, a work described as “something of an attempt at the improvement of theatrical music in German, according to the Italian model,” Telemann reflected on music’s expressive power to provoke pleasure in the listener: The greatest pleasure one takes in vocal music results from the unity of ideas stemming simultaneously from words and sounds. If these ideas are separated, half of the effect is lost; and if they are inconsistently joined together, the overall essence is incomplete. It is, furthermore, more than probable that the pleasure we feel from the most moving sounds of instrumental music arises in part from certain ideas that we attach to the same, from emotion, and from our imagination, through which these sounds are expressed. And if one wished to claim, for the sake of argument, that opera arias would be heard with pleasure even if we could not understand the words at all, it is impossible that recitative, which is completely incapable of arousing such ideas, could achieve such plaisir, for it is, strictly speaking, more a speaking in musical tones than singing.1

Despite his invocation of Italian opera, the composer reveals himself here as a sympathizer with French rationalist thought. For in offering that music, in order to please, must have an intelligible meaning deriving from a text, he provides an early German parallel to the neoclassic aesthetic of musical expression articulated by such writers as Jean-Baptiste Du Bos (Réflexions critiques sur la poësie et sur la peinture, 1719) and Charles Batteux (Les beaux arts réduits à un même principe, 1746).2 Although it would seem that, for Telemann, one’s pleasurable response to instrumental music occurs outside of any mimetic framework—he makes no reference to the imitation of nature through tone painting, for example—his implication is that such music imitates one’s own expression of passion, or emotion. The “certain ideas that we attach” to such music, moreover, may be understood as elucidating texts, whether they are silent interpretations, a dramatic 65

66 The Overture-Suites

context, or programmatic titles. Further, in compartmentalizing music’s effects on the listener, Telemann falls in line with the main aesthetic trends of the eighteenth century. Compare his notion of pleasure to Jean Pierre de Crousaz’s similar definition of beauty (Traité du beau, 1715) as “the relation between objects, or the feelings they arouse, and our ideas,” or to Thomas Twining’s reduction of music’s power (Two Dissertations, on Poetical, and Musical, Imitation, 1789) “to three distinct effects;—upon the ear, the passions, and the imagination: in other words, it may be considered as simply delighting the sense, as raising emotions, or as raising ideas.”3 But there are limits to Telemann’s rationalism: he adopts an emotionalist stance in recognizing the sensual pleasure of arias with unintelligible texts (recitative, lacking a singing quality or melody to serve as a vehicle for natural expression, would be meaningless without its verbal sense), and in implying that vocal and instrumental music have an equivalent expressive value.4 Indeed, Telemann’s observation that instrumental music both stimulates and derives from the intellect, emotions, and imagination foreshadows Johann Mattheson’s simpler formulation that “since instrumental music is nothing other than a ‘tone-language’ or ‘soundspeech,’ its real intention must be to arouse a certain emotion.”5 Certainly Telemann’s contemporaries celebrated his music for its emotional effect: in 1728 two anonymous Hamburg musicians observed that “Handel [composes] music” but Telemann composes “music and affects.”6 Here it is worth pausing to consider a likely catalyst in the formation of Telemann’s views on expressivity in instrumental music: Johann Kuhnau’s Musicalische Vorstellung einiger Biblischer Historien, six multimovement keyboard sonatas depicting stories in the Old Testament. This collection was published in Leipzig in 1700, just a year before the arrival there of the twenty-year-old Telemann, whose close contact with Kuhnau and his music surely extended to the so-called biblical sonatas.7 Each work is preceded by a title, a substantial commentary on the story, and a sentence-long program for every movement; in the musical notation, both title and program are given in Italian, with phrases of the latter sometimes appearing beside specific passages in the manner of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Kuhnau’s imaginative and occasionally brilliant music encompasses a broad range of styles and affects, and in this sense it cannot have failed to impress the young Telemann. Of particular interest to us here is the collection’s preface, in which the composer expounds at some length on the effect of words on music’s intelligibility. After admitting that many movements in his sonatas “would seem questionable to some people if the words were not there to guide them as to my intentions,” he observes that vocal music has a particularly strong effect on listeners “because the words

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 67

play a great or even the principal part in moving them.”8 Untexted music, however, does have some representational potential: In my opinion, one first introduces a certain affect, or tries to draw the listener himself into the intended affect. Next, additional material derived from nature or art will be presented. This last may be achieved in such a way that the listener soon perceives the composer’s intention, even though it was not indicated by words, for example when one wishes to imitate the song of birds, such as that of the cuckoo and nightingale, or the ringing of bells, the cannon’s bang, or similarly one instrument on another, such as the trumpets or kettle-drums on the keyboard. Or else one aims at an analogy and arranges the musical materials in such a way that they may be compared with the imagined subject matter by the mediation of some third concept. Here words are indeed necessary if the sounding harmony is not to fare at least as poorly as mutes, whose language can be understood only by extremely few.9

Instrumental music, then, cannot narrate beyond evocations of other untexted sounds; it remains mute without an explicating text. After explaining how he has musically represented Goliath’s snorting and thumping, the Philistines’ flight, Jacob’s mixed emotions, and Gideon’s misgivings, Kuhnau again engages in special pleading when he requests from his audience a “sympathetic interpretation. . . . For just as words occasionally need further interpretation, even though they are, after all, the most apt means by which a speaker can make others understand his thoughts, so the musician will be pardoned if he explains in words the dim concept conveyed to another.”10 Kuhnau did in fact provide a second layer of textual explication for Sonata 4, the program of which references (but does not fully quote) two verses from the chorale “Ach Herr mich armen Sünder” (O Lord, This Poor Sinner). He must have judged that quoting the chorale melody in the sonata’s first two movements would be insufficient to convey his intentions; one also needed to be reminded of the accompanying words. Yet in Sonata 1 he seems to have assumed that listeners would recognize the chorale melody “Aus Tiefer Noth” (Out of Deep Need) and connect it, without any verbal prompting, to “the trembling of the Israelites, and their prayer to God” at the sight of Goliath. Despite the considerable thought Kuhnau gave to the musical exegesis of these biblical stories, he was not above poking fun at his project. The year 1700 also saw the publication of his satirical novel Der musicalische Quack-Salber (The Musical Quack), a book that Telemann is likely to have known. In one scene, the charlatan Caraffa claims to have composed an “Emotions Sonata” depicting one man’s joy, sadness, repugnance, rage, pleasure, gravity, and earnestness. He boasts that when performing the piece on violin, beautiful and intelligent women

68 The Overture-Suites

nearly dance for joy, twitch with anger, and, at the appearance of “stirring and graceful triplets” depicting “pleasure at pleasant parties,” kiss him amorously as he plays.11 By comically exaggerating the affective power of textless music in this scene, Kuhnau reinforces his point about instrumental music’s narrative limitations. Regardless of whether Telemann regarded Kuhnau’s biblical sonatas as a positive or negative example, he too ventured into the field of what eighteenthcentury writers called “characteristic” music.12 Indeed, his own aesthetic stance toward musical expression is consonant with his many overture-suites and suite movements that imitate or represent something extramusical. Telemann’s enthusiasm for musical mimesis in the overture-suite makes him something of a curiosity among his German contemporaries, for whereas composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Friedrich Fasch freely mixed social dance types (for example, the branle, courante, and menuet) with those associated more with the theater (sarabande, gigue, canarie, chaconne, passacaille, and “airs” and rondeaus evocative of opera and ballet), they wrote relatively few characteristic movements.13 Titles such as “Les Poëtes, “Les Païsans,” “Balet pour les Amazones” (Muffat, Florilegium secundum, 1698), “Air La Rejouissance,” “Air La Plainte,” “Air Le Sommeil” (Erlebach, Six ouvertures, 1693), “Air des Combattans” (J. C. F. Fischer, Le journal du printems, 1695), “Les Vents,” “Les Cavalliers & Dames,” and “Entrée de Pallas, Junon & Venus” (Kusser, Apollon enjoüé, 1700) became less common after 1700 as the overture-suite increasingly moved toward concert music and away from its theatrical origins. (Muffat’s Florilegium secundum suites originated as ballet music, and there is evidence that at least some of Kusser’s Apollon enjoüé goes back to the theater as well.)14 Telemann’s characteristic overture-suites not only run counter to this tendency, but more fully realize the genre’s mimetic potential than anything written previously. In their expression of an unprecedentedly broad range of subjects, they adumbrate the characteristic symphony of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. And to a greater extent than any of Telemann’s other instrumental works, they reveal him as a man of the theater, avid reader, humorist, and keen observer of the physical and political world.

Characteristic Titles As is the case with Vivaldi’s concertos and Haydn’s symphonies, many of Telemann’s most popular overture-suites bear titles characterizing the entire work. And

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 69

as with Haydn’s symphonies, few of these sobriquets appear to have stemmed from the composer himself. Of the eighteen characteristic suites listed in Table 2.1, only 55:D22 survives in Telemann’s own hand.15 The seven titles in the hand of the unidentified Darmstadt Copyist E, including that of the probably inauthentic suite La Putain, may almost certainly be attributed to scribal whim: earlier Darmstadt sources for 55:C5, D5, D13, and G4 in other copying hands lack characteristic titles altogether, and only the titles for 55:e8 and G4 make any discernible reference to the suites’ contents.16 In the cases of 55:C3, Es3, F11, and G2, only some of the extant sources bear titles, and it is clear that the latter two works received their epithets after the fact of copying: George Christoph Balch’s theatrically suggestive title for 55:F11 (can the work really have been danced to at Dresden?) was added to a manuscript apparently sent by Telemann to Dresden from Hamburg, and Johann Georg Pisendel added the words “La Bizarre” to a manuscript of 55:G2 copied by another Dresden court scribe. As for the C-major suite, the fact that the sources are in such wide disagreement over its title (“water

Table 2.1 Characteristic titles to Telemann’s overture-suites TWV 55:

Title(s)

Copying hand(s)

C3

Wasser-Ouverture; Ouverture à 7, qui réprésente L’eau avec ses divinités et le commerce de la mere; Hamburger Ebb und Fluht; Musica maritima La Bouffonne La Galante La Gaillarde Ouverture, jointes d’une suite tragi-comique La Lyra L’Omphale Ouverture à la pastorelle Ouverture à la burlesque Ouverture en Pantomie La Bizarre Ouverture des nations ancien[ne]s et modernes La Querelleuse Ouverture burlesque de Quixotte; Don Quixote Ouverture burlesque; Quixotte Ouverture avec la suite burlesque La Putain La Changeante Ouverture burlesque

Various

C5 D5 D13 D22 Es3 e8 F7 F10 F11 G2 G4 G8 G10 G12 Anh. G1 g2 B8

Darmstadt Copyist E Darmstadt Copyist E Darmstadt Copyist E Telemann Unidentified Darmstadt Copyist E J. S. Endler (Darmstadt) J. S. Endler (Darmstadt) G. S. Balch (Dresden) J. G. Pisendel (Dresden) Darmstadt Copyist E Darmstadt Copyist E Various J. S. Endler (Darmstadt) Darmstadt Copyist E J. S. Endler (Darmstadt) Unidentified

70 The Overture-Suites

overture”; “overture in 7 parts, which represents the water with its divinities and sea commerce”; “Hamburg tides” or “Hamburg ebb and flow”; “maritime music”) suggests that none of them in particular was sanctioned by Telemann.17 This work and the Ouverture burlesque de Quixotte appear to have been the most widely traveled overture-suites Telemann left unpublished: both are transmitted in at least eight eighteenth-century manuscripts, a very high number when one considers that most such works owe their survival to only one or two sources. The advertisement of these suites by characteristic titles in the 1765 Breitkopf thematic catalog, and lost sources at The Hague, Zerbst, and perhaps Ulm further testify to their widespread and long-lived popularity.18 Whether or not their titles are authentic, a number of the overture-suites are aptly named. As an occasional work with aquatic movement titles, 55:C3 has earned the right to be known as Telemann’s “water music.” The copyist who gave 55:Es3 its title obviously did so with reference to the movement “La Vielle,” which evokes the hurdy-gurdy. The qualifier in the title to 55:F7 no doubt describes the work’s pastoral overture, discussed in the previous chapter. La Changeante (55:g2) probably refers to the fact that each movement is in a different key (G minor–G major–B minor–E minor/E major–C major–F major–B-flat major– G minor), and that the third section of the overture is in G major rather than G minor. This work is one of only four Telemann overture-suites to depart from the overall tonic or prevailing mode for more than a movement or two (the others are 55:D21, A7 and B6). Pisendel’s title for 55:G2 applies to a parodistic overture, just as the “burlesque” titles (55:F10, G10, G12, and B8) allude to the music’s comical, satirical, or theatrical qualities. Two of these last suites, 55:G10 and B8, take as their respective subjects Cervantes’s satirical novel Don Quijote and the Italian commedia dell’arte. In both 55:F10 and G12, the unusual brevity and consecutive numbering of six “Airs” following the overture suggest a balletic origin for the music.19 All four “burlesque” titles have some claim to being authentic, given that Telemann used similar formulations for suites in other scorings. For example, in the index to his journal Der getreue Music-Meister, he identifies the keyboard suite 32:2 as an “Ouverture burlesque” and the characteristic violin duet 40:108 as an “Intrada, nebst burlesquer Suite.” The “overture with suite” formulation in the title to 55:G12 (“Ouverture avec la Suite burlesque”), found elsewhere among Telemann’s works, may be a further indicator of its authenticity. These and a few other cases aside, however, it appears that Telemann usually refrained from giving his overture-suites characteristic titles. His disinclination to do so on the composing scores of 50:21 and 55:B11, both consisting almost entirely of characteristic movements linked by a narrative or common theme, speaks for

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 71

itself in this regard, as does his generic title “Introduzzione, à tré” for an overturesuite in trio scoring that furnishes character portraits of historical and mythological women (42:C1, from Der getreue Music-Meister). When Telemann did christen overture-suites or individual movements with characteristic titles, he seems generally to have given more thought as to the music’s expressive content than, for example, some of the French clavecinistes or Georg Muffat, who admitted naming the overture-suites of his Florilegium primum (1695) “according to a state of mind.”20 This much is indicated by the comparatively low count of movements with relatively unevocative titles such as those in 55:C1 (“La Complaisance,” “L’Indignation”), e7 (“Le Contentement “), and B3 (“La Discrétion,” “La Grimace,” “La Doute”), and by Telemann’s careful sketching out of the movements’ titles and order in the autograph scores to 50:21, 55:D22, and 55:B11. In this light, we might suppose that Telemann was in sympathy with the sentiments of German writers such as Ernst Gottlieb Baron, who decried the feckless naming of movements in French instrumental music.21 That German composers of overturesuites were often guilty of the same crime is attested by Scheibe: If a composer affixes his suites [i.e., dances] to a preceding Ouverture, he must in each case express the names placed over them so that they receive no other shape [Gestalt] or arrangement than that befitting their character. Nothing is more fatuous than insipid composers giving their movements names only when they have already finished them, without concerning themselves seriously with their nature and qualities. Such a bungler doesn’t know what he wishes to do. And how often has it happened that a movement expressing nothing at all is given a name? A composer must already know what he wants to compose before he puts his pen to paper. Whoever wishes to start reflecting upon what his movements really could be after their completion commits such foolishness that he certainly deserves to be mocked. I have seen more than one such hero go so far as to ask his copyist how he should name the so-called suites in his wretched Ouverturen.What splendid insight into the nature of musical works must these simpletons not possess?22

In France, characteristic titles were apt to be modified or added long after the music had been composed. Three ensemble sonatas written by François Couperin around 1692 changed identities when published in 1726: “La Pucelle” became “La Françoise,” “La Visionnaire” became “L’Espagnole,” and “L’Astrée” became “La Piemontoise.” In 1734 Jean François Dandrieu updated older, untitled dances by republishing them with titles: a gavotte was christened “La Galante,” and a sarabande was now “La Constante.”23 Nor were Italian composers exempt from adopting a cavalier attitude toward the titling of their works. Vivaldi, for

72 The Overture-Suites

one, seems on occasion to have added a characteristic title to a “plain” concerto after the music was partly or even fully notated.24 Of course, copyists might also take it upon themselves to add or change characteristic movement titles without the composer’s assent, as was apparently the case at Darmstadt. Instructive in this respect is Telemann’s overture-suite, 55:a7, a G-minor lute arrangement of which (39:2) replaces the titles “Rejouissance” and “Harlequinade” with “Effronterie” and “Paysans” (“Pollonisse” in the keyboard arrangement, 36:49). Thus one person’s rejoicing becomes another’s effrontery, and buffoons, peasants, and Poles are set dancing to the same tune. Cases such as this one remind us that a composer’s intentions can be impossible to reconstruct once other hands have intervened in the music’s transmission.

Staging the Overture-Suite It is a truism that, arrangements of balletic and operatic music by Lully, Campra, Muffat, and a few other composers excepted, the overture-suite was by definition music for playing and listening rather than for dancing. For most eighteenth-century composers, such a statement requires little or no qualification. But in Telemann’s case, it is far from self-evident that the stylized dances in his suites “were not conceived of as dance music, but must be understood [within the context] of a developing middle-class musical culture as autonomous music for the public concert hall,” or that “the world of drama, with its passionate, enigmatic fluctuations, is foreign to the orchestral suite.”25 Although there can be little doubt that the majority of Telemann’s overture-suites were written as courtly Tafelmusiken or as concert music for various private and public occasions, the possible theatrical origins of others should not be discounted (the burlesque suites 55:F10 and G12 have already been mentioned, as has 55:D4 in the previous chapter). For example, 55:B6 gives every indication of being an arrangement, probably not by the composer, of arias from a vocal work.26 Several individual suite movements may also derive from theatrical scores. The lengthy and exceptionally fine chaconne of 55:f1 is the only movement in the suite to add recorders to the string ensemble, and this scoring, together with the title given to the work in its only source (“Ouverture / à / 2. Violons / Taille / & / La Chaconne / â / 2 Flutes / avec / Basse . . .”), suggests that the chaconne did not originally belong to the suite. Might it have originated as part of a theatrical work? The allemande of the same suite and the concluding “Mercure” of 55:B3 are all of twelve measures long, placing them

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 73

among the shortest movements in Telemann’s overture-suites.27 Were they conceived as music to accompany brief stage action? In the cases of three overture-suites, an operatic connection is demonstrable: three or more movements of L’Omphale, 55:e8 (“Bourrée,” “Les Jeux,” and “Les Magiciens”), were drawn from the lost Omphale, TVWV 21:14 (Hamburg, 1724);28 the first movement of the Ouverture des nations anciennes et modernes, 55:G4, served as the overture to Der geduldige Socrates, TVWV 21:9 (Hamburg, 1721); and the overture of 55:D10 introduced Sieg der Schönheit, TVWV 21:10 (Hamburg, 1722; as Gensericus, Brunswick, 1725 and 1732). It stands to reason, in view of how much of Telemann’s operatic output has been lost, that other overtures and dances intended for the stage live on, so far unidentified, among his overturesuites. The likelihood of such survivals is underscored by the entrées in Telemann’s “scherzhaftes Singe-Spiele” Der neumodische Liebhaber Damon, TVWV 21:8 (Hamburg, 1724; as Die Satyren in Arcadien, Leipzig, 1719), from which one could fashion a fairly typical suite including an entrée grave, sarabande, gavotte, gigue, passacaille, loure, and chaconne. Some overture-suites, of course, may preserve dances from other types of theatrical or social events. Where, indeed, is the ballet music that Telemann must have composed for various occasions during his long career? This question reminds us that Telemann found himself in close proximity to many of Germany’s most prominent dancing masters during the first decade of his career. Resident in Leipzig during the composer’s years at the university were Johann Pasch (1653–1710), Pantaleon Hebenstreit (1667–1750), Samuel Rudolph Behr (b. 1670), and Gottfried Taubert (b. 1679). Telemann could not easily have remained ignorant of their activities, nor could they of his. Behr is known to have choreographed divertissements for productions at the Leipzig Opera,29 and Hebenstreit was later to become Telemann’s colleague at the Eisenach court, where the two struck up a long-lasting friendship. Additionally, the Flemish violinist and dancing master Jean-Baptiste Volumier (c. 1670–1728) must have become known to Telemann during the young composer’s four trips to Berlin between 1702 and 1706; the two nearly became colleagues at Dresden in 1711 and would have renewed their acquaintance at the court in 1719. It is also worth noting that the dance treatises of Pasch, Behr, and Taubert were published in Leipzig and Frankfurt (1703–17) while Telemann lived in these cities. Might Telemann have provided music for some of Pasch’s weekly balls in Leipzig, with their comic pantomimes?30 Could Behr have choreographed the divertissements in Telemann’s Leipzig operas? To what extent did Hebenstreit and Telemann collaborate on ballets at Eisenach? And did Telemann provide ballet music to the

74 The Overture-Suites

Darmstadt and Dresden courts, where, as Louis Bonin observed in 1712, Landgrave Ernst Ludwig and Elector Friedrich August I were well practiced in the art of French dancing?31 One of Telemann’s ballet scores from the 1710s has in fact survived as the Musicalisch-Chorégraphisches Hochzeit-Divertissement, TVWV 11:21, a pamphlet engraved in Frankfurt by Benjamin Kenckel around 1718.32 In this wedding divertissement attributed to “G. P. T.,” vocal soloists and a chorus sing texts, perhaps by Telemann, to a French overture and ensuing suite of brief binary dances (a sarabande, menuet, rigaudon, gigue, loure, bourrée, passepied, and chaconne). Following the overture, in which a trio of soloists alternates with the chorus during the second section, each of the suite movements is presented according to the following sequence: recitative–dance (solo voice, first poetic stanza)–dance (chorus, first or second poetic stanza). The concluding chaconne is sung by the chorus alone. Although dancing is mentioned only in the pamphlet’s title, one presumes that each movement of the suite was both danced to and sung. Certainly the German treatises mentioned above make it clear that dancing played a significant role in wedding celebrations of the time. We are fortunate, in any case, that the pamphlet tells us as much as it does about the divertissement’s first performance, for it seems to have been intended as little more than a souvenir of the event, to be appreciated in private settings for its social cachet. The pamphlet’s ephemeral nature, along with economic considerations, probably explains why the dances are printed in only two parts (melody and unfigured bass) and no music is given for the overture, chaconne, and recitatives. But the complete poetic text would have been essential both as a guide to the performance and a means of conveying the event’s essence to those who had not attended. And because the pamphlet was apparently not designed for consumption by the wider public, there would have been little need for a formal title page listing the composer and publisher.33 Returning to Telemann’s overture-suites, three may be singled out for their overtly theatrical nature. These are all constructed from dances that Taubert would no doubt place under the rubric “crotesque” or “comique,” meaning burlesque, silly, bizarre, extravagant, fantastic, capricious, or pleasantly ridiculous.34 The Ouverture burlesque 55:B8 is populated with stock character types from the commedia dell’arte: Scaramouche, Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot, and Mezzetino; only a pair of menuets offers a respite from the buffoonery.35 One measure of the enduring popularity of these and other burlesque characters on the stages of Germany, Italy, and France is their presence in a full quarter of the dances Gregorio Lambranzi illustrates and describes in his Neue und Curieuse Theatralische TantzSchul of 1716.36 None of Telemann’s dances is in the noble style, and indeed, as Lambranzi notes:

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 75 The lively and burlesque types . . . such as Scaramouch, Harlequin and the like, must be expressed in the eccentric style of dancing; and with, of course, ridiculous and comic positions suited to the peculiar characteristics of each. Hence it would be quite out of place for a Scaramouch, Harlequin, or Purricinello to dance a Menuet, Courante, Sarabande, or Entrée, since each has his own droll and quaint pas.Thus Scaramouch dances his long, unformed, and heavy imitations such as the pas de scaramouche. . . . For [such characters] no pas, figure, or costume can be used other than that usually employed on the Italian stage; nevertheless each dancer should be allowed full play to his powers of invention.37

The exaggeratedly large steps of the pas de Scaramouche, vividly illustrated by Lambranzi and described by Behr as “very long and sprawling,”38 are reflected in Telemann’s dance by a half note–quarter note rhythmic pattern in 6/4, apparently his preferred method of representing lumbering or limping motion (as in “Les Cyclopes” of 55:e3, “Le Galope de Rosinante” of 55:G10, and “Les Boiteux” of 55:B5).39 For Columbine, Telemann frivolously breaks up a two-measure phrase between first and second violins, a visual joke that could easily be amplified by the physical movements of dancers. Pierrot’s music is theatrical insofar as it seems to represent ridiculous physical motion and general foolishness though incongruous pauses, rhythmic displacements, echo effects, and abrupt contrasts of texture, dynamic level, and register. “Mezzetin en turc” is a rustic dance in ABA form, with local “Turkish” color supplied via incessant pedal tones, repetitive melodic and rhythmic figures, ornamental slides, a “Lydian” sharped fourth, and a “Mixolydian” flatted seventh (Example 2.1). Also alluding to a popular ballet subject are two characteristic works representing various nations, the Ouverture des nations anciennes et modernes, 55:G4, and the untitled 55:B5. Their conceptions are reminiscent of nothing so much as Muffat’s Florilegium secundum suite Nobilis Juventus (Noble Youth), which includes dances for characters from Spain (entrée), Holland (air), England (gigue), Italy (gavotte), and France (menuet). As we learn from the index to the Florilegium secundum, inspiration for Nobilis Juventus was “taken from the manner and fashion of various peoples; composed and danced in the year 1691.” Muffat’s “parade of nations,” in turn, recalls an earlier ballet by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer in which five gavottes illustrate the Germans, Styrians, English, Bavarians, and French. It also brings to mind Lully’s comédie-ballet Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), with its act 4 intermède consisting of a “Turkish ceremony” and act 5 “ballet des nations” with entrées for Spaniards, Italians, and French. Another well-known French example, postdating Muffat’s ballet/suite but likely familiar to Telemann, is André Campra’s opéra-ballet L’Europe galante (1697), in which four entrées present portraits of love in France, Spain, Italy, and Turkey. Additionally, several seventeenth-century

76 The Overture-Suites example 2.1. Suite in B-flat for strings and continuo, 55:B8/vii, mm. 11–19 11

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

  c    c    c    c 

              



  

    

 

   

        

    





   

                             16



           





   

 

 

    

        

Venetian operas include balli portraying peoples from the four corners of the world: L’incostanza trionfante, overo Il Theseo (1658, music by Pietro Andrea Ziani), Il Dario ravivato (1675, composer unknown), and Primislao primo rè di Boemia (1698, music by Tomaso Albinoni).40 Theatrical representations of foreign peoples remained popular in Germany during the early eighteenth century, at least to judge from published dance treatises: Lambranzi illustrated dances for Roman, Venetian, Swiss, Dutch, English, Turkish, African, and Gypsy characters; Behr described a dance for a Muscovite; and Bonin observed that “there are entrées for all kinds of nations—for example, for the four corners of the world or for other diverse peoples—that involve an act, scene, or an entire opera. One may also perform them in a chamber or other location, as circumstances dictate.”41 Some German court festivals also featured representations of foreign peoples, such as that held during carnival 1697 at the Dresden court, where the pageant included processions of masked Mongols, Romans, Germans, Indians, Portuguese, Poles, Swiss, and Moors. The state visit to the Dresden court of King Frederik IV of Denmark in May and June 1709 inspired, among many other entertainments, a procession and “Carrousel of the Four Nations of the World” (Europe, Asia, Africa, and America).42 Telemann’s “nations” suites could hardly be more theatrical in spirit, whether or not they originated as music for ballets, operatic divertissements, or special oc-

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 77

casions.43 Following their overtures, the suites share an organizing principle: three or four movements illustrating foreign peoples are framed by a pair of menuets and a concluding characteristic dance lacking national associations. In 55:G4, the last dance is for “Les vieilles femmes” (the old women); in 55:B5, “Les Boiteux” (the lame ones) and “Les Cour[r]eurs” (the runners) form a comic alternativement pair. The B-flat suite offers the more musically vivid representations of the two. “Les Turcs” is characterized by the same rustic effects as “Mezzetin en turc,” though here the increased rhythmic variety is more suggestive of physical motion. Each half of “Les Suisses” commences with a slowed-down version (Grave) of the ensuing two measures, inviting the listener to imagine some kind of pantomimic movement (perhaps a representation of drunkenness, since French farces of the time often portray Swiss characters as intoxicated). “Les Moscovites” is a Slavic sonnerie in which a three-note ostinato (1ˆ–2ˆ–3ˆ), apparently representing the Kremlin bells, supports a relentlessly syncopated melody featuring the sharped fourth and flatted seventh.44 And “Les Portugais,” in the relative minor, is a compound movement in which a sarabande-like dance (Grave) gives way to one resembling a bourrée or rigaudon (Viste). The fast section of the suite’s overture might also be considered comically theatrical, from the halting opening of its gigue-like subject (compare the similar, but darker, effect in 55:fis1; Example 1.8) to the odd three-against-four rhythm of its episodes. To the theatrical trope of foreign music and dance the Ouverture des nations anciennes et modernes adds an aesthetic one: it enacts the querelle over the relative merits of the French/ancient and Italian/modern styles that had raged in French writings on music since shortly after the death of Lully. Thus “Les Allemands” (a pair of marches), “Les Suédois” (a sarabande and a bourrée), and “Les Danois” (two airs) all follow an ancienne dance with a moderne one. The ancient world is one in which rhythms are dotted—one of the most common markers of the French style—and tempos slow or moderate, a monochromatic depiction of yesteryear that brings to mind the Hollywood film cliché of representing the recent past through black-and-white images. For Telemann, and perhaps for a dancing-master collaborator, the past was not only a foreign country, but also the object of faded memories musically and bodily expressed through jerky, slow-motion movements. The colorful modern world, by contrast, features faster tempos and more varied rhythms, including syncopated figures for the Swedes and Italianate passagework for the Danes. Upbeat and uptempo, it is the modern world that seems victorious in this round of the querelle. Yet there is no attempt here or in the ancient dances at color of the localized sort, none of the “barbaric” effects of “Mezzetin en turc,” “Les Turcs,” and “Les Moscovites”; nor does the music exhibit any stylistic or formal oddities in the manner of “Pierrot” or “Les Suisses.”

78 The Overture-Suites

Why, one is tempted to ask, do the Germans (if they are not to be understood as militaristic Prussians) march instead of dance an allemande and the Swedes perform a sarabande and bourrée? To pose such a question is not necessarily to accuse Telemann of arbitrarily affixing national rubrics to his dances, for it may well be that the music was never meant to bear the full expressive burden of its characteristic titles; that the story was intended to spring to life equally through the visual and aural components of ballet. In other words, linking the dances to create larger composite forms that are not so different from those of “Les Portugais” and “Les Boiteux”—“Les Courreurs” may have served musically to underscore sudden dramatic progressions or scene changes through contrasts of tempo, meter, rhythm, and affect. And although it is true that compound movements are occasionally found in overturesuites that one supposes were intended as concert music (see the previous chapter), it is telling that Telemann’s operatic dances exhibit compound forms with particular frequency. For example, the pyramid of leaves and flowers in the first scene of Der neumodische Liebhaber Damon is erected by shepherds and shepherdesses to the accompaniment of a sarabande-gigue pair; the fauns in act 2, scene 12 of the same opera dance a gavotte in alternation with a loure, much like the bourrée-passepied pair from Omphale; and “Les Magiciens” in Omphale perform a dance with two tempo changes. Ironically, the suite’s noncomposite, nonideological conclusion, “Les vieilles femmes,” is also musically the most evocative movement. This may be because the stock burlesque characters to which it alludes offer less visual appeal than exotic national characters; hence the representational burden falls more heavily on the music itself. The image conjured by Telemann’s music is that of two confused old women wandering aimlessly onstage, not unlike those in Figure 2.1, a grotesque tableau from Lambranzi’s treatise. The caption at the bottom of the plate reads: Here two old women enter and dance, half walking, half shaking, as far out on the stage as possible. When they are at the very front they scratch themselves on the belly and behind, spin around, and reverse toward the back of the stage, making the same gestures when they arrive there. This backwards and forwards motion continues until the end of the first air. Meanwhile, a youth comes on the scene, sees the old women, and laughs at them. And when the women’s air has ended, he takes each in turn by the hand and drags them by the arm until his air has been danced two or three times. Note that this dance consists of two airs, the first slow and the second lively or fast.45

Telemann’s old women, as portrayed in Example 2.2, dance a strange gavotte in which the chromatic melodic line, consisting entirely of sighing pairs of quar-

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 79

figure 2.1. Gregorio Lambranzi, Neue und Curieuse Theatralische Tantz-Schul (Nuremberg, 1716), part 1, plate 15

80 The Overture-Suites example 2.2. Suite in G major for strings and continuo, 55:G4/vi, mm. 1–12 Violin 1 Violin 2

Viola

Continuo



Les vieilles femmes

   c           c            c           c         



6

§

          6



§

6 b

                      

#

¿

b

#

   

6

b

                                               

9

#

¿

b

           

                    

6

#

4 2

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  

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  

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#

                                            6

6 5

6

6

6

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   

6

ter notes, twice descends an octave in the dance’s first half, then alternately rises and falls in the second half. Feigned chromatic canons between the first violin and bass (mm. 8–10 and 20–22) provide a high-burlesque gravitas and lead to passages in which the music loses what little sense of melodic and harmonic direction it possessed before unexpectedly slipping into a cadence (mm. 12–20 and 24–30) and retracing the downward trajectory of the dance’s opening. This is, to be sure, an odd way to end an overture-suite, one far removed from the usual menuet or gigue. And so one wonders if these women were intended as the burlesque conclusion to a theatrical divertissement, rather than the negative climax to a characteristic concert piece.

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 81

If few of Telemann’s other overture-suites are as theatrically oriented as the three works just discussed, many others contain movements whose lineage can be traced directly to the stage: titles such as “Harlequinade,” “Les Scaramouches,” “Plainte,” “Entrée,” “Sommeille,” “La Tempête,” “Combattans,” and “Furies” all refer to stock characters or scenic types. Two movements in particular, the “Sommeille” of 55:C6 and the “Combattans” of 55:B10, are remarkable for the ways they enrich theatrical genre pieces with an array of topical references. The former evokes the slumber scene found in many French operas, ballets, cantatas, and instrumental works. Like many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century examples, Telemann’s sommeil has its musical roots in act 3, scene 4 of Lully’s Atys, where the soporific affect is achieved through a slow tempo, duple meter, the alternation of strings and flûtes (recorders), and slurred pairs of quarter notes in conjunct motion.46 All of these features appear in the suite movement (with three oboes replacing the recorders or flutes), but they are transformed by their combination with lament topics: the slurred pairs of quarters and eighths, more often moving by leap than step, become sighs of longing, even agony; the continuo, when it finally enters following the viola’s bassetto tonic pedal, initiates a chromatically descending tetrachord, the progress of which is momentarily halted by the first oboe’s sobs (mm. 5–10); and the bass’s drooping profile is repeated both locally (in the first oboe’s ornamented sighing figures in mm. 1–4 and in both oboes’ canonic arpeggios in mm. 13–14) and through the tortured descent of the first oboe’s line from a-flat⬙ to g⬘ (mm. 5–18; see Example 2.3). To these devices the movement’s second half adds a diatonic extension of the lament bass to produce a full octave descent (mm. 27–33), over which the strings and oboes exchange pleading E-flats (mm. 31–32). The final sonority, an unharmonized contrabass C, is heartrending in its emptiness. Telemann might just as well have called this movement “Plainte,” but in fact none of his laments so named matches the affective power of this miniature masterpiece. Referencing theatrical battles and musically related to depictions of tempests or the underworld Furies, Telemann’s “Combattans” derives its inspiration ultimately from the operatic skirmishes in Lully’s Cadmus et Hermione (1673), Alceste, ou Le triomphe d’Alcide (1674), and Thésée (1675), and perhaps also from the préramiste storm scenes in tragedies such as Pascal Collasse’s Thétis et Pélée (1689) and, especially, Marin Marais’s Alcyone (1706).47 Balletic battles and representations of the Furies remained popular into the eighteenth century, as witnessed by Behr’s description of a “Balet de Combatant” and a “Balet des Furies.” The former is an elaborate representation of a field battle that should be set to “very lively” (sehr lustig) music executed by trumpets, drums, oboes, and strings; in the latter, the dancers move their feet rapidly to the music, expressing affects such as

82 The Overture-Suites example 2.3. Suite in C major for 3 oboes, strings, and continuo, 55:C6/v, mm. 1–18 Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Oboe 3

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

                                     c                   c                      c       c     Sommeille

                5



  

  c     c     c  



       

      

                                                                      7b

6

7

6

despair, revenge, rage, and cruelty to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning—in effect, an underworld tempête.48 A dance for a Furie also figures in Lambranzi’s dance method.49 In all three scenic types, motion in the form of handto-hand combat, the pursuit and torture of evildoers, inclement weather, or earthquakes is represented through tremolos and rapid note values, sweeping scalar gestures, powerful unisons, and other musical effects calculated to deliver maximum visceral excitement; the style is essentially a late-baroque version of Monteverdi’s stile concitato.

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 83

                                   10











 

              

                       

7 §

                                14





 

 

 

     

         

                                                              

         6 5

9 4

8 3

6 4

5 #



      

§

In overture-suites the protagonists in battle movements are as a rule unnamed: it is up to the listener to imagine who is fighting and to visualize the thrusts and parries. Yet Telemann’s battle in B-flat traverses the genre’s boundaries to reveal the identities of the combatants. The movement is scored, like the suite as a whole, for three oboes, strings, and continuo, and it is evident from the outset that the winds and strings are locked in some sort of struggle. The string writing—a veritable orgy of tremolos, broken-chord figurations, and unison passages—seems parodistically vigorous. After what amounts to a miniature, tonally closed ritor-

84 The Overture-Suites

nello for the strings alone, the oboes enter with a double motto, an unmistakable signifier of the concerto or aria.50 Yet their parts are distinctly un-concerto-like, completely lacking in display writing; they are instead configured as a French wind trio, with the third oboe standing in for the usual bassoon. Indeed, the oboes’ pervasive dotted rhythms and close harmony in parallel sixths seem to caricature the French style as much as the strings’ figuration parodies the Italian style (Example 2.4). Mirroring the competition between national modes of expression is the instrumental opposition of strings and winds: the violin family, increasingly associated during the early eighteenth century with concertos, sonatas, and Italianate music generally, is set against the oboe, a French instrument that retained its Gallic nomenclature (“Hautbois”) in German-speaking lands. What Telemann has done here is set up a battle between the Italian and French styles—not a musical narrative about the vermischter Geschmack or goûts réunis in the manner of François Couperin’s Apothéose . . . de l’incomparable Monsieur de Lully, where an attempt is made to clear common ground for the Corellian and Lullian styles, but one in which the two styles remain immiscible and even steadfastly opposed to each other. Which style “wins”? Though neither seems “slain” during the movement’s course, and no charges, retreats, or other recognizable events occur, it is ritornello form—an Italian structure—that provides the temporal framework for the battle. Thus whether or not one perceives a rapprochement in the joining of winds and strings at the movement’s conclusion (mm. 78–84), the “French” oboes have been forced to fight the battle on the “Italian” strings’ turf. What is more, Telemann has placed this conflict at the center of a meta-narrative about competing national styles. The extraordinary “Plainte” preceding the battle offers an oboe melody full of expressive leaps and sobbing figures, a pulsating string accompaniment, and exquisitely pungent, Bachian harmonies; it is, in fact, a highly emotive Italian adagio. The paired passepieds concluding the suite are of course French and delightfully highlight the rhythmic ambiguity (hemiolas expressed as metrical shifts between 3/8 and 3/4) that for Telemann constituted an important characteristic of the dance. In this longer story line, then, the “Combattans” functions as the flashpoint in yet another stylistic querelle. And if the Italian style is ascendant here, it is the French style that is allowed the final word through the concluding passepieds.

The Civic Water Music Among the best-known of Telemann’s characteristic suites is the Wasser-Ouverture, 55:C3, which summons forth a panoply of maritime deities to celebrate Hamburg’s status as an economically prosperous port city on the Elbe River. It is also one of few instrumental works by the composer for which the original perform-

example 2.4. Suite in B-flat for 3 oboes, strings, and continuo, 55:B10/viii, mm. 5–17

  43   43   43

5

Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Oboe 3

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola Bassoon and Continuo

        

8



 



 

                    12











  43               43             3               4   43            

        

                  



















                                      



           

                                                     

                                 

                

86 The Overture-Suites

ance context is known: the centennial celebration on 6 April 1723 of the Hamburg Admiralty, an organization that oversaw all naval concerns of the city-state, including the protection of its merchant vessels from pirates. On this occasion the suite served as an introduction to the serenata Unschätzbarer Vorwurf erkenntlicher Sinnen, TVWV 24:1.51 An eyewitness account of the jubilee festivities conveys something of the conviviality surrounding the performances of Telemann’s music: The large hall of the Niederbaumhaus was beautifully decorated, a dinner well prepared, a stage erected and hung with tapestries for the vocal and instrumental musicians, and a lieutenant with petty officers and forty grenadiers placed on guard before the house. In front of the tree lay the admiralty yacht, which fired its cannons during toasts. All of the ships present were decked out in their finest with pennants and flags, and those ships with cannons boldly let themselves be heard. . . . During the dinner Herr Telemann performed a very pleasant piece of music and, separately, an excellent serenata for which the popular Herr Professor [Michael] Richey had written exceptionally beautiful verses. The festivities lasted until morning.52

A week after the event, the Staats- und Belehrte Zeitung des hollsteinischen Correspondenten reported that Richey had also provided attendees with a history of the Admiralty, and that the characters of the musical instrumental pieces were communicated to the curious reader; [these pieces] and the serenade were performed at and specially composed for this celebration by Herr Telemann. Their beautiful inventions were not only graceful and meaningful, but also had a tremendous effect and well suited the audience at this celebration. Represented first in the ouverture to the serenata was the calm, surging, and agitation of the sea. Following were (1) sleeping Thetis in a sarabande, (2) waking Thetis in a bourrée, (3) amorous Neptune in a loure, (4) playful Naiads in a gavotte, (5) joking Tritons in a harlequinade, (6) storming Aeolus in a tempête, (7) pleasant Zephyr in a menuet altern[ativement], (8) tides [Ebbe und Fluht] in a gigue, [and] (9) merry mariners in a canarie.53

The deities inhabiting the suite—Thetis, a nymph-goddess of the sea and mother of Achilles; Neptune, ruler of the sea, and his son, the merman Triton, who trumpets on his conch shell; the Naiads, spirits of water, springs, lakes, and rivers; Aeolus, king of the winds; and Zephyr, the west wind—complement those of the allegorical serenata, where the character of Hammonia embodies Hamburg, Albis and Neptunus its location on the Elbe and close proximity to the North Sea, Mercurius its financial prosperity, Themis its judicial system, and Mars its resolve to defend against piracy. There are also musical parallels between

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 87

the two works, for the serenata includes a storm (in Mars’s aria “Frecher Harpyien bedrohende Klauen”), swelling waters (in Albis’s aria “Schwellt, ihr wasserreichen Gründe”), and the sounding of Triton’s horns (in Albis’s aria “Ihr munteren Hörner”). In the suite one further encounters, closer to the city itself, representations of tides and the cheerful people who make their living on the water. Despite the abundance of such colorful imagery in the suite’s movement titles, Telemann is content to mix the usual dances with stock characteristic types such as the sommeil (cast as the sarabande “Die schalfende Thetis”), harlequinade (“Die schertzenden Tritons”), and tempête (“Der stürmende Aeolus”). (Unusually for a characteristic suite, both dance and characteristic titles are given for each movement.) The scoring, too, is rather conventional for such a festive occasion: two oboes (doubling on recorders and flutes), bassoon, and strings. And although the work’s C-major tonality is well suited to a collection of woodwinds, its contrast with the D major of the serenata would have caused the players of three trumpets/ horns and drums called for by the vocal work to sit idly by. This tonal disparity no doubt explains why the serenata commences with its own overture (including trumpets and drums), which would have performed the sole introductory function in subsequent public performances omitting the Wasser-Ouverture. Thus in several respects the suite seems less than ideally suited to introducing the serenata. Were it not, in fact, for the highly original representations of the sea and tides in the suite’s overture and gigue (easily surpassing the depiction of waves in “Les Flots” of 55:A2), we might even suspect Telemann of calling a previously composed suite into service for the occasion, adding appropriate characteristic titles. Such suspicion is only deepened by two recently recovered manuscript sets of parts for the Wasser-Ouverture in the archive of the Berlin Sing-Akademie.54 The first of these, dated 1724 and called simply “Ouverture,” has characteristic movement titles only in the first violin part, and these, in Italian rather than German, appear to have been added by a second hand after the music had been copied. More intriguing still, the parts include a previously unknown movement: a Cminor “Air lentement” for oboes and strings that is placed between the gigue and canarie and bears no characteristic title. The second manuscript (undated and bearing the title “Wasser Ouverture”) includes the “Air lentement” only in the continuo part.55 All of this indicates that the suite circulated in various different versions during its early history, some of which may have omitted characteristic titles altogether. Musically, the suite is remarkable for its quality of invention and varied palette of instrumental color. Because the overture lacks a characteristic title, one wonders whether the reporter for the Correspondent read a description by Telemann of the “calm, surging, and agitation of the sea” represented in this movement, or

88 The Overture-Suites

whether these images were simply self-evident to listeners. To be sure, the opening section effectively suggests stillness through an undulating melodic motion in which rises and falls are at first confined to the breadth of an octave, then gradually expand to an eleventh. Added to this is an unusually slow, occasionally even static harmonic rhythm and lazily sustained notes in the oboes and upper strings. All sense of serenity is swept away in the fugal second section, where choppy waters are suggested through busy figuration and large swells by extravagant scalar gestures (e.g., mm. 42–43 and 88–95). The following movements divide into groups according to subject, scoring, and tonality: portraits of the sleeping and waking Thetis (sarabande and paired bourrées), with recorders supplying gentle triplets and the slurred pairs of notes associated with theatrical sommeils; three movements with flutes doubling violins, including the amorous Neptune (loure) and playful Naiads (gavotte en rondeau), both in C minor, and the boisterously joking Tritons (harlequinade en rondeau); two winds, Aeolus (tempête with oboes) and Zephyr (a pair of menuets with recorders playing in thirds); and two concluding rustic dances depicting tides (gigue) and merry mariners (canarie), both with oboes. The harlequinade, with its scampering bass melodies beneath a pizzicato accompaniment, taps the same humorous vein as the first movement of 50:1, discussed in chapter 1. The tempête, a storm that momentarily interrupts this thalassic idyll, unleashes its fury by gradually adding instruments and accelerating rhythmically from eighth notes to dotted eighths to sixteenths (“La Tempête” of 55:F16 begins with a similar rhythmic accelerando). A comparable effect occurs in the gigue: high tide rises by degree from the depths of the violins’ G string to a height of two octaves as other instruments are added or animated; in the movement’s second half, low tide reverses this process. Here the opening tonic pedal and flatted seventh scale degree in the violins anticipate the rustic drones and foot-stomping gestures of the suite’s concluding canarie. Similar in conception to the Wasser-Ouverture is the untitled 55:F11, which portrays Hamburg’s Alster Lake and its inhabitants, both human and animal, together with a lineup of mythological personages. It has been supposed that this suite was first performed in Hamburg on 4 June 1725 together with Telemann’s lost serenata Auf zur Freude, zum Scherzen, zum Klingen, TVWV 13:6, composed in honor of the visiting Duke August Wilhelm of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel.56 And indeed the characterizations of Pallas, Pan, Peleus, shepherds, and nymphs find analogs in the serenata’s cast of Hammopolis (“who, in the person of a goddess, represents the city of Hamburg”), Pan (“god of the shepherds, herdsmen, and hunters”), Peleus (“god of the rivers”), Pallas (“goddess of the arts and of war”), and choruses “of shepherds and shepherdesses, [and] of naiads or water nymphs.”57 Yet the suite does not figure in the description of the 1725 festivities

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 89

published some years later by the Hamburg chronicler Michael Gottlieb Steltzner, according to whom the duke and his retinue sailed north on the Alster to nearby Uhlenhorst (now a district of Hamburg) for a day trip on 4 June. Upon their arrival these “persons of high standing were greeted by the sound of drums and trumpets, and by the firing of cannons, [then] escorted to a lavish dinner in the great hall. During the dinner Herr Telemann performed a beautiful serenata with forty musicians, and at the toast the cannons, drums, and trumpets boldly let themselves be heard.”58 Whether or not the suite’s colorful portrait of life on the Alster enlivened the Duke’s lakeside repast, the work was likely heard in Hamburg only a few months later. A concert notice for a 1 December pairing of the Admiralty serenata with the 1725 Bürgerkapitänsmusik at the Drillhaus (originally to have been heard on 10 November but canceled) notes that between the two works “several instrumental pieces focusing on various characters not yet presented will provide a diversion.” In a repeat performance on 8 December the “instrumental characters” were omitted for lack of time. But on 20 December two short oratorios were again separated by “the new instrumental characters.”59 That these “new” pieces had “not yet” been presented would seem to rule out the Wasser-Ouverture, which was surely heard by Hamburg audiences at some or all of the Admiralty serenata’s eight recorded performances between April 1723 and October 1724. Certainly no other instrumental work by Telemann would have made a more suitable replacement for the earlier suite than the so-called Alster ouverture, with its vivid musical snapshots of Hamburg life and apparently unprecedented scoring for four horns, two oboes doubling two violins, and continuo (making full use, incidentally, of the serenata’s brass players). Like its C-major predecessor, the F-major suite puts its own characteristic spin on familiar movement types such as the combattans (“Die canonierende Pallas”), echo (“Das Älster-Echo”), carillon (“Die Hamburgischen Glockenspiele”), and plainte (“Der Schwanen Gesang”). Here, though, the evocative movement titles are reflected in music of even greater ingenuity. Already in the overture, the horns establish their extraordinary prominence through chordal support of the strings in the outer sections and concertante episodes in the second section, which features a folksong-like subject.60 The following suite commences with a movement (“Die canonierende Pallas”) in which Pallas Athena is portrayed primarily as a warrior goddess, martial “trumpets” blasting and “cannons” firing away in the form of tirades.61 Athena is, of course, also known as the protector of civilized life, inventor of the flute, and the embodiment of wisdom, reason, and purity. More to the point, her purview extended to ships, and she was worshipped in Athens as patron of all arts and crafts; Hamburg audiences would no doubt have drawn a fa-

90 The Overture-Suites

vorable comparison between their city and the goddess’s favorite.62 With a wink to the musical Kenner, Telemann gives the strings material that is partially canonic in the musical sense. Along with “Die canonierende Pallas,” the following five movements are all concerned with the representation of sound in its various manifestations in and around Hamburg. This further distinguishes the suite from the Wasser-Ouverture, where, as in the majority of Telemann’s characteristic suites, greater emphasis is placed on the evocation of physical motion. “Das Älster Echo” deals with sound in the most abstract sense. Unlike Telemann’s other echo movements, this one makes use of three antiphonal groups—strings with oboes, horns 1 and 2, and horns 3 and 4—to produce double-echo effects.63 In a representation of specific sounds, Hamburg’s carillon is portrayed in “Die Hamburgischen Glockenspiele” with a realism surpassing that of similar movements in 55:D17, D21, e10, and F7. Here pealing bells, at first in the form of horns, sound cascading thirds above an elaborate basso ostinato theme. The following swan song (“Der Schwanen Gesang”) alludes to more than cries of the Alster’s water fowl: it is a threnodial sarabande, in the parallel minor, that belongs firmly in the plainte tradition (though who “sings” this lament, and for whom, remains an open question). Comic relief comes in the form of “Der Älster Schäffer Dorff Music” (village music of the Alster shepherds) and “Die concertirenden Frösche und Krähen” (the concertizing frogs and crows). The first of these movements provides a unique case of Telemann referencing music making in a characteristic movement. Not only is the music of the villagers rustic—with hurdy-gurdy and bagpipe imitations, extensive rhythmic repetition, a raised fourth, and a flatted seventh—but it is also incompetent: parallel fifths and octaves abound, the part-writing is clumsy and occasionally reverts to unisons, modulation is achieved only with great difficulty, and melodies have the naiveté associated with children’s songs (Example 2.5). One is reminded of similar transgressions in Mozart’s Ein musikalischer Spaß, K. 522, another work in which music refers to “music” through an array of linguistic infelicities. Telemann’s movement has the feel of a travesty because his other “country” music manages to convey rusticity without excessive naïveté or grammatical transgressions. In high burlesque mode is the delightfully grotesque duet of frogs and crows. Wailing chromatically among themselves, the crows (violins and oboes, then horns) are accompanied by croaking repeated notes in the bass (Example 2.6). Near the movement’s midpoint and conclusion the cacophonous whole dissolves into a series of unresolved dissonant chords, the last of which (an incomplete eleventh chord) is spaced as to produce an unusually harsh sonority. Embedded within a modest seventeenth- and eighteenth-century tradition of musically evoking amphibians—one including works by Hein-

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 91

rich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Joseph Gregor Werner, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, André Ernest Modest Grétry, and Joseph Haydn—Telemann’s movement also relates to the only programmatic concerto attributed to him, 51:A4, in which the violin soloist’s first entrance is explicitly identified as referring to a frog (“Relings Solo”). However, the ingenuity and sheer outrageousness of “Die concertirenden Frösche und Krähen” only underscores the weak invention of what is most likely an inauthentic work.64

example 2.5. Suite in F major for 4 horns, 2 oboes, 2 violins, and continuo, 55:F11/vi, mm. 1–14

Horn 1 in F

Horn 2 in F

Horn 3 in F

Horn 4 in F

Violin 1, Oboe 1

Violin 2, Oboe 2

Continuo

8

Allegretto

  24  24    24 2  4 

        

           

         2             4 2     4             24        

                                                       

 

















   



































  

       

                                   

       

       

      

92 The Overture-Suites example 2.6. Suite in F major for 4 horns, 2 oboes, 2 violins, and continuo, 55:F11/vii, mm. 1–14 Horn 1 in F

Horn 2 in F

Horn 3 in F

Horn 4 in F

Die concertierenden Frösche und Krähen

 43    43    43   3  4    3    4 



   

   



              3           4    43            



Oboe 1

Ob

Violin 2, Oboe 2

Bsn

Continuo

5

     



 

  



           



























       





















 

                            

  

    



        

              

Ob

Violin 1,



    

A return to the mythic world brings a welcome point of repose as the resting Pan (“Der ruhende Pan”), an obvious counterpart to the sleeping Thetis of the Wasser-Ouverture, is serenaded by a trio of two muted violins and continuo (with doubling flutes in the Dresden manuscript source) that evokes the pastoral without recourse to drones and the like. With a conjunct melody sweetly harmonized in thirds and sixths, slow harmonic rhythm, and symmetrical phrasing, the movement is appealingly protoclassical in style. The suite’s last movement, a gigue in

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 93



















9 



                







     





















 

 

   

           















                    Vln and Ob         Vln and Ob      Tutti     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

which the shepherds and nymphs hurriedly take their leave (“Der Schäfer und Nymphen eilfertiger Abzug”), has the character of a Kehraus, the traditional concluding dance of a ball during which the dancers “sweep out” of the ballroom.65 Beginning with a serious, slow-moving theme featuring rising fourths, canonic imitation, and pedal points, the movement effects a rhythmic accelerando resulting in a swirl of activity at the end of each half. This music seems at once celebratory and summative of the preceding vignettes, and in this sense it prefigures the “Conclusions” that close each “Production” of the Musique de table. Before taking leave of this suite, we may note that it was performed in several different versions during Telemann’s lifetime. “Die Hamburgischen Glockenspiele” is omitted from the Darmstadt parts, and neither this manuscript nor that at Rostock contains two movements for winds that are included, but crossed out, at Dresden: the pleasant yet musically unremarkable “Der jauchzende Pan” (the rejoicing Pan) and “Der frohlockende Peleus” (the rejoicing Peleus), inserted between “Die concertierenden Frösche und Krähen” and “Der ruhende Pan.” The Dresden parts, to judge from the paper types, the presence of Hamburg scribes among the six copying hands, and what appear to be several autograph corrections, were sent by Telemann to the Saxon electoral court around 1728. They may well reflect an early or alternative version of the suite, perhaps one that was performed in the open air with winds replacing strings; in two of the parts, “Violino” and “Violon” are crossed out and replaced with “Oboe” and “Basson.”

94 The Overture-Suites

Images of Court and Country In addition to expressing sounds and motions, Telemann’s characteristic suites also include representations of time, whether organized around the rigid structure of courtly life or virtually suspended in the seemingly unchanging countryside. The former scenario, in the guise of a day whose focal point is a hunt, unfolds in the E-flat suite 50:21. As is clear from the Berlin autograph score, the octogenarian Telemann agonized over the suite’s macro-structure and characteristic movement titles; at some point during the compositional process he sketched out a movement sequence on the back of a leaf containing the fragmentary letter draft quoted in the previous chapter. Discrepancies between this sequence and that found in the score itself (where there are further emendations), has caused some confusion as to which represents Telemann’s Fassung letzter Hand.66 The two movement sequences are shown in Table 2.2, with arrows showing the apparent differences between the schemes and bold type indicating what seems to be the original title of movement four in the score. That the leaf is in fact a preliminary draft is suggested by the absence of horns in the forlane, for it is hard to imagine Telemann attempting to evoke the hunt (“La Chasse. Forlane allegrette”) with a dance scored only for flutes and strings. The words surrounding “La Chasse” at the beginning of the fourth movement in the score doubtless constitute a further outline for the suite. Not only was the hunt a favorite activity at the court of Landgrave Ludwig VIII of Hessen-Darmstadt, for whom the suite was evidently composed, but overture-suites continued to be written at Darmstadt long after the genre’s popularity had faded in many other parts of Germany. Like his father, Ernst Ludwig, Ludwig VIII was himself a composer of overture-suites; one fourteen-movement work by the Landgrave bears the dates of its composition in 1745–46.67 Most of the suites written by Vice Kapellmeister Johann Samuel Endler between 1748

Table 2.2 Movement order in 50:21 (D-Bds, Mus. ms. autogr. G. P. Telemann 6) Score

Sketch leaf

Allegro La reveille. Vivement [forlane] La conversation a la table. Gavotte Reveille. La Chasse. Repas. Dance. Retraite [gigue] Repas [menuet]-[untitled dance]-Repas [menuet]

Sinfonia gratiosamente pomposa Le Reveil. Gique La Chasse. Forlane allegrette La Cour. Gavotte La Dance. Menuet A English Country Dance La Retraite. Branle

Retraite [branle]

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 95

and 1761 were performed at the hunting palace, Kranichstein, where it was apparently traditional to perform such a work for the Landgrave’s name day.68 Following the deaths of both Graupner and Endler in 1760–62, Telemann’s E-flat suite and some of its companions in the Berlin parcel—the horn suites 55:F16 and D21, and the alla caccia “Fanfare,” 55:D23—might have been heard at this place and occasion. During his 1760 visit to Darmstadt, the Swedish envoy Count Ulrich zu Lynar found an aging, reclusive Landgrave whose main contact with the outside world was hunting: The seventy-year-old Landgrave is constantly at his pleasure- and hunting palace, Kranichstein, and no stranger or local visits if he does not expressly wish it. He is a great lover of the hunt, and this is his only outlet. However, his meals continue to be held in Darmstadt. . . . At midday there are twenty exquisite dishes, and in the evening twelve to fourteen; besides this there is always a lovely, alternating dessert. The wait staff consists of four pages, and the others are liveried servants in blue and red with silver. Usually there are at least twelve persons there.69

Ludwig VIII’s practice of taking his lavish meals in urban Darmstadt, thus frequently retreating from the countryside, may reflect a desire to avoid the lonely melancholy that the late eighteenth century associated with remaining too long in Arcadia.70 Such apparent ambivalence toward nature notwithstanding, the court’s long-standing interest in the hunt (extending back at least a generation to the time of Ernst Ludwig) could explain why the majority of Telemann’s works with one or more horns have Darmstadt sources, many of them unique. Four of these works, 44:7–9 and the exceptionally fine 44:10, are overture-suites in the Harmoniemusik scoring of two oboes, two horns, and bassoon or continuo.71 These would seem ideal Tafelmusiken for the repast following a day in the country, either indoors or in the open air. To return to the E-flat suite, following a “graciously pompous” sinfonia full of horn-signal figures, the day’s activities commence: waking is followed by courtly conversation, then the hunt, a meal, and dancing before retiring for the evening. This sequence of events begins and ends like the hunt itself, for the morning reveille mirrors the call to the hunt (traditionally given by the horn signal “cornure de queste” or “La quête”) and the concluding “retraite” of the courtiers, imbued with signal-like figures in Telemann’s movement, parallels the earlier retreat of the hunting party to the “cornure de retraite” or “retraite prise.”72 “La reveille” is also noteworthy for its strong resemblance to “Le Reveil de Quichotte” of 55:G10 (discussed later), suggesting Telemann’s association of pastoral waking scenes with the forlana or siciliana, both of which frequently com-

96 The Overture-Suites

bine sautillant rhythms with implied drones. Constructed of short phrases passed back and forth between the horns, flutes, and strings, “La conversation a la table” suggests the witty exchanges of a galant dialogue, its arguments as circular as the gavotte’s rondeau structure. “La Chasse,” a vigorous gigue with repeated-note figures evocative of horn signals, seems in its brevity to compress time more than the other movements. It gives way to “Repas,” a kind of suite within a suite that accompanies the meal: having left the horns in the field, the flutes and strings play a precious C-minor menuet in alternation with a foot-stomping duple-meter dance in C major, apparently inspired by the “English Country.” By switching to the relative minor, Telemann seems to underscore the court’s retreat into its own, serious world (or is it melancholy occasioned by too much time in the countryside?), while the juxtaposition of courtly and country dances repeats the day’s contrasting activities in miniature. The choice of a branle for the “Retraite” is apt in view of the dance’s resemblance to English country dances, and of its longstanding association with the “nostalgia of city dwellers for country pleasures.”73 Filtered as they are through an aristocratic lens, the brief glimpses of the countryside offered in this suite seem little more than an artificial backdrop for courtly diversion: the musical equivalent, perhaps, of a chinoiserie garden or a pastoral fête galante captured in a Meissen porcelain sculpture or in a canvas by Watteau. The denizens of Arcadia—shepherds and peasants—and their idyllic surroundings are portrayed elsewhere among Telemann’s suites under such labels as “Bergerie” (55:B1), “Paysane” (44:3), “Les Paysans” (44:14), “Pastorale” (55:e8), “Pastourelle” (55:F1), “Villanelle” (55:D2), and “Napolitaine” (55:g1), and, less conventionally, in “Der Älster Schäffer Dorff Music” and other burlesque or parodistic movements, discussed later. Especially striking for its unsentimental depiction of rustic music making is “La Vielle” of 55:Es3. Through its references to the special properties of the hurdy-gurdy, a traditional instrument that was modified and refined for use in French theaters and salons from the late seventeenth century, this movement sets itself apart from more common representations of the musette or bagpipe, with their arrhythmic drones on a single pitch. Following a six-measure introduction, during which the first violin plays an improvisatory melody above a tonic triad supplied by three drone strings (violin 2, viola, and bass), the folksy tune is sounded in a homorhythmic texture alluding to the disembodied hurdy-gurdy player’s skillful manipulations of the instrument’s rotating, rosined wheel (Example 2.7). Considerably less straightforward than Telemann’s other bucolic movements, and all the more intriguing for it, is the pastoral idyll that concludes La Bouffonne, 55:C5. Indeed, one cannot help but suspect an implied narrative lurking behind the movement’s title of “Pastorelle.” In the unusual compound structure, illus-

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 97 example 2.7. Suite in E-flat for strings and continuo, 55:Es3/v, mm. 1–19 Violin 1

La Vielle      C               C       C 



Violin 2

Viola

Continuo



  C 

                          7









 

 

 





                                                           

                               13





 

 

             





                 

 

 

        





trated in Example 2.8, each repeated half progresses from a musical paragraph in the pastoral mode to an earthy menuet, the latter beginning, after a brief caesura, in an unprepared but closely related key. Over a tonic drone in the pastoral sections the first violin plays a lullaby-like melody (“doucement”) undoubtedly meant to evoke, if not directly quote, a Christmas carol; its falling chord tones (mm. 7–9, 11–12) recall those in a number of Austro-Bohemian melodies associated with Christmas, such as “Parvule pupule” and “Kommet ihr Hirten” (Come All Ye Shepherds).74 Somewhat moderating the melody’s gentle cradlerocking effect is a rustic tinge provided by the occasional flatted seventh scale degree. The association with Christmas is further strengthened by the movement’s unusual placement at the end of the suite, which brings to mind the concluding pastoral evocation in “Christmas” concertos by Corelli (op. 6, no. 8), Manfredini

98 The Overture-Suites example 2.8. Suite in C major for strings and continuo, 55:C5/vi, mm. 1–17

            

Pastorelle

Violin 1  C           doucement Violin 2  C    doucement   Viola  C [doucement]   Continuo  C 



[doucement]

          6



 

 

  







                  

       









 

 

            43           43               43    3       4  11





 

 

      f

          [ ]      f

f

[f]

(op. 2, no. 12; op. 3, no. 12), and Locatelli (op. 1, no. 8). If this “lullaby” expresses sacred joy at the miracle of the Nativity, then the alternating menuet, perhaps a shepherds’ dance or piped serenade for the Holy Infant, would seem to embody happiness of a more worldly nature. Yet the menuet melody could also be based upon a tune with Christmastide associations. The alternation of lullaby and dance appears related to an Austro-Bohemian tradition of instrumental pastorellas in which a narration of the Nativity is provided through a sectional organization (a lullaby, the sounding of shepherds’ horns, the cuckoo’s song representing the animal kingdom, and so on) that can include returns to the opening music.75 Such flashing back and forth between scenes—or narrative voices—in this idyll

T wo Telemann’s Mimetic Art 99

might also be taken as undermining one of the countryside’s restorative qualities: its timelessness, communicated by the pastoral style through an avoidance of musical processes suggestive of change, progression, or motion (hence the typical reliance on static harmonies and pedal tones signifies more than musical rusticism).76 But if there is an unsettling feeling of change here, neither does time move forward in a strictly linear sense. The grafting of binary and composite structures suggests that idyllic time is a cyclic phenomenon, endlessly looping back on itself as crops are harvested then planted again, deaths are followed by births, and so on. Thus the menuet is but a momentary diversion in a world marked by continuity.

Telemann’s Wit: Burlesque, Parody, and Satire With their extramusical programs, literary allusions, and undermining of courtly decorum, Telemann’s overture-suites are funny in ways that his other instrumental works are not. Indeed, they form one of the most significant bodies of instrumental humor from the eighteenth century, worthy late-baroque counterparts to Haydn’s quartets and symphonies and Mozart’s Ein musikalischer Spaß. We have already seen the composer’s “lively wit and jovial disposition”77 find expression through depictions of commedia dell’arte characters, and in other burlesque movements such as “Les vieilles femmes,” “Die concertirenden Frösche und Krähen,” and “Der Älster Schäffer Dorff Music.” All of these movements depend on exaggerated gestures or mixtures of socially encoded high and low styles for their comedic effect, just as the “Passepied burlesque” of 55:A8 transforms courtly ball into pastoral frolic through its musette topic and raised fourth scale degree. Similar strategies inform a repertory of jesting movements containing over a dozen “Harlequinades,” “Badineries,” and “Badinages,” among the most outrageous of which are the rondeau “La Badinerie” of 55:F3 and the harlequinades of 55:C6 and D15, with their drones and “castanet” rhythms (C6), flatted sevenths (D15), and jarring contrasts of scoring, register, texture, and dynamic level. (The delightful “Arlechinoso” of 50:23 demonstrates the composer’s penchant for musical silliness well into his eighties.) Telemann was also capable of more whimsical expressions of humor, such as the “Perpetuum mobile” of 55:D12 and “Le Batelage” of 55:fis1, where elided phrases create a seamless effect suggestive of perpetual motion or juggling. More playful still is the depiction of “Galimatias” (nonsensical talk) in 55:e3, where the rondeau refrain evokes pointless chatter through its circular motion around the pitches b⬙ and g⬙ and a metrically disruptive emphasis on the weak half of the measure. Pairs of violins, flutes, and oboes banter in comically quick alternation before the conversation takes a more

100 The Overture-Suites

pretentious turn with exchanges between earnest unisons (strings) and selfimportant chromaticism (oboes). But there is more to Telemann’s wit than the raucous fun and knowing winks of the movements just mentioned. All of these examples, in fact, would probably have been understood by eighteenth-century listeners as humorous rather than witty.78 Writers of the time regarded humor as the most “natural” form of comedic expression, more closely connected with vulgar than polite laughter, more whimsical and mirthful than surprising. (Certainly “Die concertirenden Frösche und Krähen” and “Der Älster Schäffer Dorff Music” were meant to elicit laughter of the vulgar sort.) Wit, on the other hand, is a kind of sleight of hand that effects surprise and wonder through a balance of the artful and the natural. A witticism enlightens, whether or not it provokes laughter, and leads the observer from surprise at an unsuspected contrast or use of language to the insight that such apparent incongruities mask a logical relationship between ideas. Corbyn Morris, whose 1744 Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule is the most perceptive tract of its kind from the first half of the eighteenth century, summed up the difference between humor and wit: HUMOUR is Nature, or what really appears in the Subject, without any embellishments; WIT only a stroke of Art, where the original Subject, being insufficient of itself, is garnished and deck’d with auxiliary Objects. . . . In the Allusions of WIT, Severity, Bittnerness, and Satire, are frequently exhibited. . . . In pure WIT, the Allusions are rather surprizing, than mirthful; and the Agreements or Contrasts which are started between Objects, without any relation to the Foibles of Persons in real Life, are more fit to be admired for their Happiness and Propriety, than to excite our Laughter.79

Like all writers on the subject, Morris’s examples of comedic types are drawn principally from literature, but in an illustration that might easily be extended to music, he notes that “there may be WIT in a Picture, Landscape, or in any Prospect, where a gay unexpected Assemblage of similar, or opposite Objects, is presented.”80 Morris’s distinction between raillery (what is today more often termed parody) and satire is both apt and in keeping with modern notions: Raillery, is a genteel poignant Attack of slight Foibles and Oddities; Satire a witty and severe Attack of mischievous Habits and Vices. The Intention of Raillery, is to procure your Pleasure, by exposing the little Embarrassment of a Person; But the Intention of Satire, is to raise your Detestation, by exposing the real Deformity of his Vices.81

In Telemann’s suites, wit in the eighteenth-century sense tends to manifest itself through parody of established conventions, styles, or genres. A particularly

Two Telemann’s Mimetic Art 101

ingenious instance of parody, one embodying the eighteenth-century notion of wit as seeming incongruity masking congruity, is the overture of “La Bizarre,” 55:G2. In this movement’s first section, illustrated in Example 2.9a, the second violin ignores the stereotypical rhythmes saccadés of the other parts and instead plays an oddly active line with rhythms anticipating the following fugal section—music that is quite literally ahead of its time. The listener becomes aware that this incongruity of affect is really a clever temporal disjunction only at the start of the overture’s second section, shown in Example 2.9b. Here both the second violin and the viola continue the game by refusing to play along with the fugal exposition initiated by the outer voices; the second violin’s response to the subject’s initial statement is a rude, syncopated F-natural (m. 20), a finger in the eye that recalls the unsettling use of the pitch to effect a momentary turn to the subdominant in the previous section (m. 3). Later, as seen in Example 2.9c, the second violin seems to mock the other instruments by playing only the dotted rhythms it ought to have adopted at the movement’s outset. And twice following subject entries there are suspenseful passages over a bass pedal point that are comically incongruous with the surrounding music (mm. 29–34 and 41–46). When the concluding section arrives, the second violin and viola both retain the rhythms of the bizarre fugue, undermining the outer voices’ efforts to reestablish a modicum of dotted grandeur. For those who would find bizarrerie in the following dances as well, there is the odd, repeated-note theme of the courante; the sharp-edged rusticity of the gavotte; the visual humor of the branle, in which each of the four parts is notated in a different meter; the inappropriate tirades of the sarabande; the manic energy of the “Fantaisie”; and the tongue-in-cheek twittering of the concluding “Rossignol.” The line between parody and satire blurs in several suites inspired by popular literature or contemporary events. Telemann’s engagement with literary satire produced the 1728 opera Die verkehrte Welt (The Topsy-Turvy World), TVWV 21:23, with a libretto by Johann Philipp Praetorius after the comedy Le Monde renversé of Alain René Lesage and Jacques-Philippe d’Orneval, and the 1729 “Intrada, nebst burlesquer Suite” for two violins, 40:108, which depicts various peoples encountered by the eponymous hero in Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels (see chapter 6). Although no complete German translation of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s masterpiece Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha was published until 1775, his satire of chivalric romance had long since entered the European lingua franca by Telemann’s time, not least through a series of opera librettos. In 1761 the eightyyear-old composer contributed to this operatic tradition with his one-act serenata Don Quichotte auf der Hochzeit des Comacho, TVWV 21:32, with a libretto by Daniel Schiebler based on chapters 19–21 of the second part of Don Quijote.82

102 The Overture-Suites example 2.9. Suite in G major for strings and continuo, 55:G2/i: (a) mm. 1–7; (b) mm. 18–30; (c) mm. 37–42 (a)

[Grave]      c       c             c            c  

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

                                          

6

                                                           

                                                

4

7

6

#

#

6

5 4

b

5 #

6 b

(b)

    43                                        43      43        43      

18

2.





 

 

 

 



                                                    

23 



7

6

              

                                           6

6

Two Telemann’s Mimetic Art 103

                                                                                                                27



6

6

#

(c)

                                    37



6

                    5

                                    40



6

6b 4

#

                     

6

              #

6

                     

       

6 4

Telemann was no doubt already familiar with Cervantes’s novel when, in 1722, Francesco Conti’s Don Chisciotte in Sierra Morena was produced at Hamburg’s Gänsemarkt Opera under the direction of Mattheson. It may have been this work that provided the impetus for his own Ouverture Burlesque de Quixotte, 55:G10.83 Like the “Gulliver duet,” the suite illustrates its subject through a series of character portraits or vignettes of famous scenes: there is the knight-errant awaking from his slumber (“Le Reveil de Quichotte”); his ill-considered attack on the windmills

104 The Overture-Suites

(“Son attacque des moulins à vent,” inspired by book 1, chapter 8 of the novel’s first part); his amorous sighs for the imagined object of his affections, Princess Dulcinea del Toboso (“Les Soupirs amoureux aprés la Princesse Dulcinée”); his squire Sancho Panza being tossed up and down in a blanket for refusing to pay the pair’s bill at an inn (“Sanche Panse berné,” inspired by book 3, chapter 3 of the novel’s first part); portraits of the two lame mounts, Don Quixote’s horse Rocinante and Sancho Panza’s ass Dapple (“Le Galope de Rosinante”—“Celui d’Ane de Sanche”); and, at the end of this imaginary day filled with chivalrous deeds gone wrong, Don Quixote’s dreams of his next misadventure (“Le couché de Quichotte”).84 At the start of his novel, Cervantes tells us that Don Quixote created his imaginary world through reading too many chivalric romances: he “strung these absurdities together with many others, all in the style of those that he’d learned from his books.”85 In like manner, Telemann’s music may be heard as a string of absurdities based on the conventions of the overture-suite. Unlike the overtures to most characteristic suites, this one establishes an appropriately mock-heroic mood: the first and third sections take on a distinctly buffo character through frequent unisons, slow or static harmonic rhythm, and constant shifting between ideas; both the precipitous two-octave descent in the opening melody (mm. 1–5) and ensuing octave ascent to b⬙ (mm. 6–14) make a comically overblown effect. Frivolous, descending tirades (mm. 10 and 12) seem to mock convention while bringing to mind Don Quixote falling off Rocinante or the tossing motion in “Sanche Panse berné.” Although each of the following movements is in binary form, only “Le Reveil de Quichotte” (a pastoral siciliana with dotted rhythms and an ostinato drone) and the alternating pair “Le Galope de Rosinante”—“Celui d’Ane de Sanche” (in the 3/8 of a menuet or passepied) make any reference to ballroom dances. Two parody conventional types: Don Quixote attacks the windmills in a frenzied combattans filled with tremolos, rushing scales, and galloping or castanet rhythms in the bass, while his sighing for Dulcinea takes the form of a plainte in which the melodic line contains nothing but musical sighs.86 In the burlesque alternativement pair, Rocinante’s pathetic gallops are depicted by the short-long limping rhythm we encountered in the “Scaramouches” of 55:B8, while Dapple’s halting gait is reflected in the constant stopping and starting of both melody and accompaniment. The suite’s last movement, really two brief, alternating dances, mixes the high and low styles: nominally a sommeil for Don Quixote, the music mocks theatrical slumber scenes by invoking the kind of dance one might hear a beer fiddler improvise in a country tavern. As in “Le Reveil de Quichotte,” the rustic topic is established partly through an ostinato drone—an unyielding reiteration of the

Two Telemann’s Mimetic Art 105

tonic in a galloping rhythm—above which the melody, initially played in octaves, has the repetitious quality characteristic of Telemann’s Polish style. That Don Quixote is in fact dreaming of riding off to battle is suggested both by the music’s kinetic energy and by its family resemblance to both Johann Heinrich Schmelzer’s “Fechtschule” (Fencing School) and Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s “Musqetir Mars” (Musketeer’s March) from the characteristic “Sonata Representativa,” a movement that reappears as “Der Mars” in the well-known “Battalia.” The other overture-suite often considered a product of Telemann’s satirical wit is the untitled 55:B11, best known for its buoyant last movement, “L’Espérance de Mississippi” (Hope for the Mississippi). Such is the exotic appeal of this title that the preceding four characteristic movements—bearing the intriguingly oxymoronic epithets of “Le repos interrompu” (Interrupted Rest), “La guerre en la paix” (War in Peacetime), “Les Vainquers vaincus” (Victors Vanquished), and “La Solitude associée” (Communal Solitude)—are often assumed to be topically related to the finale. Whether or not this is so, and regardless of any satiric intent on Telemann’s part, this suite is among the most singular examples of the genre. The finale’s American reference is to a spectacular financial crisis that unfolded in France between mid-1719 and late 1720. With the French economy in shambles thanks largely to the long and costly wars waged by Louis XIV, the Scotsman John Law was charged by Philippe, duc d’Orléans, regent of France between 1715 and 1723, with reformulating the nation’s economic policy.87 Having first created a Compagnie d’Occident that controlled French Louisiana (present-day Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, and Wisconsin), Law next formed the Banque Royale. Then in May and June of 1719 he merged the Compagnie d’Occident with the Compagnie des Indes, Compagnie de la Chine, and Compagnie d’Afrique. The resulting conglomerate, which also included the tax farms, tobacco farm, mint, and French national debt, was known as the Compagnie des Indes, and more popularly as the Mississippi Company. It was Law’s intent to alleviate France’s financial crisis by exchanging government debt in the form of annuities for shares in the Mississippi Company. In September and October the company issued several hundred thousand shares as a speculative euphoria spurred its stock to rise through the end of the year; in the five months between early August 1719 and early January 1720, the share price more than tripled its value as Law rose to the office of controller-general of finances. By May 1720 Law felt compelled to cool down an overheated financial system by reducing the prices of banknotes and shares. The resulting outrage led to an almost immediate revocation of these measures and Law’s temporary fall from favor. Share prices initially dropped sharply, then rebounded to some degree when Law was returned to power. But much faith had been lost in his financial system:

106 The Overture-Suites

share prices fell steadily during the second half of 1720 until they were further devalued in September, the Mississippi Company declined in size and significance, and the Banque Royale removed banknotes from circulation in October before closing its doors in late November. Law’s system had bankrupted France’s creditors, though the state had reduced its debt in the process. Living in the same building that housed Frankfurt’s stock exchange, Telemann would have witnessed at first hand the growth and eventual bursting of the Mississippi stock bubble. It is easy to imagine his bemusement over all the fuss, and his appreciation of how events in France had set satiric juices flowing among composers, writers, and artists: among the sharpest satires was François Couperin’s canon Les agioteurs au désespoir, in which five financial speculators sing a lament, and a collection of fine engravings published in Holland in 1720 as Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid (The Great Mirror of Folly).88 But at what point during the proceedings did Telemann hold his own mirror up to the crisis by composing the suite? Hoffmann assumed it was sometime during mid-to-late 1720 or 1721 and considered the work to have been written “for the Frankfurt stock speculators, prosperous members of the Frauenstein Society,” a small group of wealthy merchants and university graduates that included some of Frankfurt’s leading families. The overture, in his view, portrayed “the pride and certainty of the stockholders,” while the following movements expressed “their fears and distress, finally their hope in the already devalued Mississippi stock.”89 Aside from the improbability of Telemann’s publicly highlighting the foolhardiness of Frankfurt’s investors—some of whom were members of a society for which he served as secretary, treasurer, and leader of a collegium musicum, no less—it is far from clear that the oxymoronic movements depict fear, distress, or specific events in the crisis. For that matter, the suite may predate the actual crisis: “hope for the Mississippi” was, after all, at its zenith during the second half of 1719, and there appears to be nothing musically parodistic about the last movement. Moreover, the two movements with martial associations (“La guerre en la paix” and “Les Vainquers vaincus”) could easily refer to other political events. For example, the Great Northern War of 1700–1721 between Sweden and a coalition including Britain, Russia, Denmark, Saxony-Poland, and, from 1715, Prussia and Hanover, was winding down in 1719–20. A weakened Sweden ceded territories to Hanover on 20 November 1719, to Prussia on 1 February 1720 (the Peace of Stockholm), and to Denmark on 14 June 1720 (the Peace of Frederiksborg).90 Once the dominant power in Eastern Europe, Sweden was well on its way toward becoming a “vanquished victor.” Yet continuing hostilities with Russia ensured that a year of “war in peacetime” was still to come.

Two Telemann’s Mimetic Art 107

Telemann’s composing score at Dresden fails to clarify the meaning of his characteristic titles, but does confirm a Frankfurt origin for the suite (the paper bears, appropriately enough, a fool’s-head watermark of a type common in Hessen) and reveals a few details about the compositional process: the second movement was originally to be called “Air avec douceur” and the third movement was initially “La paix en la guerre.” Telemann might have taken the score with him to Dresden in September 1719 or else mailed it to Pisendel, who later supervised its copying in parts by a court scribe. The Dresden connection may explain why the suite features so much elaborate writing for oboes and bassoon. As we saw in the previous chapter, the winds’ prominence is established in the concerto-like overture. More striking than this, however, is the unconventional style and structure of the following movements. Each is in some kind of da capo form, with the B sections invariably cadencing in the relative minor (the modal contrast possibly a reflection of the movements’ oxymoronic “programs”), and only “Les Vainquers vaincus” and “L’Espérance de Mississippi” resemble dance music. “Le repos interrompu” calls upon a pastoral topic, complete with 6/8 meter, melody in thirds, drones, and slurred pairs of sixteenths. At the start of its B section, the idyllic mood is shattered by the strings’ martial topic (repeated-note figures and rushing scales), which forces the music through a series of modulations. Yet the oboes refuse to yield ground, twice responding to the strings’ violent outbursts with amusing tonal deflections (mm. 37 and 41) before succeeding in reestablishing the pastoral mode with only token resistance (Example 2.10). As in the “Combattans” of 55:B10, ritornello form provides the framework for the hostilities of “La guerre en la paix,” where a dialectic of pastoral and martial topics expresses the idea of integrating peace and war. Already in the opening ritornello, the oboes interrupt the strings’ vigorous figuration with slurred pairs of eighth notes over a violin drone (Example 2.11). After the strings return the favor (creating a doublemotto phrase for the oboes), the two groups join in restating the pastoral topic. But the project of integration is carried only so far, as subsequent ritornellos return to the martial topic. The message of “Les Vainquers vaincus” seems to be that neither topic has triumphed: they join together in a minuet-like dance, with slurred pairs of sixteenth notes providing a motivic connection to the preceding two movements. The idea of solitude in “La Solitude associée” plays out through the first oboe’s long soliloquy in the movement’s A section; in the B section, the second oboe communes with the first in what is essentially a trio texture. Whatever Telemann’s satiric intent may have been in the suite’s finale, the cheerful “L’Espérance de Mississippi” does not establish “hope” and “Mississippi” as oppositional elements, and thus breaks with the pattern of the preceding movements.

108 The Overture-Suites example 2.10. Suite in B-flat for 2 oboes, strings, and continuo, 55:B11/ii, mm. 34–38

                                                                      34

Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo



                      

                                 

                                                                                                         36



Bsn

                                            

Tutti

But as a thinly disguised pair of alternating gavottes, the movement cleverly refers to da capo form by modulating to G minor at the end of the second dance. A second characteristic overture-suite in the late autograph parcel of suites and divertimenti at Berlin warrants a close look not only for the ingenuity with which the composer translates its unusual program into sound, but also because it satirizes an important current in eighteenth-century popular culture. The Ouverture, jointes d’une Suite tragi-comique, 55:D22, illustrates three ailments or character flaws—gout, hypochondria, and vainglory—and their remedies. Following a nervous overture in which the jarring fanfare figures of the outer sections seem to hint at psychological and physical discomfort to come, a series of dances bearing both characteristic and generic titles depict three condition-treatment pairs:

Two Telemann’s Mimetic Art 109 example 2.11. Suite in B-flat for 2 oboes, strings, and continuo, 55:B11/iii, mm. 1–5

La guerre en la paix

Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Violins 1 and 2

Viola

Continuo

Allegro      c      c          c                  c             c        



                               3



      

                

  

                                                                

          

Le Podagre [The Gout-stricken One]. Loure Remède expérimenté: La Poste et la Dance [Proven Remedy: Mail Coach and Dancing]. Menuet en Rondeau L’Hypocondre [The Hypochondriac]. Sarabande–Gigue–Sarabande–Bourrée–Sarabande–Hornpipe–Sarabande–La Suave Remède: Souffrance héroïque [Remedy: Heroic Suffering]. Marche Le Petit-maître [The Vainglorious Fop]. Rondeau Remède: Petite-maison [Remedy: Mental Hospital]. Furies.

As with the E-flat “hunt” suite, 50:21, Telemann’s composing score documents his evolving conception of the work: the overture was initially characterized as “italiennisante” and then “comique” (both words having been subsequently crossed out); and “Le Petit-maître,” which originally followed the overture, was at first called “Le Someil interrompu” (interrupted sleep). Hence the tragicomic storyline was to have begun with a sufferer sleeping fitfully, apparently irritated by

110 The Overture-Suites

symptoms of gout or hypochondria. But having chosen to provide a character portrait of the petit-maître rather than an evocation of French theatrical sleep scenes, Telemann finally opted to insert the movement between the two remedies at the end of the suite.91 Whereas the three remedies are all conventional movement types (a menuet en rondeau incorporating simulated posthorn calls, a triumphant march with the obligatory trumpets and drums, and a typically vigorous depiction of the torturing Furies), the ailments, essentially character portraits, all explore the idea of psychological or physical instability through musical incongruities of one kind or another. “Le Podagre,” a loure fittingly in the tonic minor, suggests both halting physical movement and pain shooting through the sufferer’s joints through frequent disruptions in the dance’s harmonic and melodic progress. Three times in the movement’s first half alone phrases of two and three measures are interrupted by harmonic non sequiturs (mm. 2–3, 5–6, and 10–11) commencing with high pitches approached by ever-widening leaps and remaining, in the first two instances, locally unresolved (Example 2.12). “Le Petit-maître” is a rondeau that expresses the fop’s mental unsteadiness through what one might call “affective dissonance.” Its refrain consists of an antecedent-consequent pair of phrases, each of which begins with strings alone in quasi-rustic mode and continues, trumpets and drums added, in an unexpectedly frivolous vein. This expressive dichotomy becomes intensified in the two couplets, the second juxtaposing the topics of quiet rusticity and martial fanfare. Such syntactical and affective disruptions are writ large in the suite’s most striking movement, “L’Hypocondre,” a particularly lugubrious sarabande in the dominant minor that captures the hypochondriac’s overriding melancholy state. But here psychological and musical continuity proves fleeting, for the sarabande is continually interrupted by a gigue (originally entitled “Forlane”), then a bourrée, and then a hornpipe (originally “Angloise”) in contrasting keys; the concluding section, “La Suave,” is a metrically unsettled passepied in the major mode suggestive of a temporary state of mental equilibrium (Example 2.13). These interruptions are no doubt to be understood as episodes of manic excitation, and for Telemann’s listeners the four dances of the main section would likely have conjured up the four classical temperaments or complexions that still held sway in less enlightened corners of eighteenth-century medical thought. Thus the hypochondriac’s mood swings take him back and forth from a state of melancholy (sarabande in G minor) to those that are sanguine (gigue in G major), phlegmatic (bourrée in B-flat major), and choleric (hornpipe in C minor). If the repetition effected by the movement’s binary structure appears artificially to halt the sufferer’s psychological journey and thus weaken the sense of realism, this is

Two Telemann’s Mimetic Art 111 example 2.12. Suite in D major for 3 trumpets, tympani, strings, and continuo, 55: D22/ii, mm. 1–14

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

   43   43    43   3   4 

                   8



Loure 

         

 

                

Le Podagre

                           

              

                     

          

                   

       





 









partly mitigated by the unbroken alternation of dances; such musical repetition might also be understood to reflect the hypochondriac’s obsessive retracing of his thoughts. That the movement is in the key of the dominant sets it off from all the other tonic-centered movements of the suite: it is as if the hypochondriac has been shunted off by, or quarantined from, his peers. From a historical perspective, “L’Hypocondre” invests with new meaning a venerable French tradition of stringing together various dances, or dance fragments, to form a kind of telescoped suite. Nearly a century earlier, Lully had written such a sequence at the end of the first act of Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, and during succeeding decades préramiste composers of opéras-ballets such as Campra, Thomas-Louis Bourgeois, and Jean-Joseph Mouret also cultivated the form.92 Probably the best-known and most ambitious example is Jean-Féry Rebel’s divertissement Les Caractères de la danse: Fantaisie (1715). Its performance at the Dresden court inspired an anonymous knockoff entitled “Imitation des Caracteres de la Danse” that, perhaps not surprisingly, adds a polonaise and “concertino” to the standard lineup of courtly dances (Rebel himself had included an Italianate “sonate” in his suite).93 Telemann’s innovation in “L’Hypocondre” was to use the telescoped suite as a vehicle for psychological narrative, not merely as a concise catalog of popular dance types.

112 The Overture-Suites example 2.13. Suite in D major for 3 trumpets, timpani, strings, and continuo, 55:D22/iv Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

Gigue

 68    68    68  6  8 5



 23   23 

9



                       

Sarabande

 23  3   2



 

 

Bourrée   C           C          C         C        

12





Sarabande

 23       23     23    3     2 

  

 

  

           

  

                                      

 



  

 

         

             

68 68 68 68 23 23 23 23











 C

 

 

 

 

 

 C











C



C

                                                 

23 23 23 23

Two Telemann’s Mimetic Art 113

Sarabande

 23          23         23         23       

17 

 





 



 

 



Hornpipe

  c       c      c      

21



25









       





 24   24   24  2  4









   

  



      Sarabande 

23  23  23   23





     



 

c

         

c



 



c c

 

        

      38           38          38            38    

La Suave

24     38     24     38     24     38        24     38   

31 



 

                       c             





           

24     38     24     38     24     38    24     38   

       

 

 

 

 

114 The Overture-Suites

Taken together, the symptoms depicted in the Suite tragi-comique—shooting pain, difficulty of movement, manic depression, overall mental instability, and sleeplessness (in the original conception of “Le Petit-maître”)—jibe well with eighteenth-century descriptions of hypochondria, which went far beyond the modern diagnosis of one who is obsessively concerned with being or becoming ill. Consider the colorful portrait of a hypochondriac offered by Sir Richard Blackmore in his 1725 treatise on the Hypocondriacal and Hysterical Affections, worth quoting here at length: [The] Symptoms that accompany this Distemper in the Head, are . . . various and surprizing (i.e.) Pain, Aches, Vertiginous Swimming and Giddiness, excessive Lightness, or on the contrary, great Dulness and Melancholy, dark Spots, Motes, and little Nets dancing in the Air before the Eyes; sometimes a Dimness, and a transient Suspension of the Sight, a ringing Noise in the Ears, sudden Dartings or Shootings, as of some kindled Vapour or Spirit in the Head; sometimes a Drowsiness and great Reluctance to open the Eyes, and on the reverse, at other times, an obstinate Wakefulness and Inability to sleep; sometimes tumultuous, sad and monstrous Dreams, accompanied with great Distress and Horror, when the Patient believes he sees Ghosts and terrible Apparitions, or armed Villains ready to assault and murder him. . . . And if there is this wavering Instability in [hypochondriacs’] intellectual Faculties, there is no less Diversity and Inconstancy in their Temper and Passions. Sometimes they are gay, chearful, and in good Humour; and when raised and animated with Wine, they acquire an extraordinary Degree of Mirth, while they break out into profuse Laughter, and often entertain the Company with a great Eruption of Wit and facetious Conversation. But though these delightful Scenes exhilerate the Hypocondriacal Man, yet when they are past, his Spirits are exhausted and sunk; and suddenly relapsing into his dull and lifeless Melancholy, he pays dear for his transient, voluptuous Satisfactions. Thus are his Days varied and checquered with black and white, calm and stormy, fair and cloudy Seasons, nor ever does his Glass of Life stand at a settled Point.94

Although it has been suggested that the suite’s ailments may refer to a specific personage (for example, the apparent dedicatee, Landgrave Ludwig VIII of HessenDarmstadt),95 it is more likely, given Telemann’s penchant for satire in earlier characteristic suites, that the medical theme was meant to resonate with a broad social stratum. Indeed, it was with medicine that the enlightened German public found itself closely engaged during the period when the Ouverture, jointes d’une Suite tragi-comique was composed. In Hamburg between 1759 and 1764, the Altona “house doctor” Johann August Unzer published a weekly moral journal called Der Arzt (The Physician), the tremendous appeal of which caused a 1769 reprinting

Two Telemann’s Mimetic Art 115

to sell out its entire press run of 3,500 copies at the Leipzig Easter Fair—the most successful reprint edition of a German periodical in the entire eighteenth century.96 Telemann, as a Hamburg resident and former publisher himself, cannot have been unaware of the locally produced journal and its large readership. And there were other successful organs of popular medical enlightenment at this time, such as Samuel Tissot’s 1763 Anleitung für das Landvolk in Absicht auf seine Gesundheit (published in English as Advice to the People in General: With Regard to Their Health) and Ernst Gottfried Baldinger’s monthly Artzeneien (Medicine), which appeared between 1765 and 1767. If these publications were enthusiastically consumed by the educated classes, Jean Ailhaud’s remède universel, a purgative powder, brilliantly capitalized on the desire of the masses in France and in Central and Eastern Europe for an effective home remedy to cure whatever ailed them. Ailhaud and his son sold hundreds of thousands of boxes of their remedy annually by the 1770s, notwithstanding published exposés on the “effets funestes de poudres Ailhauds” by the physicians Dupuy de la Porcherie and François Thiéry in 1759–60. Responding to the kind of quackery represented by Ailhaud’s remedy, and to the astrology-based health advice typically found in printed calendars, German governments began to offer their own, more enlightened, advice on diet, hygiene, and medical remedies, as in the semiofficial “health instruction for the people” installments published with the Verbesserter Schreib-Calendar (Improved Almanac) between 1769 and 1790.97 In musically depicting common illnesses and their remedies, then, Telemann was satirizing a powerful and widespread cultural phenomenon. His choice of hypochondria in particular was well considered, for it was far and away the most widely diagnosed illness of the eighteenth century.98 As Der Arzt observed: “Hypochondria is now a fashionable word that one uses to excuse many ill habits of the heart, blaming them on a disease that in our eyes is innocent. The physicians tolerate this fashion, and call hypochondria everything with only a passing resemblance to this disease.”99 Of the foolishness of hypochondriacs, Der Arzt further said, one can only write satirically, and to prove his point he published a sixteen-page comedy (“Charakter eines Mannes, der auf seine Gesundheit lauret in Form eines kleinen Lustspiels”) about a hypochondriac fearing illness on the model of Molière’s Le Malade imaginaire (1673), Christlob Mylius’s Die Ärzte (1745), and Theodor Johann Quistorp’s Der Hypochondrist (1745).100 Especially biting in its satire is Quistorp’s play, in which hypochondria is portrayed as a kind of dementia, a thick cloud that surrounds the main protagonist and gives rise to his absurd illusions and fears.101 As a further illustration of how hypochondriacs irrationally “view their illnesses as far more dangerous than they are,” Der Arzt related the following musical anecdote:

116 The Overture-Suites A scholar became so hypochondriacal from laziness that he confined himself to bed and prophesied his own death. For this reason he ordered that his funeral song be played on the neighboring carillon. He had often done this himself for exercise in his youth, and really had the knack for it. As the carillon was played, he heard with frustration how poorly the fellow was performing his duty. And since this was supposed to be his final honor, he wished it to be done properly for once and for all; so he angrily sprang out of bed and showed the fellow how he should have played. He broke into an extraordinary sweat over it, and returned to bed to await his end. However, this sweat restored his health.102

The German public’s appetite for satirical treatments of hypochondria seems to have reached its apogee during the first half of 1762 with the appearance of the weekly serial Der Hypochondrist, published in Schleswig under the editorship of Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg and Jakob Friedrich Schmidt.103 A compendium of satirical writings on hypochondria and other subjects, the journal is filled with comical letters from fictional correspondents, poetry of all types, suggestions as to how one might satirize oneself, and even a miniature epistolary novel. A brief description of hypochondria in the journal’s third month takes on an ironic tone: Strange hypochondria! what kind of equivocal teacher are you? Through your inspirations one sees things never before seen. A hypochondriacal eye is like an eye at night: everything appears black to it; or, to express myself more wittily, it is like a certain type of telescope that represents all objects upside down. As soon as the hypochondriac sees something as a vice—and his illness is quite helpful in this respect—he sees everything else as such.104

Telemann’s “L’Hypocondre” therefore takes its place beside a rich vein of literary satire aimed toward the illness at midcentury. And in view of his earlier suites based on Gulliver’s Travels and Don Quijote, we should not be surprised if he conceived the movement, together with the rest of the Suite tragi-comique, as a musical pendant to the comedies of Unzer, Mylius, and Quistorp, and to Gerstenberg’s and Schmidt’s satirical journal.105 But the object of Telemann’s satire seems as much the inadequacy of the remedies as the overdiagnosis of hypochondria and the sufferings (whether imaginary or real) of those so afflicted. None of the three characters in the suite seeks enlightened medical opinion or attempts any self-improvement: the gout-stricken character merely takes a carriage ride and dances, as if to ignore his symptoms; the hypochondriac simply grins and bears his misery; and the vainglorious fop, having failed to mend his ways, ends up being tortured by the Furies. These unenlightened responses could hardly have

Two Telemann’s Mimetic Art 117

surprised the authors of popular medical writings, who held that the common man could be counted upon during illness to act in one of three ways: do nothing, do too much, or do the wrong thing.106 Both as music and social commentary, Telemann’s Ouverture, jointes d’une Suite tragi-comique retains a freshness that marks many of his characteristic suites and movements. Certainly the combination of imaginative, colorful music with humorous subject matter makes a strong case for the suite in the modern concert hall, where the Wasser-Ouverture, Ouverture Burlesque de Quixotte, and “Mississippi” and “Alster” suites have already established themselves as favorites. The appeal of these and other characteristic pieces speaks to some of Telemann’s strengths as a composer: his flair for the theatrical, his gifts as a storyteller, and his irreverent, even acerbic sense of humor. If theatricality is most obviously displayed in musical likenesses of commedia dell’arte and “parade of nations” characters, it is experienced more deeply in a sleep scene transformed into a lament, or in battle music that becomes a struggle for supremacy between two dominant musical styles. Telemann is at his narrating best when depicting life on the Alster Lake, recording a courtly day centered around a hunt, or painting a pastoral idyll. We laugh with him over nonsensical chatter, an ingeniously “bizarre” send-up of the French overture, satirical music inspired by a satirical novel, and references to political events. All of this constitutes one of his most original achievements in the realm of instrumental music, appreciated as much during his lifetime as now.

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Part II The Concertos

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Chapter 3 Never from the Heart? Telemann’s Concertos

Although his music gives scant evidence of it, Telemann was not completely sold on the concerto early in his career. He may have encountered the first published works of Giuseppe Torelli (op. 5, 1692; op. 6, 1698) and Tomaso Albinoni (op. 2, 1700; op. 5, 1707) while at Hildesheim, Leipzig, or Sorau. But given the newness of the genre, that he began to compose his own concertos only after moving to Eisenach in 1708, as he recounted in his 1718 autobiography, is entirely credible. Steeped in the French style, particularly in the overture-suite, the young composer found this relatively new genre foreign to his musical sensibilities: However, because change amuses, I also tried my hand at concertos. About this I must confess that they have never really come from my heart, although I have already written a considerable quantity of them, about which one might write: Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum Qualemcunque potest . . . [Though nature say me nay, indignation will prompt my verse, of whatever kind it be . . .] At least it is true that they mostly smell of France. Even though it is likely that nature wished to deny me something, because we aren’t all able to do everything, it is probably one reason why I’ve found, in most of the concertos that I’ve seen, many difficulties and awkward leaps but little harmony and even poorer melody. The first qualities I hated because they were uncomfortable for my hand and bow [arm], and owing to the lack of the last qualities, to which my ears were accustomed through French music, I could neither love nor imitate [concertos].1

Despite his initial reservations, there are no indications that Telemann invested less thought or effort into the concerto than other instrumental genres. Nor should we assume that the concerto, and the Italian style more generally, continued to exert little pull on his heartstrings after 1718. When, in December 1729,

121

122 The Concertos

he provided Johann Gottfried Walther with autobiographical information for the forthcoming Musicalisches Lexicon, he succinctly took stock of his career in this way: “What I have accomplished in the area of musical style is well-known. First came the Polish style, followed by the French, church, chamber, and operatic styles, and [finally] what is called the Italian style, which currently occupies me more than the others do.”2 The fact that the 1740 autobiography is silent on his Eisenach encounter with concertos seems to indicate a change of heart. Telemann’s apparent distaste for virtuosity as an end in itself (“many difficulties and awkward leaps”) led him to develop his own stylistic paradigm for the concerto, one that tended to downplay soloistic display in favor of close dialogue and mixed-taste cosmopolitanism.3 In this sense, he was justified in observing that his concertos “smell of France.” This was undoubtedly a bolder and more personal response to the genre than most German composers of the time mustered. Yet Telemann’s Francophile orientation during the early decades of the eighteenth century was by no means unique among his colleagues. Consider Johann Mattheson’s preference in 1713 for the French overture over the Italian sinfonia or concerto: Suffice it to say that, in general, French instrumental music really has special advantages. Although the Italians take the greatest trouble in the world with their symphonies and concertos, which are certainly very beautiful, a lively French overture is surely preferable to all of them. For aside from the composition of such a pièce with its suite à la française, the French execution of it in performance is so admirable, so uniform, and so strong that nothing can surpass it.4

Mattheson’s opinion was evidently shared by the Lullist Johann Fischer, who found that if sonatas and concertos were not “performed in an accurate and unrestrained manner, as emotion demands,” they were better replaced by a “light and merry Ouvertüre, which would not require so much skill to bring off. This was one of the main reasons he [Fischer] composed neither sonatas nor concertos.”5 The environment in which Telemann began composing concertos appears to have been equally receptive to the French and Italian styles. His most significant Eisenach colleague was Pantaleon Hebenstreit, a violinist and dancing master famous for his invention of and virtuosity on the pantaleon, a large dulcimer with a wide dynamic range. Hebenstreit, whom Telemann praised for his mastery of the French style, had been given a mandate in 1707 to expand the Hofkapelle. Telemann arrived the following year and was charged with hiring singers who could also play the violin. As an Eisenach chronicler reported in 1708,

Three Never from the Heart? 123 The entire [church] music is under the direction of Herr Telemann, a man of great erudition and rare invention as a composer. The special ducal chamber music is directed by Monsieur Pantaleon, a renowned virtuoso who has made himself famous in both France and Germany owing to his music and skill in dancing. He is assisted by the above-mentioned Herr Telemann, under whom are the rest of the musicians, some already here and others on their way.6

Telemann was promoted to Kapellmeister after the new musicians arrived in 1709, and Hebenstreit soon left the court to go on a series of concert tours. But their partnership, short-lived though it was, proved fruitful: in 1740 Telemann made a point of praising “this Kapelle, arranged for the most part according to the French style, for it surpassed the very famous Paris Opéra orchestra, which I heard just recently.”7 Among the first concertos Telemann composed were works for one or two violins and strings, the latter no doubt featuring Hebenstreit and himself as soloists. That he regarded the violin as his primary instrument is confirmed by his letter of application for the position of Frankfurt city director of music and Kapellmeister at the Barfüsserkirche. In the letter, undated but apparently written at Eisenach between October 1711 and February 1712, Telemann states that he is “proficient principally on the violin, but also on the keyboard, recorder, chalumeaux, cello, and calchedon, and no less presentable with my voice, which lies between tenor and bass and is usually called baritone.”8 Nevertheless, Telemann rated Hebenstreit’s abilities above his own in the following anecdote: In this connection, I recall the aforementioned Herr Hebenstreit’s strength on the violin, which certainly placed him in the first rank among all other masters. So when we had to play a concerto together, I locked myself up for several days before, violin in hand, shirtsleeve rolled up on the left arm, and with strong ointments for my nerves, and gave myself lessons so that I would be somewhat able to rise up against his power. And behold! It assisted my noticeable improvement. As I composed everything for all performances, aside from a very few but extremely beautiful contributions by Herr Hebenstreit, it is easy to imagine how much I must have written.9

The Eisenach Concertos At least twenty-seven extant solo concertos by Telemann may be assigned to the Eisenach or early Frankfurt years on the basis of their source transmission and musical style. As listed in Table 3.1, these include nineteen works with one or two

124 The Concertos

violin soloists. The double violin concerto 52:G2 was copied out by J. S. Bach at Weimar around 1709 and apparently presented by him to the violinist Johann Georg Pisendel.10 It is the earliest documentation of a relationship between Bach and Telemann. Several years later, most likely in 1713 or 1714, Bach transcribed the violin concerto 51:g1 for harpsichord (BWV 985).11 The Dresden performance of another double violin concerto, 52:e2, can be placed in 1710 or 1711 based on the musicians’ names found on the parts.12 Four more double violin concertos (52:C2, D3, g1; 54:A1) are stylistically of a piece with 52:e2 and G2, and are therefore likely to have been composed at Eisenach as well.13 Two concertos transcribed for organ in Weimar by Johann Gottfried Walther also appear to be Eisenach works: the concerto for oboe and violin, 52:c1 (= Anh. 33:2); and the violin concerto 51:B2 (= Anh. 43:B1 and Anh. 33:6).14 Another, anonymous, harpsichord transcription, Anh. 33:1, seems to have been made from another early (and otherwise unknown) violin concerto (51:h3).15 Six other violin concertos must also have been written during the Eisenach or first Frankfurt years based on Darmstadt manuscripts copied around 1716 (51:D10, F3, G5, G8, a1, h2). Finally, a few wind concertos are of the same vintage: the famous trumpet concerto 51:D7; the horn concerto 51:D8; the oboe concertos 51:c1, c2, and d1 (the last dated 1713 in Johann Samuel Endler’s copy); and the double horn concertos 52:D2 and F4 (the former copied at Darmstadt around 1714).16 None of these works “smells of France” to any considerable degree; instead, they take as their starting point Italian concertos published during the first decade of the eighteenth century, perhaps especially Albinoni’s op. 5. As we shall see, Telemann’s efforts to gallicize the concerto began in earnest only around the time he wrote his 1718 autobiography. Wolfgang Hirschmann has identified several stylistic features characteristic of Telemann’s early concertos: (1) modest dimensions; (2) opening slow movements organized by some means other than ritornello form; (3) fast-movement ritornellos dominated by Fortspinnung (“spun-out” sequential writing) and displaying motivic homogeneity; (4) weak articulation of the tutti-solo opposition resulting from sonata-like motivic interplay between the soloist and accompanying strings (especially the first violin); (5) the generating of rhythmic contrast principally between solo and tutti, rather than within each group; and (6) a preference for common time rather than 2/4.17 Absent from these early works, as indeed from virtually all of Telemann’s concertos written before the 1720s, are specifically galant stylistic features such as Lombard and alla zoppa rhythms, a relatively slow harmonic rhythm, and drum basses. Already evident in the concertos listed in Table 3.1 is Telemann’s long-standing preference for the four-movement, da chiesa formal scheme (slow–fast–slow–fast), present in a dozen works. There are also echoes

Three Never from the Heart? 125 Table 3.1 Telemann’s solo concertos, ca. 1708–15 TWV

Solo instrument(s)

51:c1 51:c2 51:D7 51:D8 51:D10 51:d1 51:E3 51:F3 51:G5 51:G8 51:g1 51:a1 51:h2 51:B2 51:h3 52:C2 52:c1 52:D2 52:D3 52:e2 52:F4 52:G1 52:G2 52:g1 52:A2 52:B2 54:A1

Oboe Oboe Trumpet Horn Violin Oboe Violin Violin Violin Violin Violin Violin Violin Violin Violin? 2 violins Oboe and violin 2 horns 2 violins 2 violins 2 horns 2 violins 2 violins 2 violins 2 violins 2 violins 4 violins

Comments

D-DS source dated 1713

Transcribed for hpschd by J. S. Bach (BWV 985)

Transcribed for org by J. G. Walther (Anh. 33:6) Known only from hpschd transcription (Anh. 33:1) Transcribed for org by J. G. Walther (Anh. 33:2)

Performed at Dresden, 1710–11 D-DS source copied ca. 1714 Copied by J. S. Bach ca. 1709

in several concertos of the kind of sectional organization associated with the late seventeenth century: Adagio conclusions to three fast movements (51:G5/ii, a1/ ii; 52:D3/i) are stand-ins for slow movements, and the opening Allegro of 51: D10 begins with a three-measure Adagio introduction, then proceeds to interrupt its ritornello structure with a four-measure Adagio in recitative/arioso style. Most fast movements in the works with violin soloists have brief ritornello forms that explore a circumscribed array of closely related tonalities; only a few movements (51:F3/iv, g1/ii, a1/iv, h2/ii and iv) are in binary form. Unlike many Italian concertos of circa 1700, initial ritornellos are tonally closed (exceptional in this regard is 52:g1/iv). Yet as with these earlier works, ritornellos in several double-concerto movements (52:C2/iii, D3/ii, A2/i) are always stated more or less complete. This effect is especially pronounced in the finale of 52:G2,

126 The Concertos

where three complete ritornellos in the tonic form structural pillars that overshadow a few abbreviated statements in other keys.18 Departing from the usual homophonic texture, four ritornellos are fugal (52:G1/ii and iv, G2/ii, A2/iv). The first of these movements is a fully worked out fugue with two countersubjects, and closely resembles the fugal fast movements in Telemann’s string quintets from the same period (see chapter 5). The first two movements of 52:G2 are cleverly linked by means of a common fugal subject. In the opening Grave, the subject is treated according to the strict or learned style, also known as the stile antico (Example 3.1). It acquires a modern, fast-moving countersubject in the following Allegro, where Telemann proceeds to set up a high-low stylistic opposition between fugal ritornello and rustic episodes featuring parallel thirds over a drone. Two movements (51:B2/iv, 52:C2/i) are ritornello–da capo forms, a structure that Telemann was still using in the 1730s. A further point of contact with the aria comes in the double Devise or motto openings of movements, both fast and slow, in no fewer than eight solo concertos. In this formal device, already present in some of the Leipzig opera arias Telemann had written several years earlier, the soloist’s opening phrase is interrupted by a ritornello fragment before being restated as the beginning of the first episode. Interestingly, the second mottoes of 51:F3/ii and a1/i are ornamented, just as one imagines singers to have done. Nonfugal ritornellos tend to be dominated by a single motive—often sequential Fortspinnung consisting of rapid scalar or arpeggio figures—rather than exhibiting the motivic variety characteristic of Vivaldi’s ritornellos. (Interestingly, the dominant motive of 51:G8/iv suggests castanets through its bolero rhythm). Nevertheless, some ritornellos include enough internal contrast that segments may be detached from the whole and used as accompaniments in solo episodes. The compact ritornello of 54:A1/ii, shown in Example 3.2, is among the most sophisticated in this respect. The four-beat head motive, stated in unison, permeexample 3.1. Concerto in G major for two violins and strings, 52:G2/i, mm. 1–6 Violin 1 concertino Violin 2 concertino Violin 1 ripieno Violin 2 ripieno Viola

Grave    43            3       4   3     4 3     4    3        4



  

 

            

Three Never from the Heart? 127

ates the ritornello’s first half, even as a new sequential idea is introduced by the first two concertante violins in measures 2–4 (it is common for ritornellos in Telemann’s early concertos to include interjections by the soloists). When the two soloists move on to figuration in measures 5–6, this sequential idea becomes accompanimental. All of this occurs over a bassetto bass supplied by the viola. As the first episode commences in measure 9, the bass enters with the ritornello head motive as a sort of ostinato accompaniment continuing (with input from the upper strings) for a total of ten measures. The other two episodes are likewise almost continually accompanied by the head motive (or just the initial octave leap), and by the end of the third episode the soloists have given in, as it were, and state it as well. The role of the soloist(s) varies considerably within fast movements. In works such as 51:D10, the solo violin has only brief interjections between ritornellos, a kind of solo-tutti exchange that is reminiscent of Torelli’s and Albinoni’s early violin concertos. If such a tutti-dominated discourse results in a weak sense of the work as a solo concerto, it can also generate an attractive sense of spontaneity. Such is the case with the D-major concerto’s giga finale, with its imaginative orchestration and seamless integration of solo and tutti material. Solo writing in these early works often clings to one or two types of display figuration, and there tends to be more multiple-stopping than in Telemann’s later string concertos (was this a specialty of Hebenstreit or of Telemann himself ?). But in several solo concerto movements, most notably 51:F3/ii, G5/iv, and a1/ii, the soloist’s extensive quotation of ritornello material eventually causes the tutti-solo distinction to break down, as portions of the final ritornellos are stated soloistically. One of the more virtuosic solo parts among the violin concertos is found in 51:E3, the unique and fragmentary manuscript parts for which were inaccessible until their recent restoration. Given the manuscript’s Dresden provenance, it is tempting to imagine the concerto having been written for Pisendel. Alone among Telemann’s early concertos, the first movement (commencing with a stereotypical “hammerstroke” gesture) includes an unaccompanied, cadenza-like capriccio for the soloist preceding the concluding ritornello. Slow movements, none of them ritornello based, are of several types. Many are sonata-style Adagios scored for soloist(s) and continuo, or with the tutti strings providing a simple chordal accompaniment (the middle movement of 51:E3 is a siciliana for violin and continuo). Common as well are Adagios in the style of the sarabanda in 3/2, a movement type also found in Telemann’s sonatas from the same period. In some movements, the tutti accompaniment consists of a freely treated ostinato figure; particularly interesting are the ostinatos of 51: F3/i, closely canonic between the unison violins and continuo, and 52:e4/i,

128 The Concertos example 3.2. Concerto in A major for four violins and strings, 54:A1/ii, mm. 1–11 Violin 1 concertato Violin 2 concertato Violin 3 concertato Violin 4 concertato Violin 1 ripieno Violin 2 ripieno Viola Continuo

 4 

  3Allegro    4      43      43   43       3   4      43   3   4  43 

     

                                                           

       

     

             

                              

   

                                                                                 

treated imitatively in all four tutti parts. Several interior slow movements belong to the “harmonic” type, a brief, transitional progression of block chords or suspensions that is common in early concertos generally. Perhaps the most beautifully expressive slow movement among Telemann’s early string concertos is the opening Adagio of 51:a1.19 Its introductory ritornello of pulsing sixth chords, beginning off the beat and in the alto register, seems to hang in midair (Example 3.3). Inflected by the Neapolitan sixth, the harmonic progression does not make

Three Never from the Heart? 129

                                                              8





  

                                                        

the expected return to the tonic as the soloist enters with the first of two motto statements. Rather, it initially veers off toward the subdominant and then becomes increasingly dissonant owing to a series of suspensions. When the tonic finally returns in measure 12, it is only weakly articulated in first inversion. Following the second motto statement, the soloist’s cantilena becomes increasingly ornamental (including passaggi at mm. 20 and 22). The structural return to the tonic at measure 35 brings with it a brief invocation of recitative style before the final cadential closure. Among the wind concertos, the first fast movements of the solo trumpet and horn concertos (51:D7 and D8) display several similarities with their counterparts in the violin concertos: a rhythmically undifferentiated ritornello that returns intact, the double-motto entrance of the soloist, and brief episodes that are increasingly dependent on ritornello material (almost all of the horn’s episodic material is derived from the ritornello). Whereas the third movement of the trumpet concerto is a sarabanda in trio scoring for two violins and continuo, the second movement of the horn concerto features the soloist in a cantilena accompanied by a violin ostinato (all the more remarkable considering that the horn soloists in 52:D2 and F4 are omitted from the interior slow movements). The latter work concludes with a binary Allegro, while the former has a fugal finale in which the trumpet is not assigned episodic material (again given to the violins), but states the dux and takes part in subsequent subject entries. That three of these four concertos include horn parts may be explained by the instrument’s popular-

130 The Concertos example 3.3. Concerto in A minor for violin and strings, 51:a1/i, mm. 1–16 Adagio

Violin concertino Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

  43   3 4             43             3  4              43  

    

6



                          

                

                                       6 5 #

                                          5 4

6 4

                                                                 12

 



                                 

     

ity during the 1710s. As Mattheson noted in 1713, “the charming-stately hunting horns . . . are presently very much en vogue in church, theatrical, and chamber music, partly because they are not as naturally harsh as trumpets, and partly because they may be played with greater facility.”20 Most of Telemann’s subsequent concertos for two or three brass instruments also include horns. The only Eise-

Three Never from the Heart? 131

nach concerto to mix wind and string soloists is 52:c1. As in 52:F4/i, a mostly chordal, tonally closed Adagio runs into the following Allegro. In these and the subsequent two movements, the solo writing is limited to brief interludes between tutti material.

Concertos for the Eloquent Oboe Telemann’s eight oboe concertos (51:c1, c2, D5, d1, d2, e1, f1, G2) appear to span his first fifteen years as a concerto composer. Together with three slightly later works for oboe d’amore and strings (51:e2, G3, A2), they are arguably his most effective concertos for solo wind instrument.21 One of the distinguishing features of these eleven works is the high concentration of slow movements in recitative, arioso, and aria style; some of the most striking examples occur in the earliest concertos (51:c1, c2, d1, f1), all probably written by 1713. Telemann’s evident fondness for the oboe’s speech-like expressivity was shared by Mattheson, who noted that the “eloquent oboe” was, next to the flûte allemande, “probably the [instrument] closest to the human voice if played in an ornamental, singing style.”22 The first sonority one hears in 51:c1 comes as a shock: a fourth-inversion diminished ninth chord built on the leading tone (Example 3.4). Together with the oboe’s spare melodic line, the strings’ pulsating (at times convulsing) accompaniment, and the movement’s overall harmonic instability, this extremely harsh dissonance suggests we have entered a dramatic realm not typically associated with instrumental music of the time. Indeed, the movement’s style is suggestive of accompanied recitative, though the oboe melody is at times closer to arioso. Some strong emotion is being communicated here, but what is it? For a critic such as Johann Jakob Engel, writing some seventy years hence, this kind of wordless music could communicate only madness: Suppose that the most beautiful accompanied recitative of a Hasse were performed without the voice, or, even better perhaps, that a duodrama of Benda’s were performed by the orchestra alone, without the characters. What would you think you heard in the best work, one composed with the finest taste and the most correct judgment? Nothing other than the wild fantasies of a person delirious with fever. But why? Clearly because the sequence of ideas or events, which is what makes the sequence of feelings comprehensible, has been removed from the whole.23

Telemann’s preface to the Calypso libretto, quoted in the previous chapter, suggests that he would have agreed with Engel in principle: “If . . . opera arias would be heard with pleasure even if we could not understand the words at all, it is im-

132 The Concertos example 3.4. Concerto in C minor for oboe and strings, 51:c1/i, mm. 1–8 Adagio     Oboe

Violino 1

Violino 2

Viola

Continuo

  c    c         c          c     c    



   

                                      

  

                               

     

 

                                                



                



4

6

                                 



       

    

                  

                      

     

     

   

   

possible that recitative, which is completely incapable of arousing such ideas, could achieve such plaisir.” But pleasure does not seem to be what this movement is about, and in seeking to express an extremely raw emotion—and perhaps to demonstrate in the process that instrumental music could do so without the benefit of a text—Telemann evidently found recitative /arioso style to be the most appropriate vehicle.

Three Never from the Heart? 133 example 3.5. Concerto in D minor for oboe and strings, 51:d1/iii Oboe

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

Adagio     c                        c          c                 c   c        [ ]

6

D

7

6

6b

6 5b

5

6 5b

¿

5

#

                                                                4

[ ]

[ ]

[ ]

[ ]

6 4

6 5b

b

6

7

6

#

A similar approach to the oboe’s textless eloquence is found in the brief third movement of 51:d1, given complete in Example 3.5. Beginning with a diminished seventh chord, it displays the declamatory, angular melodic line and harmonic instability characteristic of recitative. The delay of the “vocal” entrance until the second beat of the first measure is a further realistic touch. Like the Cminor movement, this one is harmonically over the top: the Neapolitan sixth in measure 2 sets up a dominant cadence that is deflected in measure 3, where the oboe’s suspended Fs make an especially pungent effect. These two recitatives bear comparison with the opening of the double violin concerto 52:B2, where another ninth chord provides the first sonority. This movement, excerpted in Example 3.6, also provides an extremely rare example of a recitative for two instruments. Among “arias” and “ariosos” in the oboe concertos are the opening Adagio of 51:d1, an ostinato movement recalling those in several Eisenach violin concertos. Here Telemann achieves an undulating effect through 3:2:1 rhythms in the upper strings (Example 3.7). Both Adagios of 51:c2 also treat the oboe as a singer: each

134 The Concertos example 3.6. Concerto in B-flat for two violins and strings, 52:B2/i, mm. 1–6 Adagio    Violin 1 concertino Violino 2 concertino Violin 1 ripieno

    c            c   c       c       c   c   p

Violin 2 ripieno

p

Viola

                      

 

p

Continuo

p

7 4 2

                         4



         

 

 8 5 3

 6

¿

                                                             5

¿

 

 

 







¿ D

2

7 5

6 4

    E #

begins with sustained notes for the soloist, as is common in arias in the pathetic or cantabile style, and indeed these are the two affects explored here. Fast movements in the early oboe concertos are often marked by close dialogues between solo and tutti. Note in Example 3.8 that the ritornello of 51:c1/ ii consists of short motives traded between oboe and strings, most prominently a falling fifth that may be contracted to a fourth or third. At the second statement of the ritornello, the roles are completely reversed when the oboe follows the strings’ lead. As with several Eisenach violin concertos, the ritornellos in this movement (and in 51:c1/iv and d1/ii) are always presented intact. The fourth movement of 51:d1 begins with a solo motto interrupted by a brief tutti, a vari-

Three Never from the Heart? 135 example 3.7. Concerto in D minor for oboe and strings, 51:d1/i, mm. 1–3 Oboe

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Adagio      23    3  2                     23              3                     2   23       3

Continuo

3

3

3

3

3

                 



3



3



3

ant of the standard double-motto opening in which the tutti begins. This exchange generates the movement’s structural framework, for in place of a ritornello, the first violin engages the oboe in a continual dialogue; a similar conversational style governs the fast movements of 51:c2. The clearest ritornello structures in these four concertos occur in the outer movements of the F-minor concerto, the first having a fugal ritornello. In between comes one of the earliest instances of Telemann’s long-standing association of the oboe with the minor-mode siciliana. Thanks to a fortunate survival of an autograph draft, we know for whom 51: e1 was intended. On the Frankfurt composing score of his communion ode Da ich mich hier eingefunden, TVWV 1:1748, performed in Hamburg in 1722, Telemann sketched out about a dozen measures of what became the third movement of the oboe concerto.24 Here the movement was conceived as the opening to a “Sonata Concerto di Hautb.” with an accompaniment of “2 Violini, Viola e Basso” “pour Mons: Richter,” that is, for the Dresden oboist Johann Christian Richter, one of the dedicatees of Telemann’s Die Kleine Cammer-Music (Frankfurt, 1716). But Telemann’s conception was far from crystallized, for he crossed out “Concerto” and the scoring of the accompaniment, then added “Sonata.” Assuming that the sketch was made only slightly before the ode was composed, Hirschmann has interpreted the concerto’s style—not far removed from that of 51:d1, c1, c2, but also exhibiting expanded dimensions and a clearer differentiation between solo and tutti—as a blend of the old and the new, a “synchronous ‘polyphony’ of varied concertante concepts.”25 Yet both the ode and the sketch may be considerably older than 1722, and the concerto is, as Hirschmann observes, more characteristic of 1713 than of 1722. Regardless of when it was composed, the E-minor concerto is in every way more sophisticated than the other four concertos so far considered. Its slow movements, both of which are in ritornello form, are substantially longer, and most of

136 The Concertos example 3.8. Concerto in C minor for oboe and strings, 51:c1/ii, mm. 1–16 Oboe

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

Allegro    c        c             c                c        c     

 

                                      



 

 

                                         



                              

    

4

8

 





 

 

                                                                                        

  

         

               



     

                                       

the fast-movement ritornellos are stated only by the tutti. The opening Andante is a cantabile in which the first ritornello presents an ostinato figure in dialogue among the violins. Following the oboe’s entrance with a head motive constructed from sigh figures, the ostinato migrates between all three upper string parts. As is common among Telemann’s ostinato movements, the soloist states the ostinato figure toward the end. In the second movement, Telemann highlights Richter’s

Three Never from the Heart? 137

                  12

                  14

                                                                                                                                                    3

3

skill at negotiating rapid passagework. But after the second ritornello confirms a modulation to the relative major, something extraordinary occurs: both soloist and accompaniment suddenly abandon their motoric sixteenth notes in favor of oboe triplets over sustained chords outlining the progression III–IV–v–V/v (Example 3.9). Further setting this passage off from the rest of the movement is the oboe’s angular, declarative melody. There is no tempo change at this point, but modern performers often slow down and play these measures ametrically. They are responding, it seems, to stylistic cues that the passage is an accompanied recitative. Following this disruption, the movement picks up where it left off, with a modified return of the opening music. The effect is not unlike a da capo aria in which the B section is a short passage of continuo recitative.26 Probably belonging to the late Frankfurt or early Hamburg years are 51:D5 and d2. Because the oboe d’amore was invented during the mid 1710s and begins appearing in compositions in 1717,27 51:e2, G3, and A2 probably also date from circa 1718–25. Toward the end of this period, Telemann used the concerto for two oboes d’amore and cello, 53:D3, as the overture to his 1723 opera Das Ende

138 The Concertos example 3.9. Concerto in E minor for oboe and strings, 51:e1/ii, mm. 26–33 26

Oboe

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

  c  c                     c                c       c               6

                       3

3

 







5 3

                         3

3

6 #4

3

3

6 4

32

        3

3

  

                      

29

3

                         

3

3

3

  

§7

§7

3

3



  

8

§

            3

 

3



3



 6 4

5 #

der babylonischen Monarchie oder Belsazar, TVWV 21:11.28 All of these concertos are more mature—though not necessarily more successful—works than the five so far discussed, most exhibiting broader overall dimensions, modular ritornellos in the Vivaldian tradition, greater differentiation between solo and tutti, and longer solo episodes. Perhaps the finest work among them is 51:A2, which opens with a

Three Never from the Heart? 139

lovely siciliana (as does 51:d2) and includes two ritornello-based fast movements in which the interplay between solo and tutti is especially sophisticated; the da capo–form finale begins with an alla caccia fanfare in horn fifths between the soloist and violin 1. The concerto’s third movement, like that of 51:D5, has a kind of ritornello form found in several other slow instrumental movements among Telemann’s Frankfurt and Hamburg works. In these a cantabile central section typically featuring conjunct melodic motion, short-breathed phrasing, and alternations of close imitation with passages in thirds and sixths is framed by a brief phrase or period functioning as a ritornello.29 Both concerto movements are scored for soloist and continuo following the tutti ritornello, and to underscore the vocal reference in the A-major work, Telemann starts the oboe d’amore out with an aria-like sustained pitch. In keeping with his increasing involvement with the mixed taste, the finale of the D-major concerto is a gavotte en rondeau.

Concertos alla francese When Telemann wrote of his concertos that they “mostly smell of France,” he might well have been referring specifically to a group of ten works written in the years around 1718. These include six concertos for two flutes (52:e2; 53:D1, G1, A1, a1, h1), two for two recorders (52:a2, B1), one for two oboes (53:C1), and one for two flutes and violin (53:e1). Each exemplifies the mixed taste by blending the Italian concerto with French stylistic elements. Not for nothing is the double oboe concerto identified by the bilingual title “Concerto à la francese” in its Darmstadt source: it opens with a rondeau and includes a sarabande and menuet. The “Grand Concert” 52:a2 (as it is called in its Dresden source) begins with a “Gravement” that is essentially a French prelude with the rhythmes saccadés of the French overture or entrée grave, and concludes with a binary menuet or passepied. A sarabande-like prelude opens 52:B1, and another binary movement with strong dance associations brings the concerto to a close. More substantial than these three works is the particularly fine 53:e1. Its first two movements may be heard as an Italianate reimagining of the French overture. A Larghetto representing the overture’s first section supplies the obligatory rhythmes saccadés, but in the guise of a ritornello separating solo episodes for the flutes and violin in turn. Following a brief harmonic Adagio, an untitled fast movement stands in for the overture’s second section, albeit with a distinctly un-French contrapuntal intensity (again, the flutes and violin receive separate episodes). This “overture” gives way to two dance-based movements: an exquisitely mournful sarabande beginning as a trio for flutes and continuo, and a concerto-allegro finale with a bourrée-style ritornello and thoroughly Italianate solo episodes.

140 The Concertos

Judging from their similar style and scoring, number, rational key scheme (D major/B minor, G major/E minor, A major/A minor), and manuscript transmission, the double flute concertos were conceived as a set at some point during the Frankfurt period.30 Telemann’s composing scores of the concertos in D major and B minor are preserved at Dresden, and that of the E-minor concerto (now in Paris) once belonged to the Hofkapelle as well. All three are identified by the composer as “Concert. Par moi Telemann.”31 (Telemann’s self-conscious mixing of national styles in these works is nicely reflected on the first page of his score to the D-major concerto, where he altered “Concerto” to read “Concert,” and “Flauto traverso o Violin” to become “Flûte traverse ou Violon.”)32 The Dresden connection suggests that Telemann composed these works during his September 1719 visit to the court for the celebrations on the marriage of Crown Prince Friedrich August II to Maria Josepha, Archduchess of Austria. Of course, he might also have arrived in Dresden with the scores or sent them from Frankfurt either before or after his visit. Yet his use in the D-major score of paper made in Tellnitz (now Telnice, near Teplice), a Bohemian town not far from Dresden, seems to point to a September 1719 composition date. If these concertos were indeed played by the Hofkapelle (no performance material survives), then the soloists would have included Pierre Gabriel Buffardin, the court’s principal flutist from 1715, and either Jean Cadet or Johann Martin Blockwitz. In performances during later years, Buffardin would have partnered with Johann Joachim Quantz, who joined the court’s “Polish” Kapelle in 1718 as an oboist before eventually switching to flute. It is not surprising that Telemann chose flutes as soloists for the most Gallic of his concertos, for the instrument was commonly associated with France and French players, as at Dresden. Accompanying the soloists during episodes is the mandora (also known by the terms “gallichon,” “calichon,” “colascione,” and their variants), a six-stringed bass lute developed in Germany during the late seventeenth century that Telemann both played and wrote for in many of his sacred vocal works, especially those composed at Frankfurt. The autographs of the D-major and E-minor concertos specify “calchedon,” but that of the B-minor concerto gives the option of using bassoon. In fact, all eighteenth-century copies of the double flute concertos specify bassoon as the flutes’ accompaniment—presumably because the mandora was a relatively uncommon instrument in many locations. Stylistically, these attractive works closely resemble the E-minor triple concerto. Gallic elements include dance movements such as the gigue, loure, menuet, and sarabande; occasional rondeaus (53:D1/iv, a1/iv; 52:e2/iv); and the recasting of fast-movement ritornellos as if they were rondeau refrains. Note in Example 3.10 that the ritornello of 53:A1/ii consists of an antecedent-consequent pair of phrases that could easily serve as the refrain to a bourrée en rondeau. But in its subsequent

Three Never from the Heart? 141 example 3.10. Concerto in A major for two flutes and strings, 53:A1/ii, mm. 1–16 Flutes 1 and 2

Violins 1 and 2

Viola

Continuo

                                   c              Allegro    c    c     c 

              6



  

         

           

        

                

              

        

                                                                           11

Vln 1

returns, the ritornello is not only transposed to different keys, but is abbreviated as well. As in 53:e1, the opening movements of 53:a1 and h1 evoke the slow section of the French overture or the entrée grave through their dotted rhythms (the latter movement also refers to the lament tradition through its descending bass line). Apart from ritornello structures, the Italian style is most strongly in evidence during the flutes’ episodes. Indeed, on the composing score of the B-minor concerto Telemann writes the ironic comment “pazzia italiana” (“Italian madness”) during the final episode of the second movement. This must refer to measures 113–16, where G in the bass clashes with G-sharp in the first flute (Example 3.11).33 Apparently, then, Telemann regarded harmonic extravagance (or perhaps crudeness) as an Italian specialty. The mixed taste in these concertos also encompasses the Polish or rustic style: in the last episode of 53:D1/iv, the minuet topic suddenly gives way to unisons, drones, and an unexpected change of key. But it is the last

142 The Concertos example 3.11. Concerto in B minor for two flutes and strings, 53:h1/ii, mm. 112–18

        112

Flute 1

Flute 2

Continuo



                                                     pazzia italiana

6 4 3

5 3

6

#

7 5

#

movement of 53:G1 that provides one of Telemann’s most potent evocations of traditional music, not without some humorous banter between soloists and tutti. Given that few concertos with solo flute parts were written before the 1720s, Telemann’s double flute concertos may be the first of their kind. In this respect, it is worth calling attention to a similar work from the period: Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco’s attractive E-minor concerto for two flutes and strings. Published as the third of the Concerti à piu istrumenti, op. 5 (Amsterdam, ca. 1721), Dall’Abaco’s concerto is noteworthy not only for its scoring and early date but also for its distinctly French aroma. The composer had recently spent five years in France with the Bavarian electoral court, temporarily displaced from Munich by the War of the Spanish Succession. The resulting impact on his music is reflected in op. 5 by numerous French airs and dances, the overall effect being strikingly close to the mixed taste of Telemann’s concertos alla francese. In the E-minor concerto, a Vivaldian concerto-allegro gives way to a slow air for flutes and continuo (recall the trio scoring of the sarabande in 53:e1). This is followed by a contrast movement alternating the Italian idiom (fast string tremolos) with the French (slow wind trios featuring dotted rhythms)—an opposition of national styles that brings to mind the “Combattans” of 55:B10. Dall’Abaco’s last two movements are both French: a Largo in the mode of an operatic sommeil scene, and a pair of passepieds. Were Telemann’s concertos alla francese inspired by this work and the other Concerti à piu istrumenti? Or could Dall’Abaco have written his concertos in response to Telemann’s? Apart from the question of possible influence, it is clear that Telemann was not the only composer in Germany to gallicize the concerto around 1720.

Telemann and the German Ripieno Concerto The prevailing view of the early instrumental concerto in Germany goes something like this: At the turn of the eighteenth century, German composers of concertos imitated either the Roman works of Arcangelo Corelli (Georg Muffat,

Three Never from the Heart? 143

Benedict Anton Aufschnaiter, Johann Christoph Pez) or the northern Italian works of Tomaso Albinoni and Giuseppe Torelli (Henricus Albicastro [Johann Heinrich von Weissenburg]). The appearance of Antonio Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico, op. 3, and La stravaganza, op. 4, offered a new model—the mature solo concerto— that rapidly eclipsed all others. Starting around 1713, quantities of Vivaldian concertos were produced by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Friedrich Fasch, Christoph Graupner, Johann David Heinichen, Johann Melchior Molter, Johann Georg Pisendel, Johann Joachim Quantz, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, Georg Philipp Telemann, and others.34 The problem with this little narrative is not so much its simplification of complex processes of influence, innovation, and reception as its implication that the German response to Vivaldi’s works entailed an almost immediate and absolute retreat from other paradigms of the concerto. This is, to be sure, an implication seemingly borne out both by hundreds of German solo concertos indebted to the Venetian model and the comparatively small number of works in the Roman grosso style, especially in central and northern Germany (Muffat, Aufschnaiter, and Pez spent most or all of their careers in Austria or southern Germany). However, a third type of concerto, that cultivated around 1700 by Torelli, Albinoni, and Albicastro, appears to have coexisted in Germany with the solo type during the 1710s and 1720s: the concerto a quattro or (following Vivaldi’s occasional usage) concerto ripieno, scored for strings without independent parts for soloists. Introduced by Torelli during the 1690s, at least in print, the ripieno concerto continued to be cultivated by Italian composers through the first three decades of the eighteenth century; the most significant publications to include at least some such works are listed in Table 3.2.35 The best Italian examples—and the largest body of ripieno concertos by a single composer—are those by Vivaldi, whose approximately forty-five works are thought to have been written toward the end of the genre’s history, mostly after 1720.36 Another of the repertory’s high points, Handel’s Grand Concerto op. 6, no. 7, HWV 325 (1739), is an especially late, and no doubt consciously retrospective, response to the ripieno concerto.37 It has been easy to assume that German composers were largely unaware of or uninterested in the ripieno concerto, for no theoretical witnesses from the first half of the eighteenth century make explicit mention of it. Walther, Martin Heinrich Fuhrmann, and Friedrich Erhardt Niedt do not discuss the instrumental concerto at all in treatises written between 1706 and 1710—perhaps understandably, given how recently the genre had come into being. Although Johann Mattheson’s 1713 definition of the concerto—the first published anywhere, and later adapted by Walther in his Musicalisches Lexicon—describes the genre in the most general of terms, a reference to violin pieces in which the parts are treated equally could be an implicit acknowledgment of the ripieno concerto:

144 The Concertos Table 3.2 Selected publications including ripieno concertos, 1692–1720 Composer

Publication

Giuseppe Torelli Giulio Taglietti Giovanni Lorenzo Gregori Giuseppe Torelli Giulio Taglietti Tomaso Albinoni Artemio Motta Giovanni Bianchi Henricus Albicastro Giuseppe Bergonzi Luigi Taglietti Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco Giuseppe Matteo Alberti Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco

Sinfonie à tre e concerti à quattro, op. 5 (Bologna, 1692) Concerti é sinfonie a tre, op. 2 (Venice, 1696; Amsterdam, 1698) Concerti grossi, op. 2 (Lucca, 1698) Concerti musicali, op. 6 (Augsburg and Amsterdam, 1698) Concerti a quattro, op. 4 (Venice, 1699; Amsterdam, ca. 1709) Sinfonie e concerti a cinque, op. 2 (Venice, 1700; Amsterdam, 1702) Concerti a cinque, op. 1 (Modena, 1701) Sei Concerto di chiesa a quatro . . . , op. 2 (Amsterdam, [1703]) XII Concerti a quattro, op. 7 (Amsterdam, 1704) Sinfonie da chiesa, e concerti a quattro, op. 2 (Bologna, 1708) Concerti a quattro . . . e sinfonie a tre, op. 6 (Venice, 1708) Concerti a quatro da chiesa, op. 2 (Amsterdam, ca. 1708–12) Concerti per chiesa, e per camera, op. 1 (Bologna, 1713) Concerti à più istrumenti, op. 5 (Amsterdam, ca. 1717–20)

Concertos, broadly construed, are gatherings and collegia musica; strictly speaking, however, this word is often used for vocal or instrumental chamber music (i.e., a piece so called); most strictly, for violin pieces arranged so that each of the parts distinguishes itself at a certain time and plays in competition with the other voices, so to speak. That is also why in such pieces and others where only the first part dominates, a violin that stands out among many others for its particular nimbleness is called Violino concertino.38

As for later and more extensive discussions of the concerto by Johann Adolph Scheibe and Johann Joachim Quantz, these describe the genre from the perspective of the 1730s and 1740s, when the ripieno variety had already faded into obsolescence. Scheibe does, however, write at length on the closely related concert symphony (Kammersynphonie).39 Despite theorists’ virtual silence regarding the ripieno concerto, it is likely that such works were known to German composers through both published editions and manuscript copies, for many central European courts were supplied with the latest Italian music through diplomatic and family connections, study trips undertaken by musicians, and cultural tourism. For example, between 1708 and 1713 Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn in Würzburg had Matthias Ferdinand von Regatschnig, Resident for Mainz in Venice, send him the latest Italian music. Among the works referred to in Regatschnig’s correspondence are “36 original Concerti” and “concerti e motetti.”40 Concertos by Vivaldi and other Italians would almost certainly have accompanied the sixteen-year-old Saxon

Three Never from the Heart? 145

Crown Prince Friedrich August II on his return to Dresden from a 1712 visit to Venice and other Italian cities. Among the spoils the prince brought back to Dresden following a 1716–17 Italian journey was a manuscript presentation copy of Giorgio Gentili’s Concerti a quattro, op. 6 (Venice, 1716), twelve works in which a “Violino Principale” has only occasional solo passages.41 Whether connected to these trips or not, one or more works from Albinoni’s Sinfonie e concerti a cinque, op. 2, and several concertos by Torelli (including two a quattro) appear to have been performed by the Dresden Hofkapelle.42 Torelli was himself employed at the Ansbach court of Georg Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg as maestro del concerto in 1696– 97 and 1698–99.43 His 1697 visit to Berlin led him to dedicate the Concerti musicali, op. 6, to Sophie Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg; the Augsburg edition of this collection was advertised at the autumn 1697 trade fairs in Frankfurt and Leipzig, a year before its publication.44 These and other concertos by Torelli no doubt found an important advocate in his Ansbach pupil Pisendel, violinist in the Dresden Hofkapelle from 1712. In 1709, the year in which he appears to have met Bach in Weimar and Telemann in Leipzig, Pisendel performed a concerto said to be by Torelli with the Leipzig collegium musicum.45 Another significant composer of ripieno concertos, Dall’Abaco, was also resident in Germany. Ripieno concertos must also have been disseminated across Germany via the Amsterdam editions of Estienne Roger, publisher of works by Torelli, Taglietti, Albinoni, Bianchi, Dall’Abaco, and Albicastro. In 1712 Roger advertised that one could buy his prints in Berlin from Dussarat, in Halle from Sellius, in Cologne from Poner, and in Hamburg from the composer Johann Christian Schickardt.46 Telemann had dealings with Sellius, who was a publishing agent for his edition of Prince Johann Ernst of Sachsen-Weimar’s Six concerts à violon concertant, op. 1 (1718), the first published collection of solo concertos by a German composer. One wonders if the unidentified “music books from Halle” acquired by Johann Ernst’s Weimar court in early 1714 included Roger editions of ripieno concertos from Sellius’s shop. Only months earlier, on 8 July 1713, the prince returned to Weimar from a two-year study trip to the Netherlands with a quantity of music he would have acquired in Utrecht and Amsterdam, music that undoubtedly included some of the concertos arranged for harpsichord or organ by court organist Bach during the following year (BWV 592–96 and 972–87).47 It is also likely that this music furnished models for some of the fourteen surviving concerto arrangements for organ by Walther, Johann Ernst’s composition teacher and organist at the Weimar Stadtkirche.48 All of Bach’s arrangements are of solo concertos by Torelli, Vivaldi, Telemann, and Johann Ernst (though the models for BWV 977, 983, and 986 are unknown), but among Walther’s arrangements, also mostly of various Italian and German solo concertos, are the fourth and fifth

146 The Concertos

concertos of Albinoni’s op. 2. We know that Bach was also familiar with this publication during his early Weimar years, for he copied out the continuo part to the second concerto (BWV Anh. I, 23). Let us now turn to the music, beginning with Johann Ernst in the months following his return to Weimar in 1713. Walther recalls that at this time (June [recte July?] 1713 to March 1714) he gave the prince composition lessons, resulting in nineteen instrumental works that included the violin concertos published posthumously by Telemann as the Six concerts.49 Of particular interest are manuscript sets of parts to the concertos in B-flat major and A minor, op. 1, nos. 1–2, now preserved at Rostock but originally belonging to the Württemberg-Stuttgart court of Duke Eberhard Ludwig, where Crown Prince Friedrich Ludwig (1698–1731) assembled a large collection of instrumental music that remains mostly intact.50 As Hans-Joachim Schulze has shown, these and several other manuscripts containing concertos by Johann Ernst in the Friedrich Ludwig collection originated at the Weimar court, probably between July 1713 and July 1714.51 What the manuscripts of the B-flat and A-minor concertos reveal is that Johann Ernst originally conceived the works as ripieno concertos for four-part strings, albeit with especially dominant first violin lines. The B-flat parts are six in number: “Violino [Principale]” “Violino 1 Rip[ieno],” “Violino Secundo,” “Violino 2 Rip[ieno],” “Viola,” and “Continuo.”52 The two ripieno violin parts are exactly as advertised: extras with no independent material of their own. In fact, they present a simplified version of the two main violin parts, just as vocal ripieno parts from the time typically omit certain soloistic passages or movements. When the concerto was published, only the first ripieno part was retained, resulting in an a cinque scoring in which the “Violino Primo” (formerly “Ripieno”) is often idle while the “Violino Secondo” becomes, in effect, a second soloist alongside the “Violino Principale.”53 Much the same goes for the A-minor concerto, except that the manuscript transmits only four parts: the “Violino Primo” becomes the “Violino Principale” in Telemann’s edition, where a newly added “Violino Primo” functions as a ripieno voice that falls silent during episodic material for the soloist. This simple arranging process may be observed in Figure 3.1, which shows the beginning of the first movement in both “Violino Primo” parts. As in the B-flat concerto, the original dialoguing between the first and second violins transfers uneasily to the a cinque scoring with added soloist, especially in the trio-like middle movement. It would appear, then, that at the time work began on the Six concerts in 1714– 15, Johann Ernst had not composed enough violin concertos to complete the customary set of six. In the event, two ripieno concertos were pressed into service either by the prince prior to his death on 1 August 1715, or by Telemann during

Three Never from the Heart? 147 (a)

(b)

figure 3.1. First page of “Violino Primo” part to Johann Ernst of Sachsen-Weimar, concerto in A minor for strings and continuo: (a) D-ROu, Musica saec. XVII.18.5142, copied by an anonymous scribe in Weimar, ca. 1713–14?; (b) Six concerts à violon concertant, op. 1 no. 2 (Frankfurt: Telemann, 1718)

the intervening two and a half years before publication. The other four concertos in the collection all include “Violino Primo” material not found in the “Violino Principale” part, though it is worth noting that the finales of the third and sixth concertos have no solo passages at all. Johann Ernst’s composition of at least two ripieno concertos implies, of course, that the music he acquired during or following his Dutch trip included Italian examples of the genre, and that these works became known to Bach and Walther as well. A number of other German works for four-part strings point up the porous boundaries between concerto, sinfonia, and sonata during the late seventeenth

148 The Concertos

and early eighteenth centuries. Eugene K. Wolf has observed that Italian ripieno concertos with a four-movement succession reminiscent of the sonata (slow–fast– slow–fast) tend to feature fugal textures in the fast movements, whereas works having the three-movement plan more common among concertos and opera sinfonias (fast–slow–fast) often feature binary or ritornello forms in their outer movements and usually conclude with a brief binary dance.54 Karl Heller similarly notes that Vivaldi’s ripieno concertos draw on stylistic elements associated with the sonata, solo concerto, and opera sinfonia.55 If the difference between sonata and ripieno concerto is not always readily apparent, as in some of the works discussed below, that between ripieno concerto and the early concert symphony is often even harder to gauge, especially because one appears to have been the main progenitor of the other, at least in Italy.56 Such generic overlapping is undoubtedly one reason some German ripieno concertos have not been recognized as such. Belonging to the Württemberg-Stuttgart collection are six “sonatas” a quattro by Johann Jakob Kress (ca. 1685–1728), violinist at the Darmstadt court from 1712 and Konzertmeister from 1723. These have three-movement plans including a dance-based finale, binary forms in fast movements, and homophonic textures highlighting an active first violin part. Fourteen similar works are in four movements and feature a less active top line that may be played on either flute or violin.57 Kress’s works may have provided the inspiration for Crown Prince Friedrich Ludwig’s own “Concerto” for strings, consisting of an intrada, siciliana (a common movement type in the Kress sonatas), polonaise, and “Aria.”58 The prince also owned Johann Melchior Molter’s “Concerto Pastorale,” a concerto da camera for four strings in which the opening pastoral movement alternates with a binary Allegro.59 Another work by Molter, an untitled sinfonia surviving in a fragmentary composing score at Karlsruhe, further documents his interest in the ripieno concerto. Klaus Häfner finds the work to be “closely modeled on the sinfonie and concerti ripieni of Vivaldi” and tentatively places it during the composer’s visit to Venice and Rome in 1719–21.60 Similar to the Kress sonatas are several works in the music collection of the Darmstadt Hofkapelle: Johann Friedrich Fasch’s four-movement sonata in D minor, FWV N:d3, concluding with an Allegro in ritornello form; and Christoph Graupner’s sonatas in B-flat major and G major, both of which have second-movement fugues.61 But the most compelling witnesses to the ripieno concerto’s influence in Germany are the nineteen works for four-part strings by Telemann listed in Table 3.3.62 These are among the composer’s least familiar instrumental works, in part because only a handful were available in modern editions before the 1990s. References to them in the secondary literature have been scarce, and despite being entitled “Concerto” in many eighteenth-century sources, they have traditionally

Three Never from the Heart? 149 Table 3.3 Telemann’s ripieno concertos TWV

Source

Genre label

40:200 43:D5

D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/19 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/29 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/3 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/102 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-N-12 D-B, SA 3559 (2) D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/93 D-B, SA 3559 (4) D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/109 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-N-17 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-19 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/31 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/65 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/78 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/73 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-2 D-SWl, Mus. ms. 5400/6 D-ROu, Mus. saec. XVII. 18–5125 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/90 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/4 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/50 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-N-6a D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-N-6b D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/103 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/47 D-B, SA 3559 (5) D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/75 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-16 D-ROu, Mus. saec. XVII. 18–4511 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/66

Sonata Concerto Sonata Concerto/Sonata Concerto Concerto Concerto Sonata Concerto Sinfonia Concerto Sonata Sonata Sonata Concerto Sinfonia Concerto Concerto Concerto Sonata Sonata Sinfonia Sinfonia Concerto Sonata Concerto Concerto None Concerto Sonata/Sinfonia

43:Es1

43:E2 43:e5

43:F3 43:F4 43:F5 43:G7

43:G8 43:G9 43:A5 43:A6 43:a4 43:a5 43:B1 43:B2 43:B3 44:1

been classified as quartets in lists and catalogs of Telemann’s music. The TelemannWerkverzeichnis, for example, considers seventeen of them quartets, one a sonata for strings without continuo (40:200) and another a quintet for trumpet and strings (44:1).63 That Telemann was attracted to the ripieno concerto should not be surprising, given that he began composing concertos at a time when the solo variety had yet to overshadow others. As the table shows, Telemann’s ripieno concertos were transmitted during the eighteenth century as sonatas, concertos, and sinfonias, with individual works frequently circulating under multiple genre labels. Two cases in particular illustrate

150 The Concertos

the lack of consensus on how to identify such pieces: at Darmstadt, the original designation of “Concerto” on the title page to a source for 43:Es1 was replaced with “Sonata”; and Graupner identified 44:1 as both a “Sonata” (title page) and “Sinfonia” (parts). Compare Angelo Berardi’s comment in the Miscellanea musicale (Bologna, 1689) that “concertos for violin and other instruments are called sinfonie; today one appreciates particularly those of Sig. Arcangelo Corelli, a celebrated violinist.”64 Although the absence of autograph manuscripts makes it difficult to know what Telemann called his ripieno concertos, the apparent origin in Frankfurt of Darmstadt manuscripts copied by Johann Balthasar König (43:G8), Anton Eberhard Helffmann (43:E2 and a4), and an anonymous scribe (43:Es1)—all attributed to “Melante”—strongly suggests that, at least for these works, the title “Concerto” originated with the composer (see Figures 3.2 and 3.3).65 Most of the other sources in Table 3.3 may be placed in the 1720s and 1730s, but a few confirm that Telemann was writing ripieno concertos at Eisenach and Frankfurt.66 Broadly speaking, what distinguishes this music stylistically from Telemann’s sonatas for four-part strings are the following “orchestral” features: (1) predominantly homophonic textures, often entailing extended passages of all’unisono writing (mostly involving the two violin parts); (2) viola parts that often serve merely to fill out the harmony; (3) concerto- or sinfonia-like “themes” consisting of arpeggio figures, scales, or hammerstrokes—the kind of brilliant, noisemaking gestures that rely for their effect on weight of sound rather than tunefulness; (4) the frequent use of a three-movement formal scheme (fast–slow–fast), unusual in Telemann’s sonatas as a whole; (5) movement types and formal structures associated with the early concerto; and (6) echo effects suggestive of a desire to exploit the dynamic range of an ensemble with doubled strings, and which recall those indicated in such publications as Torelli’s op. 6, Albinoni’s op. 2, and Albicastro’s op. 7.67 Telemann’s ripieno concertos also conform in large measure to Wolf ’s observations regarding Italian examples: all six fugues occur in the nine four-movement works, whereas ritornello and binary forms are concentrated in the nine three-movement works. One concerto, 43:a5, is sui generis in having what might be parsed as a six-movement formal scheme: slow–fast (ritornello form)–slow (run on from the previous movement)–fast (fugue)–slow–fast (non-dance-based binary form). Fast movements that are not fugal or in binary or rondeau forms usually have a reprise structure that approximates ritornello form to varying degrees. At one end of the spectrum are movements in which variety is generated principally by tonal and motivic contrast between successive statements of a period, with few if any self-contained episodes (43:G8/ii and iv, G9/i, a4/i, and B1/i). Movements that do feature a more or less regular alternation of recurring periods and

Three Never from the Heart? 151

figure 3.2. Title page to concerto in G major for strings and continuo, 43:G8: D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/90, copied by Johann Balthasar König, Frankfurt, ca. 1716 (possessor mark “H” in upper left = Anton Eberhard Helffmann)

152 The Concertos

episodic material (the latter usually highlighting the two violins) may be thought of as having ritornello forms minus genuine tutti-solo contrast (43:Es1/ii, e5/i and iii, F3/i and iii, G7/ii, A5/i, a4/iii, a5/ii, and B2/i). Example 3.12 shows the beginning of 43:B2/i, a movement representing a midway point between periodic structure and ritornello form. After two episodes featuring the violins and marked by imitative textures and chromaticism, the second half of the movement is given over to three successive statements of the ritornello, with the middle statement introducing new material. Although the opening periods in Telemann’s ripieno concertos generally do not display the Vordersatz (opening phrase)–Fortspinnung (sequential, modulating phrase)–Epilog (cadential phrase) organization of the archetypal Vivaldian ritornello, they are nevertheless often constructed, as here, from motives that may be abbreviated, reordered, and varied in subsequent statements.68 (Exceptional in this respect is 43:e5/i, where the ritornello does conform to Vivaldian syntax.) Note as well the typically orchestral gesture of a rising arpeggio played in rhythmic unison at the movement’s beginning. Noteworthy among the fugal movements are a double fugue (43:F4/ii) and a concertante fugue (43:E2/ii; see Figure 3.3), which might also be counted as a ritornello-form movement. Two of the binary movements (43:A6/iv and B2/iii) are in the moto perpetuo style familiar from some of Telemann’s early solo sonatas (see chapter 5), while three others form a miniature dance suite in 43:D5. The French style insinuates itself into the concertos’ predominantly Italianate language via a rondeau with modulating refrain (43:F3/i) and a fine chaconne en rondeau (44:1/i); two other rondeau structures (40:200/iv and F5/iv) with concertante episodes are essentially stand-ins for ritornello-based movements. The first of these concertante rondeaus is noteworthy for its crowd-silencing hammerstrokes and multiple-stopped tremolos, gestures that evoke the opera sinfonia, an important purpose of which was to draw the attention of the audience to the beginning of the performance (Example 3.13). Such multiple-stopped tremolo figures appear elsewhere in Telemann’s early string writing, as in the trio 42:D14 and the double violin concerto 52:G2. The majority of slow movements in Telemann’s ripieno concertos belong to one of three general categories: the “harmonic” type, eight to sixteen measures in length (43:E2/iii, F5/iii, G8/i and iii, G9/ii, A5/ii, and a5/v); similarly compact recitatives or ariosos attached to the end of a fast movement by means of a deceptive cadence (40:200/iii; 43:a5/iii and B1/ii); and more expansive trio-style movements, with viola as harmonic filler, in which the mode of expression ranges from Corellian reticence (43:Es1/iii, F3/ii, and F5/i, all with walking bass lines) to a more cantabile idiom encompassing dance types such as the sarabanda and siciliana (40:200/i; 43:E2/i [see Figure 3.3], e5/ii, F4/i and iii, a4/ii, and B2/ii).

Three Never from the Heart? 153

figure 3.3. First page of “Violino 1” part to concerto in E major for strings and continuo, 43:E2: D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/93, copied by Anton Eberhard Helffmann, Frankfurt or Darmstadt, ca. 1716–21

154 The Concertos example 3.12. Concerto in B-flat for strings and continuo, 43:B2/i, mm. 1–24 Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

                                            Spirituoso



                                              4



6

5 43

7 §

                       

        

                           

                                                                             7



7 §

                                                        10



                     

              

                

                  

                              

Three Never from the Heart? 155

                                                   13



                                       

      

 

                

                                                  

16



Episode 1

                                                                         19



                     22



                                                

Ritornello 2

   

 

                          

 

                   

156 The Concertos example 3.13. Sonata in A major for strings and continuo, 40:200/iv, mm. 1–11 Vivace  Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Violone

    C     C     C 

                                                C  

                                          5



                        

   

                          

                                    

                                    

                         

  

                                                                                                                   9



Three Never from the Heart? 157

A closer look at one work in particular, 43:Es1, will further illuminate some of Telemann’s approaches to style and structure in the genre. The opening Largo of this concerto conjures up the French overture’s slow section with its dotted rhythms, yet combines a sense of grandeur with a cantabile tenderness. Three strategically placed cadential pauses interrupt the movement’s flow, the second introducing a softly undulating figure in the relative minor that leads back to the tonic and the opening dotted idea, momentarily deflected by the third pause in measure 32 (Example 3.14). The following Allegro differentiates clearly between ritornello and episodic material, the former featuring triplets in three-against-two rhythms. As shown in Example 3.15, the second episode highlights the first violin through display figuration evocative of the solo concerto. An abbreviated ri-

example 3.14. Concerto in E-flat major for strings and continuo, 43:Es1/i, mm. 22–34

  43                              43                     43                    3    4    22

Violin 1



p

Violin 2

p

Viola

p

Continuo

p

                                      26



f

f

f

f

                                31



                                        



               

       

                          

          

 





 

  

             



 



          

158 The Concertos example 3.15. Concerto in E-flat major for strings and continuo, 43:Es1/ii, mm. 29–46

          C                     C               C                     C   29

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo



                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                           32



3

3

3

35

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

tornello (m. 36) now confirms a modulation to the mediant and leads to the third and final episode, where an orchestral crescendo gesture (mm. 42–45) is quoted from the first episode. Commencing in measure 46 is a long concluding period that develops brief motives from both the ritornello and first episode while soloistically highlighting the viola; its formal function is therefore ambiguous. The ensuing C-minor Andante features, as noted above, the Corellian texture of suspension chains over a walking bass. Before concluding with a Phrygian cadence, Telemann introduces the unusual sonority of a Neapolitan sixth with added seventh (m. 19) and darkens the mood by suddenly dropping the upper strings’ tessitura down an octave. Concluding the concerto is a binary menuet (Al-

Three Never from the Heart? 159

                                                                   38



3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

                           

              p                 p                    p                    p 41



3

3

3

                                                               44



3

3

3

              

 f           f             f        f

legro) imbued with the Favier-style short-long-long-short rhythm described in chapter 1. Remarkable here is the use of echo effects, which become something of a structural principle during the dance’s second half. Heard as a whole, the concerto exemplifies Telemann’s mastery of a genre cultivated by relatively few German composers. Perhaps Telemann’s most original contributions to the ripieno concerto are his two Polish-style works: the “Concerto Polonoise,” 43:B3, and the “Concerto alla Polonese,” 43:G7. The latter, judging from the number of extant manuscript sources, seems to have been the composer’s most widely known work in the

160 The Concertos

medium. Given the concertos’ closely similar style and their transmission together in the Friedrich Ludwig collection, it is likely that they were composed as a pair, perhaps during the 1720s. All four movements of 43:B3 are in binary form, the first identified as a polonaise and the last a binary menuet “Polish-ed” by a few sharped fourths and flatted sevenths. Most impressive is the second movement, an orgy of quirky motives and potent orchestral effects excerpted in Example 3.16. In the movement’s second half, Telemann rearranges the motives at will after introducing a lusty passage in which a descending chromatic line, animated by syncopation, acerbically clashes with a bass pedal tone (mm. 44–47). Cut of the same cloth are the second and fourth movements of 43:G7, in which the episodes introduce rustic drones, powerful unisons, and jarringly sharp contrasts of tonality, rhythm, and register. Several additional works by Telemann, while not ripieno concertos per se, seem indebted to the genre. Consider first the violin concerto 51:C2, most likely written at Frankfurt. Neither of its slow movements—one a lovely trio-style “Affettuoso” with a Handelian earnestness about it, the other a solemn sarabanda—has an independent part for the soloist, and the loosely fugal second movement includes only a single solo episode. Only in the ritornello-form finale does the solo violin have much to say, and here it seems to be making up for its earlier silence through extended virtuosic episodes. Similarly, in the roughly contemporaneous violin concerto 51:A3, the soloist is mute in both slow movements (a double fugato and a brief harmonic transition) and has just a few short solos in the binary finale. The only real opportunity for extended soloistic display occurs in the second, ritornello-based movement, though even here the solo writing is curiously restrained. One might conclude from these two works that for Telemann, the distinction between ripieno concerto and solo concerto was still less than absolute in the years around 1715. Inhabiting the gray area between sonata and concerto are three works with apparently unique scorings: the four-movement concertos for four violins without bass, 40:201–3.69 Stylistically similar to and evidently coeval with the earliest of the ripieno concertos, these works also display the durchbrochene Arbeit of Telemann’s sonatas in their equal distribution of material between the four voices. In this respect, they could be regarded as Sonaten auf Concertenart (see chapter 6) on the model of the ripieno concerto. Although they contain some of the movement types discussed above, none of the three works includes ritornello or reprise structures. Among the three fugal movements are a motivically dense elaboration of an academic subject (40:201/ii) and two lighter finales with subjects presented in stretto (40:202/iv and 203/iv); the last of these also features concertolike display passages and, in an apparent allusion to da capo form, a iii–I caesura

Three Never from the Heart? 161 example 3.16. “Concerto Polonoise” in B-flat for strings and continuo, 43:B3/ii, mm. 33–52

  43        43                     43    43                  

33 

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

 

 

 

 



6

                                    

38







        

                                                                                                    









§

      



                                                                                       

43 



#

6 4

ä 4 ©

5 3

´ 4

´

7 4 2

                                              

49 



ä 4 ©

6

6

#

    

6 4

6 5

#

                          6

6

162 The Concertos example 3.17. Sonata in C major for four violins, 40:203/ii, mm. 26–37

  c     c      c                  c      26

Violin 1

Violin 2

Violin 3

Violin 4



     



                                                                                                                           

29





                                                                        32



                                                35



Three Never from the Heart? 163

setting up the final, tonic entry of the subject. Two other fast movements (40: 202/ii and 203/ii) are binary forms with moto perpetuo sixteenth notes. Note in Example 3.17 how Telemann saturates the latter with broken-chord figurations evocative of the solo concerto before introducing an unexpected harmonic, textural, and registral shift at measure 33 that slyly leads from the submediant back to the tonic via chromatic motion. Perhaps the most original fast movement is the finale to 40:201, a spirited chasse in which Telemann states the call of the hunting horns all’unisono at the outset and conclusion, the horns’ resonance being evoked by the use of open strings (Example 3.18). example 3.18. Concerto in G major for four violins, 40:201/iv, mm. 1–16 Vivace

  38                                            

Violins 1-4



9

Vn 1

Vn 2

Among the slow movements are examples of the harmonic (40:201/iii and 202/i) and cantabile trio (40:201/i) types; in the last of these, the four violins share two melodic lines by means of voice exchange. The first movement of 40:203, praised by Arthur Hutchings for its “unimpeachable workmanship,”70 is worth singling out here for the high level of tension it maintains through textural and dynamic contrasts and linear chromaticism. Commencing in the stile antico, it soon shifts unexpectedly to a homophonic texture marked by a gradually fading dynamic echo (Example 3.19).71 The third movement of the same concerto, at first glance a typical Largo e staccato with unrelieved arpeggiation in all parts but no real melodic line, is something of a study in continuous voice exchange: placed among the three upper parts’ staccato eighth notes are quarter notes comprising a skeletal “melody” of a kind that might, in the context of a solo sonata, be fleshed out with embellishments. Here, and indeed throughout the three concertos, Telemann meets the challenge of writing for four like instruments with characteristic ingenuity. If by providing parts of equal interest he occasionally (and perhaps unavoidably) creates a static effect through melodic repetition, this defect is tempered during performance via the visual interest generated by themes physically shifting from one player to the next. Finally, any investigation of the German concerto for strings during the early eighteenth century must take account of the two most significant examples: the

164 The Concertos example 3.19. Concerto in C major for four violins, 40:203/i Grave  Violin 1

Violin 2

Violin 3

Violin 4

 c          c          c              c

                              7



                                       

               

        p

pp

p

pp

p

pp

p

pp

                                                                        

  

    

 

        

    

12



ppp

[ f]

ppp

f

ppp

f

ppp

  

f

Third and Sixth Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1048 and 1051. Long considered the most enigmatic works in the Brandenburg set, they have generated much speculation as to their genesis, stylistic orientation, and generic status. Among their most curious, and frequently discussed, attributes are unorthodox scorings and textures in which the instruments double as soloists and members of the tutti, suggesting a fusing of the concerto with the sonata for large ensemble (third concerto) or trio sonata (sixth concerto); an apparent absence of Vivaldian in-

Three Never from the Heart? 165

fluence in the sixth concerto; a two-chord Phrygian cadence serving as the middle “movement” of the third concerto; and a dance-based binary form—the only one in Bach’s concertos—as the conclusion to the same work. To some commentators, such features indicate that the concertos were written significantly before Bach prepared his dedication score of 1721.72 Although Martin Geck’s theory that the Sixth Brandenburg is an expanded version of a lost trio sonata has been met with skepticism, his view of the Third as representing a development of the mehrchörige Sonate appears to have won widespread acceptance. Finding both works in conformity with Mattheson’s 1713 definition of the concerto, Geck nevertheless considers the movement succession of the third concerto unusual for either a concerto or sonata from the early eighteenth century.73 More recently, Michael Talbot has posited that Bach was following an up-to-date model for the third concerto: the so-called chamber concertos of Vivaldi “for a group of solo instruments . . . with continuo but without orchestra.”74 Michael Marissen’s observation that the first movement of the Sixth Brandenburg also “develops the Vivaldian model” by transferring to episodes the melodic and harmonic syntax associated with Vivaldi’s ritornellos has strengthened the possibility that the work was composed at Köthen rather than Weimar.75 The “problem” of the Third Brandenburg’s Phrygian cadence has been “solved” by placing it in the context of similarly brief transitions between fast movements in concertos by Bach’s contemporaries. Thus Talbot points to the two long chords concluding the first movement of Count Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer’s Concerto in G Major, and to Italian concertos in which the slow movement is effectively “a short, dramatic coda” to the first movement.76 Still considered problematic by some is the unusual finale of the Third Brandenburg. For Peter Schleuning, the work embodies a rather abnormal stylistic palette, not in accordance with the later “vermischter Geschmack,” which integrates elements of national styles, but a sequence of particular national styles each of which is confined to a movement: German (if one agrees with this classification), Italian, French. As a dance movement, and owing to its brevity—and thus inadequate counterbalance to the first movement—[the third movement] has occasionally been used to support the claim that Bach quickly threw together existing concertos, almost inadvertently affixing an amputated or crippled ending to the first movement’s weightiness.77

One may take issue with Schleuning’s characterization of the movements’ stylistic orientation, and with the expectation that a finale ought to be as substantial as a first movement. But there is no question that the movements are individually and collectively unusual within the orbit of Bach’s concertos as a whole.

166 The Concertos

Without entering into the greatly protracted and circular debate on the Brandenburg Concertos’ chronology, let us briefly consider the merits of Walter Kolneder’s view that the Third Brandenburg Concerto is the “finest example of a concerto ripieno,” a view seemingly unremarked upon in the Bach literature.78 In fact, nothing about the concerto is inconsistent with Kolneder’s categorization, its seven-part texture (occasionally expanded to nine parts) and archaic-sounding antiphony notwithstanding. Bach has written a work for string orchestra with soloists drawn from the tutti (a ripieno concerto), rather than a work for soloists without orchestra (a chamber concerto). This is most clearly evident from the cello parts, which are all’unisono throughout except for portions of fifteen measures in the first movement, and from the high proportion of unison writing for all parts in the third movement. If the overall scheme of a weighty ritornellobased form and lighter binary dance separated by a brief harmonic transition is atypical for the sonata and solo concerto, it is common enough among ripieno concertos. In fact, some of the closest analogs to the Phrygian cadence are found among ripieno concertos: the middle “movements” of Torelli’s op. 5, nos. 2 and 5 (the only three-movement works in the set), are three and five measures long, respectively,79 and the fast movements of Vivaldi’s ripieno concerto in C major, RV 114, are separated by two measures containing three chords.80 The migration of material from one voice to another in Bach’s first movement—aptly described by Talbot as evoking the “choreographic quality” of a wave rippling through a stadium crowd81—is not only reminiscent of antiphonal ensemble sonatas such as Telemann’s seven-part “concertos” for two or three instrumental groups, 44:41–43, or Johann Christoph Pepusch’s op. 8 “concerts” for two instrumental groups (see chapter 5), but also of the constant shifting of material between parts in Telemann’s concertos for four unaccompanied violins. Consider as well the scoring of the sixth concerto: two violas functioning as principal voices; two violas da gamba that are thematically active for portions of the first movement but drop out in the second and provide only harmonic filler in the third; and a bass line that includes a partially obbligato cello part. What is most unusual here in the context of a “concerto” is the absence of violins and the mixing of instruments from the da braccio and da gamba families, two features that, combined with the first movement’s canonic writing, are suggestive of the seventeenth century. Ares Rolf points to a number of sacred vocal works by Bach’s German predecessors that likewise pair two violas with two violas da gamba, though he considers the concerto’s scoring to owe more to English music for viol consort as transmitted to Germany early in the seventeenth century.82 Yet the identification of such historical parallels prompts the question of what might have motivated Bach to reach across decades and genres for his scoring, only to

Three Never from the Heart? 167

compose a work stylistically far removed from seventeenth-century vocal concertos and music for viol consort. The socially based interpretation of the concerto proposed by Marissen has the advantage of placing its scoring in the context of circa-1720 Germany.83 But perceiving Bach’s music as undermining the prevailing social order through a reversal of conventional instrumental roles—the lowly violas play active lines while the aristocratic violas da gamba have a subsidiary function—depends on assigning to instruments (rather than to players) values that may not have been absolute, or even operative, during the early eighteenth century.84 Whatever Bach’s motivations for adopting the concerto’s unusual instrumentarium, the instrumental parts do in fact relate to each other in ways typical of early eighteenth-century concertos. Were one to substitute violins for violas and violas for violas da gamba, the result would be a scoring—and division of material—typical of ripieno concertos by Albinoni and other Italians. Such a scoring would also recall the five-part string sonatas of Telemann (some of which include partially obbligato cello parts) as well as numerous seventeenth-century examples by German and Italian composers. Of course, the ritornello forms, “orchestral” unisons, and treble-dominated textures of the outer movements conspire to make Bach’s work more concerto than sonata. Despite the stylistic proximity of the Third and Sixth Brandenburg Concertos to the ripieno concerto, neither Bach work can be said to fit neatly into any one category; each is, in certain important respects, of its own kind. Yet seeing in them reflections of the concerto for strings without soloists elucidates many of their seeming idiosyncrasies while underscoring the Brandenburg set’s status as an unequaled compendium of concerto styles. Bach’s works, viewed from such a perspective, do much to illuminate an undeservedly overlooked chapter in the history of the German concerto. And perhaps not surprisingly, it is Telemann who is responsible for authoring much of that chapter.

The Late Frankfurt and Hamburg Concertos Telemann continued writing concertos with string soloists at Frankfurt and Hamburg, though apparently not with the same frequency as at Eisenach. By the mid-1710s he had fully adopted the modular organization of the Vivaldian ritornello; the first movement of the violin concerto 51:F2 provides an especially clear example. Yet Telemann did not wholeheartedly embrace the Vivaldian paradigm; he retained his preference for the four-movement plan, for example, and continued to deploy fugal ritornellos and rondeau and binary forms with greater frequency than his Italian contemporaries.

168 The Concertos

Two works provide especially good illustrations of Telemann’s concerto style during the late Frankfurt and early Hamburg years. Since the middle of the twentieth century, the viola concerto, 51:G9, has become one of his most famous works. Not only is it among the few eighteenth-century viola concertos, but it also flatters the solo instrument especially well. It may have been well-known even during Telemann’s lifetime, for as we saw in chapter 1, Johann Philipp Eisel in 1738 called attention to the composer’s concertos in which the viola is given a concertante role. All four movements are in ritornello form, a kind of consistency that Telemann would have avoided in earlier years. Both slow movements exemplify the cantabile style and have three-ritornello structures in which a cadenza is indicated by a fermata toward the end of the second episode. The fast movements hang together especially well, due in part to the viola’s extensive quotation of ritornello material. An interesting fusion of ritornello and binary forms is found in the concluding Presto: the first half contains two ritornellos (I–V), whereas the second has four (V–ii–I–I). Telemann avoids back-to-back ritornellos by having a solo episode conclude the first half. Probably written shortly after Telemann’s move to Hamburg is the tuneful violin concerto 51:E2, a work bearing some striking parallels with Bach’s E-major violin concerto, BWV 1042.85 In both finales, the ritornellos’ opening antecedent-consequent pair of phrases and concluding cadential formulas are remarkably similar melodically, rhythmically, harmonically, and texturally. Might one composer have “borrowed” from the other?86 Telemann’s first movement is marked “Affettuoso” and embodies the singing quality found in his sonata movements with this title. Like all four movements in the concerto, it is in ritornello form. It also includes two formal features that are common in Telemann’s concertos of the Frankfurt and Hamburg periods: the double-motto entrance of the soloist (also found in the viola concerto) and a da capo–like iii–I caesura at about the two-thirds point. During his September 1719 visit to Dresden, Telemann composed the violin concerto 51:B1 for his friend Pisendel. He headed his composing score “Concerto grosso, per il Sig.r Pisendel, da me GF Telemann, 14. Sept. 1719.” The title “Grand Concerto” does not refer to the Corellian tradition, but must rather be indicative of the work’s virtuosic solo part. The score includes numerous corrections and a rejected draft of what was to be the second movement. Moreover, the fourth movement is incomplete. In a note at the end of the score, Telemann observes that “the last Allegro is rather scrawly, a better one follows. Author.” No “better” version of the Allegro survives in Telemann’s hand, but the missing fiftyfive measures of the movement (mm. 9–63) were recovered when a set of parts for the concerto, copied by Pisendel and an unidentified scribe, was identified in 1974.87 When or whether the concerto was performed during the Dresden royal

Three Never from the Heart? 169

wedding festivities is unknown, but the earliest opportunity for Pisendel and the Hofkapelle to premiere it would have been at the Turkish feast on 17 September.88 The second movement includes figural episodes requiring greater technical facility than is usual for Telemann’s violin concertos; clearly the composer meant to flatter the considerable abilities of his friend and colleague. The soloist’s cantilena in the untitled third movement (marked “. . . ato” [legato?] and “Sempre piano”) is accompanied by an undulating ostinato figure of triplets against duplets, an effect reminiscent of the first movement of the oboe concerto 51:d1. Another Telemann concerto may have been inspired by Pisendel: 53:D5, for trumpet, violin, cello, and strings. The classification of this work as a triple concerto in the TWV is something of a misnomer, for the trumpet and solo cello are heard only in the outer movements, the former having an ad libitum role and the latter playing only a few short episodes. Still, the work is nothing like Telemann’s other violin concertos. Its tutti complement includes three violins and two violas, all of which have independent parts. Such a scoring might suggest an early origin for the concerto, though it is difficult to imagine its having been composed before 1715. Manuscript parts are preserved at both Darmstadt and Dresden, and the work seems also to have belonged to the repertory of the Zerbst Hofkapelle under Fasch.89 The Dresden parts (listed below in Table 3.5) are mostly in the hand of Pisendel, who rewrote a few solo episodes in the outer movements and slightly abbreviated the middle movement; he also replaced the trumpet with horn and made a few other minor changes to the work’s scoring.90 Both these revisions and the unusually large number of parts in Pisendel’s hand—he rarely did so much copying for a single work—suggest that he had a particular attachment to this concerto. As for the music, both the length and the technical demands of the solo episodes are almost without parallel in Telemann’s concertos. The ritornellos, especially those in the first movement, are shot through with solo interpolations to a greater degree than is usual in the Eisenach and Frankfurt concertos. The central Adagio somewhat resembles the ritornello-frame type of movement in beginning and ending in a sort of accompanied recitative style; a brief unison ritornello introduces the main, aria-like section. If this concerto was not written for Pisendel, it must have been inspired by another violinist of uncommon ability. Several other Telemann concertos can be connected with specific performances during the late 1710s and 1720s. The concerto for three trumpets, timpani, two oboes, and strings, 54:D3, served as the introduction to the serenata Teutschland grünt und blüht im Frieden, TVWV 12:1c, performed on 17 May 1716 in celebration of the birth of the Habsburg Prince Leopold. Its martial “Intrada” and two fugal movements befit an occasion that mixed rejoicing with formality. Although nothing is known of the circumstances surrounding the composition of the con-

170 The Concertos

certo for three trumpets, timpani, and strings, 54:D4, it is not hard to imagine its similar function as ceremonial music—especially because it includes a fugue and a mixture of celebratory and solemn music. One wonders as well about the concerto for three horns, violin, and strings, 54:D2, a three-movement work in which the violin is primus inter pares among the soloists. Besides the tragic air of the second movement, a ritornello-frame “aria” for the violin, the concerto’s chief attraction is some brilliant writing for the horns; toward the end of the first movement, a horn figure evocative of hunting calls is marked “Chasse” in the Darmstadt manuscript. In 1724 Telemann used the violin concerto 51:C3 as the overture to his pastoral opera Der neumodische Liebhaber Damon,TVWV 21:8, and it is possible that the concerto was also heard at the opera’s 1719 Leipzig premiere. The ebullient first movement features a tuneful ritornello with a Vivaldian turn to the tonic minor, as well as solo episodes given over entirely to figuration. After a brief harmonic movement of a kind not normally found in Telemann’s three-movement concertos, a pair of alternativement menuets (the first including varied reprises) concludes the whole. Hirschmann is surely right to place this little concerto in the opera sinfonia tradition.91 The violin concerto 51:a2, which introduced Telemann’s 1728 opera Die Last-tragende Liebe, oder Emma und Eginhard, TVWV 21:25, is a more substantial work than the Damon concerto. That it was written around the time of the opera is suggested by the galant language of its first-movement ritornello, which includes the Lombard and alla zoppa rhythms that begin to appear regularly in Telemann’s vocal and instrumental music during the mid-to-late 1720s. The episodes, too, display a galant rhythmic variety. Noteworthy as well is the violin cantilena of the second movement, where an ostinato figure continually cascades from first violin down to second violin and viola. The last movement is again a dance, in the form of a binary bourrée. Among the solo wind concertos written at Frankfurt and Hamburg circa 1716–25 are two for recorder (51:C1, F1) and seven for flute (51:D1–4, E1, G1, h1).92 Perhaps the earliest is the F-major concerto, which follows a lovely ritornello-form “Affettuoso” with a brilliant fast movement in binary form, an ostinato-based slow movement, and a pair of alternativement menuets featuring the soloist in the second dance. The second movement contains some colorful harmonic touches, such as that illustrated in Example 3.20. Note here that as the bass descends by step, three of the implied contrapuntal voices in the recorder part make chromatic ascents.93 The C-major concerto likewise has two cantabile slow movements and a menuet finale, but is more stylistically mature. A curious feature of both works is an emphasis upon the recorder’s upper register: G⵮ is

Three Never from the Heart? 171 example 3.20. Concerto in F major for recorder and strings, 51:F1/ii, mm. 18–23

         c          c                            c                          c                              c   18

Recorder

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola Violoncello obligato

                                                                                                                 21

commonly employed, and in the F-major concerto A⵮ is reached in both slow movements and a C⬙⬙ appears at the end of the second movement. Evidently these works were written not only for a virtuoso, but for one with access to an instrument with a particularly good high register. Such instruments were made in Nuremberg by Jacob Denner, who regularly visited Frankfurt as an oboist starting in 1717.94 Might Telemann’s concertos have been written for the Darmstadt musician Johann Michael Böhm, playing a recorder by Denner? Close in style to the recorder concertos is 51:D2, which is filled with brilliant writing for the flute. The first movement (Moderato) is a polonaise en rondeau in which the two interior refrains appear in keys other than the tonic—a not uncommon occurrence in Telemann’s sonata rondeaus. Like the F-major concerto, the piece concludes with a pair of alternativement menuets. In the second dance, the flute trades figures with the violins in a quasi-trio texture. Both 51:D1 and the unusually expansive 51:h1 have fugal ritornellos in their fast movements, and this may indicate their conception as a pair. The latter work includes a slow middle

172 The Concertos

movement filled with pastoral topics, and its overall style has much in common with Telemann’s sonatas of the mid-1720s. Among Telemann’s double concertos, those for flute with recorder (52:e1) and recorder with viola da gamba (52:a1) are undoubtedly the best-known today. The combination of flute and recorder is a rare one in eighteenth-century music, and among Telemann’s other instrumental works only the quartet for recorder, two flutes, and continuo, 43:d1 (Musique de table), employs the two instruments together. Both slow movements in the E-minor concerto are in the mode of arias with ritornello frames, but the opening Largo is not in the cantabile style: the combination of the soloists’ restless figuration and the strings’ slow-moving harmonic support lends the movement an unsettled feeling. It provides an effective prelude to the following fugal Allegro, where, curiously, the imitation is limited to the two violins during ritornellos. This unusual disposition may be explained by Telemann’s apparent borrowing of the fugue subject from the second movement of his solo for oboe and continuo, 41:e6 (Essercizii musici), where the imitation is of course in two parts as well. In the Allegro’s episodes, and indeed throughout the work as a whole, the solo writing is both brilliant and flattering. The concerto’s second Largo, excerpted in Example 3.21, provides the expected cantabile-style writing for the soloists. Here the ritornello frame is provided by strings, which delicately accompany this lovely duet with pizzicato chords. We shall consider the concerto’s finale, a vigorous polonaise en rondeau, in chapter 9. Probably of slightly later vintage is the A-minor concerto; its galant rhythmic language, including the prominent use of Lombard figures and triplets, suggests an origin around 1730. Like several other Telemann concertos, this one has a reduced tutti scoring for “violino grosso” (perhaps violins in unison), viola, and continuo. And as with the E-minor double concerto, the slow first movement is marked by a nervous energy released in the following Allegro, where the episodes often pair the two dissimilar solo instruments. Unusually for Telemann’s mature concertos, the brief binary Dolce that follows is scored for soloists and continuo; its 6/8 meter and opening pastoral topic (a melody in sixths over a drone) seem inspired by the recorder’s bucolic associations. The finale is another polonaise en rondeau, but here the refrain is not confined to the tonic and is more courtly-galant in its modified antecedent-consequent phrase structure. The episodes, too, have less of a rustic flavor to them. Telemann’s Gruppenkonzerte with multiple brass soloists have already been mentioned, and others featuring solo woodwinds and strings represent the extreme chronological poles of his concerto output. Two works appear to date from the Eisenach or early Frankfurt years: the concerto for two flutes, oboe, violin, and strings, 54:B1; and the concerto for two recorders, two oboes, and strings, 54:B2.

Three Never from the Heart? 173 example 3.21. Concerto in E minor for flute and recorder, 52:e1/iii, mm. 1–9

  Largo                c         c   c                        c                                                   c     c                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Recorder



Flute

pizzicato

Violin 1

pizzicato

Violin 2

pizzicato

Viola

pizzicato

Continuo 6

Both accompanying string ensembles include one violin and two viola parts, a configuration suggestive of a composition date before 1715. If the scoring for flutes in the first work is authentic—recorders would be expected, given the key (Graupner’s late copy has “Flaut[o] Travers[o]”)—then this must be one of Telemann’s earliest compositions for the instrument. The concerto follows a gracious Largo and vigorous fugue with a tender siciliana in binary form; not surprisingly, it is the oboe that is featured in the dance. The oboe and violin become the principal soloists in the concluding Allegro, which is shaped by a unison ritornello. Telemann displays a better feel for handling a large group of soloists in 54:B2, where his task is made easier by having pairs of like solo instruments (the upper strings are sometimes treated as a third set of soloists). Here the second-movement fugue is more complex than that of 54:B1 and also displays a firmer sense of

174 The Concertos

tutti-solo contrast. Throughout the piece, the antiphonal writing for the soloists is not unlike that in the seven-part “concertos” to be discussed in chapter 5. The exquisite concerto for flute, oboe d’amore, and viola d’amore, 53:E1, would doubtless be better known today were the last of these instruments more commonly heard in the concert hall. That the work was performed at both the Darmstadt and Dresden courts during the late 1720s or early 1730s is not surprising, for the viola d’amore is used soloistically in fourteen of Graupner’s overture-suites (most dating from 1729–32), and Pisendel himself played the instrument. Also around 1730, Graupner composed an overture-suite and concerto with soloists including flûte d’amour, oboe d’amore, and viola d’amore.95 Perhaps, then, Telemann’s concerto was composed for the Darmstadt Hofkapelle. After a measure of gently pulsating, accompanimental chords in the tutti strings, the three soloists are introduced in the opening Andante with sustained pitches suggestive of the initial vocal entrance in an aria. Their delicately entwined parts encourage the listener’s appreciation of the instruments’ varied tonal colors. Toward the end of the movement, a fermata over a dominant triad seems to invite a cadenza. Telemann obliges the performers by writing a five-measure canonic passage for the soloists without accompaniment—one of the few examples of an instrumental cadenza by the composer (for another, see Example 8.8b). In the ensuing Allegro, he wittily allows the soloists to extend their third and final episode by continually interrupting what presumes to be the concluding, tonic ritornello. Here Telemann seems to parody the modular organization of the Vivaldian ritornello when each two-, four-, or eight-measure phrase is separated by soloistic interjections of varying length. The joke is most effective when the twenty-eight-measure ritornello, now spread out over fifty-five measures owing to the soloists’ interruptions, finally manages to reach its concluding phrase—only to have its full cadence denied by the soloists at the last second (m. 245). Undeterred, the ritornello backs up a few measures for another, successful, run at the cadence (mm. 253–57). After the soloists get in their final word, the tonic ritornello is heard in its uninterrupted entirety. The siciliana that follows allows each of the soloists to shine in turn before joining them together. As beautiful as the melody is, what distinguishes this siciliana from many other fine examples by Telemann is its ostinato accompaniment, consisting of gently cascading triplets played every other measure by the two “spectator” soloists. When all three soloists join forces, the triplets move to the tutti strings. Concluding the work is a pastoral rondeau, a scène aux champs complete with cheerful drones and a shepherd’s call at the start of the first couplet (Example 3.22). One of Telemann’s most mature, and most galant, orchestral works is the concerto for two flutes, violin, and cello, 54:D1, copied out in score by Graupner

Three Never from the Heart? 175 example 3.22. Concerto in E major for flute, oboe d’amore, viola d’amore, and strings, 53:E1/iii, mm. 25–32

    38                              38        

25

Oboe d'amore Violins 1 and 2, Viola



  

  

  



  



  

  

  

  

between 1735 and 1737 and probably composed around this time. In both style and scoring it is similar to the concerto for flute, violin, and cello in Production 1 of the Musique de table (1733), and its movement sequence of fast–siciliana– fast–gavotte recalls the slow–fast–fast/dance configuration common in sonatas written during the 1740s. The unusually expansive fast movements and touching siciliana are all in ritornello form, with ample episodes highlighting the four soloists individually and collectively. But the elegant gavotte is a binary theme with four variations, the last three constituting double variations in that each half of the theme is further varied upon being repeated. The lengthy ritornello of the third movement, given in Example 3.23, exhibits an unusual abundance of ideas and a progressive approach to scoring in which the flutes are treated not only as soloists, but as independent members of the tutti as well. The first idea introduces ascending scales and octave leaps enlivened by Lombard rhythms. Next, three of the soloists interject a motive in alla zoppa syncopation (mm. 9–12) before a new symphonic texture of tremolo strings and sustained flute tones is introduced. A tutti rendition of the alla zoppa motive (19–22) leads to an abbreviated variant of the tremolo idea and a soft passage of pastoral sighs in the strings (26–29). The final idea returns us to the rushing scalar figures of the opening and a drive to the tonic cadence. The movement’s two substantial episodes, separated by a complete dominant statement of the ritornello, introduce the flutes and violin by turn, then the cello with flute accompaniment, and finally the four soloists in pairs of flutes and strings. This pleasantly varied sequence contrasts with those of the opening Vivace (all four soloists, violin, cello, flutes, all four soloists), siciliana (cello, violin, flutes), and gavotte variations (flutes, strings, flutes and strings in alternation, all four soloists). In each movement, Telemann’s writing for the soloists is as imaginative as his handling of musical structure on both small and large scales. This fine concerto is possibly the latest by Telemann to have come down to us. Yet notwithstanding its stylistic modernity, the work exhibits a number of characteristics that defined Telemann’s concerto style throughout his career: a progressive approach to scoring and form; close dialogue between multiple soloists (or

176 The Concertos example 3.23. Concerto in D major for two flutes, violin, cello, and strings, 54:D1/iii, mm. 1–38

                     3        4  43                Allegro

Flutes 1 and 2

Violino concertato, Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

  43         3        4   43      

                                               5

                        











    





                                                      

                                      10

   

a2

Violino concertato solo

                               

a 2

      

between soloist[s] and tutti), often forestalling extremes of virtuosic display; the integration of Italian and French stylistic elements; and an emphasis on idiomatic writing in solo episodes. Here, as in many of the works discussed earlier, there is also a strong sense of individuality belying the notion that Telemann’s interest in the concerto was only lukewarm. In fact, some of his more original contributions to the genre, such as the striking accompanied recitatives in the Eisenach and

Three Never from the Heart? 177

                                               15



 

       

                  

                          

                        

  

  

         

 

  

  

        18

                 

  

                        p           p                                                                                              23

Frankfurt oboe concertos, the colorful scorings and conversational textures of the Gruppenkonzerte, and the ripieno concertos as a whole, may be seen in part as creative reactions against the “many difficulties and awkward leaps but little harmony and even poorer melody” that he found in early concertos by other composers.

178 The Concertos example 3.23.—Continued

                                                    27

p

                                           32

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36

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Three Never from the Heart? 179

Telemann’s Orchestras Although Telemann directed performances of his concertos and overture-suites throughout a long career, information relating to the size, makeup, and performance practices of his ensembles is less than abundant. This is especially true in cases where documentary evidence is almost completely lacking, as with the Sorau Hofkapelle and Frankfurt collegium musicum. In chapter 1 we saw that Telemann’s Leipzig collegium musicum appears to have been a relatively large and accomplished ensemble, but that its instrumental repertory is unknown. There are, however, indications that Telemann’s concertos, sonatas, and suites were frequently performed in Leipzig in the years following his departure from the city. Table 3.4 lists twenty-three Darmstadt manuscripts copied on Saxon paper by Johann Samuel Endler and several other scribes between the early 1710s and early 1720s. Endler, who in 1721 became director of the collegium founded by Fasch,

Table 3.4 Telemann works copied in Saxony by Johann Samuel Endler and others TWV

D-DS, Mus. ms.

40:200 40:203 42:c5 42:c7 42:F7 42:a5 43:d3 44:5 44:32 51:D7 51:d1 51:g1 53:D1 53:D4 53:g1 55:c3 55:c4 55:D4 55:Es5 55:e3 55:g4 55:B5 55:B8

1042/19 1042/59 1042/30 1042/79 1042/32 1042/82 1042/45 1042/37 1042/21b 1033/104 1033/80 1033/91 1033/72 1033/2 1033/44b 1034/60 1034/82 1034/7c 1034/59 1034/28a 1034/73 1034/53 1034/79

Copyist(s) Endler Endler Endler, unknown Endler, 2 unknowns Endler Endler Vogler? Endler, unknown Endler Endler Endler unknown Endler Vogler? Endler, Vogler? Endler Endler Endler Endler, unknown 2 unknowns Endler Endler Unknown

180 The Concertos

would have brought his eighteen sets of parts to Darmstadt in late 1722. The works transmitted by these sources include a representative sample of the instrumental music Telemann composed at Eisenach and Frankfurt, and one presumes that some or all were performed in Leipzig. Probably the earliest of Endler’s copies are those of 40:200, 40:203, 42:c7, 42:F7, 44:5, 44:32, and 51:d1; as we saw earlier, this last manuscript bears the date 1713, when the young musician turned seventeen.96 Three manuscripts in the table are partly or wholly in an unidentified hand, possibly that of Johann Gottfried Vogler, who from 1716 to 1720 served as organist at the Leipzig Neukirche and led the Telemann collegium. After a period as Kapellmeister to the Würzburg court, he served in the Darmstadt Hofkapelle between April 1725 and August 1733.97 The various other unidentified hands listed in Table 3.4 may also be those of Leipzig musicians; at least some of the manuscripts in question belonged to Endler. If these Telemann works were indeed circulating in Leipzig during the 1710s and early 1720s, then it is not difficult to imagine J. S. Bach encountering them soon after arriving there in 1723. Under Telemann’s and Hebenstreit’s direction, the Eisenach Hofkapelle included a total of sixteen musicians.98 This group was no doubt augmented by select members of the duke’s oboe band and corps of trumpets and drums. On Easter Sunday 1709, for example, the cantor Johann Conrad Geisthirt led twentythree choir students with Telemann, Hebenstreit, Johann Friedrich Helbig, Johann Christian Koch, six trumpeters and drummers, six oboists, and seven town musicians (Stadtpfeifer).99 Although there is no indication as to which instruments most of the Hofkapelle or town musicians played (many, like Telemann himself, must have been “double-handed” and could therefore switch instruments as needed), we are probably safe in assuming that the minimum of four violins, two violas, cello, and bass required for Telemann’s double violin concertos and string quintets were readily available. At least this many strings are likely to have been available to Telemann in Frankfurt as director of the Frauenstein Society’s collegium musicum, which gave weekly concerts including instrumental music; this was precisely the ensemble at the Barfüßerkirche and Catharinenkirche when the composer departed for Hamburg in 1721.100 But for certain festive occasions— as with performances of the Brockes-Passion, TVWV 5:1, on 2–3 April 1716, and the church music and serenata for the birth of the Habsburg Prince Leopold on the following 17 May, TVWV 12:1—Telemann supplemented the collegium with musicians from the nearby Darmstadt Hofkapelle. On the second occasion, more than fifty musicians performed.101 At Hamburg, Telemann appears to have had more instrumentalists at his disposal than at any time since his student days in Leipzig. The city employed eight

Three Never from the Heart? 181

Ratsmusikanten (civic musicians), two Expectanten (assistants), fifteen Rollbrüder (a brotherhood of supplementary musicians paid on a per-service basis), five Türmer (church trumpeters), and an oboe band. These musicians played in the five main churches (with as many as twenty-two persons split among the venues); performed at civic functions such as the annual banquet thrown by officers of the city’s militia or Bürgerkapitäne (forty instrumentalists and singers are said to have participated in 1719); staffed the orchestra at the Gänsemarkt Opera until its closing in 1738; and, starting in the 1720s, provided the instrumental core for Telemann’s collegium musicum.102 In November 1721, just months after arriving in Hamburg, Telemann revived Hamburg’s collegium musicum with a concert series held at his apartment. As far as can be determined from announcements in the Hamburg press, weekly performances began each fall at the end of October or beginning of November and ran into the spring; no concerts were held during the Christmas season and relatively few in summer. Telemann’s move to a larger apartment sometime in 1722 was likely due in part to the early success of his series.103 But in 1722–24 he also led performances in more public venues, such as the Hof von Holland, an upper-class guest house; the orangerie or Garten-Haus of the future municipal magistrate Johann Klefeker; the Zuchthaus or prison; and the Drillhaus, a large building where the city’s militia trained. This last venue, depicted in a much-reproduced engraving of the 1719 Bürgerkapitäne celebration, became the collegium’s home in March 1724, when the concert series expanded to twice weekly.104 Newspaper announcements of Telemann’s concerts were never so numerous as during the period 1722–25; they appeared only sporadically thereafter, with exceptions such as performances featuring favorite vocal works in 1728 and the composer’s late oratorios in the 1750s. Perhaps Telemann scaled back his public concerts as he became more involved with publishing his own music during the mid-1720s, or perhaps he simply found alternative methods of advertising. Throughout his forty-year career of directing public concerts in Hamburg, Telemann continually presented audiences with music that had originally been composed for a circumscribed number of people at private occasions. Mattheson noted that during the 1660s and 1670s, the Hamburg collegium under Matthias Weckmann had “brought together fifty persons, all of whom contributed” to performances of “the best pieces from Venice, Rome, Vienna, Munich, Dresden, and elsewhere.”105 The size and composition of Telemann’s ensemble is unknown, though it appears to have had orchestrally doubled strings (newspaper announcements occasionally refer to the instruments as “stark besetzt”). He would no doubt have provided a substantial portion of the collegium’s instrumental repertory, just as most of the vocal music appears to have

182 The Concertos

been of his own composition; in the previous chapter we noted that two overturesuites, 55:C3 and F11, can be connected with specific performances. It may have been Telemann’s custom to begin concerts with an instrumental work, for those who planned to attend the opening performance of the collegium’s third season on 30 October 1723 were reminded that that “the symphony begins at four o’clock.”106 Unfortunately, newspaper announcements from the time are generally uninformative about the instrumental works to be performed, though they do provide corroborating evidence that Telemann was still composing such music during the 1750s. For example, accompanying a performance of Telemann’s cantata TVWV 14:8 for the reconsecration of the Hamburg Gymnasium on 27 May 1751 were “various instrumental pieces that have not yet been heard”; and the performance of 4 November 1756 included “various new. . . vocal and instrumental works by Handel and Telemann.”107 A notice of 8 November 1747 states that “the consecration music for the church at St. Georg will be performed along with a newly composed and very solemn concerto for various instruments at the Drill House on Friday, November 10.”108 The concerto may have been a work similar to the earlier F-major “sinfonia” for recorder, viola da gamba, and strings doubled by cornetto, two oboes, and three trombones, 50:3. Its “Allabreve” opening and Vivace conclusion both have fugal ritornellos (the former in the stile antico) and soloistic episodes featuring recorder and viola da gamba. Certainly the archaic style and “church” scoring with cornetti and trombones suggest an ecclesiastical purpose. As for performances of instrumental music by other composers, we know that several concertos for violin or oboe by Albinoni, Vivaldi, and Carlo Tessarini were heard during a Hamburg performance of the 1725 comic intermezzo Pimpinone oder Die ungleiche Heirat, TVWV 21:15. A manuscript score of the work copied by Roger Brown, a scribe at the Hamburg opera between 1710 and 1734, lists “concertos that may be performed” before and after each of the three “intermezzi” or acts: Tessarini’s op. 1, nos. 8 (before Intermezzo I) and 12 (after Intermezzo I); Albinoni’s op. 9, nos. 8 (before Intermezzo II) and 10 (after Intermezzo II); Tessarini’s op. 1, no. 2 and (or?) Vivaldi’s op. 7, (no. 2) (before Intermezzo III); and Tessarini’s op. 1, no. 11 (after Intermezzo III).109 One imagines that these concertos were executed with the full string complement of the Hamburg opera orchestra, which by one estimate included eight violins, three violas, two cellos, and two basses.110 If such works are representative of the orchestral music Telemann performed with his collegium, then he seems to have kept current with developments in the Italian concerto: all three opuses had been published in Amsterdam between 1720 and 1722. We are probably safe in assuming that Telemann also performed concertos and suites by German colleagues including J. S. Bach, Fasch,

Three Never from the Heart? 183

and various members of the Hofkapellen at Berlin, Darmstadt, and Dresden— musicians with whom he was in personal contact. His praise for the sonatas of Johann Christoph Pez, the concertos of Johann Christoph Pepusch, and the overture-suites of Pantaleon Hebenstreit in the 1725 poem “Ueber etliche Teutsche Componisten” provides another indication of his tastes and, perhaps, of the collegium repertory.111 Intriguingly, what appear to be fragments of Telemann’s own collection of music by other composers are preserved in Berlin sets of parts to his sacred cantatas. These sets were inherited by the composer’s grandson, Georg Michael Telemann, who copied out supplementary parts for the performances he directed at Riga during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Occasionally Georg Michael conserved paper by writing on the blank sides of wrappers and parts taken from old manuscripts that must also have come from his grandfather’s estate. Thus one finds, for example, title pages and parts to cantatas by Fasch, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, and Johann Adolf Scheibe; fragments of an unidentified Italian vocal work; a page from the index to Telemann’s Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musicalisches Lieder-Buch (1730); figured-bass exercises in Telemann’s hand; and an instrumental bass part to an unidentified vocal work copied at Leipzig sometime between 1701 and 1705 by Telemann and Melchior Hoffmann.112 Among the remnants of instrumental works are title pages to a sonata and double violin concerto by Pepusch, a first oboe part to an unidentified concerto, and an engraved “Viola di Gamba” part to an unidentified sinfonia, most likely published in Paris or Amsterdam.113 Several surviving invoices and personnel lists are revealing of the orchestras Telemann led in performances of his occasional sacred works. These ensembles, which varied considerably in size, were generally larger than those that performed his regular church music—at least to judge from the performance materials to cantatas preserved at Berlin, where it is usual to find only one part per instrument (duplicate cello parts were probably used by a double bassist or keyboardist). Perhaps the greatest number of musicians Telemann ever directed at Hamburg was 104: eighty-one instrumentalists and twenty-three singers who performed four of his vocal works commemorating the bicentenary of the Augsburg Confession (TVWV 13:7–10) in a Drillhaus concert of 3 July 1730. On the previous 25 June, these forces had premiered the works at the city’s five main churches in much smaller ensembles numbering between ten and twenty-nine musicians.114 At another repeat performance, this time in church of a cantata commemorating the centenary of the Peace of Westphalia in October 1748, TVWV 13:17, Telemann employed nine singers, nine Ratsmusikanten, two Expectanten, one of the Rollbrüder, three trumpeters and a drummer, and a keyboardist.115 This size ensemble may

184 The Concertos

have been typical of such occasions, for in June 1757 Telemann used nine voices, six violins, two violas, five “basses,” two oboes doubling flutes, four trumpets and drums, three horns, and one “Clavirist” to perform the consecration music for the small Michaeliskirche, TVWV 2:10. Yet an orchestra with a much larger violin section performed the consecration music for the large Michaeliskirche, TVWV 2:12, in October 1762: eleven voices with twelve violins, two violas, six “basses,” two oboes doubling flutes, six trumpets (apparently doubling on two horns), two drums, and two continuo players on small organ and harpsichord (“Positiv und Clavicimbel”).116 Less than two years later, in August 1764, Telemann led a more modest ensemble in a performance of his (lost) music commemorating the centennial of nearby Altona’s independence as a city: seven voices with five violins, one viola, three “basses,” two oboes, two trumpets, and drums.117 Telemann may also have been involved as a conductor or impresario for some of the Hamburg concerts featuring visiting virtuoso performers. In April 1727 a “famous” horn player (who, among other talents, could perform on two horns at once) was accompanied in concertos and “ouverturen” by a large orchestra; in September 1736 Telemann himself sold tickets to a concert by two violin prodigies; and the composer again sold tickets in June 1752 to a “large” concert featuring a “foreign” trumpet player.118 Regrettably, we know nothing about the manner in which Telemann performed concertos, overture-suites, symphonies, and sonatas. The closest we can come to reconstructing his practices is to consider how leading court orchestras of the time—including those at Darmstadt, Dresden, and Stuttgart—approached his music.119 We have already seen that Telemann maintained close ties to musicians in the first two organizations, and that together the three court-music collections account for most of his surviving instrumental works in manuscript. Although each court maintained a substantial orchestra during the first half of the eighteenth century—ranging between twenty and forty musicians and including up to six violinists at Darmstadt, ten at Stuttgart, and fifteen at Dresden120—manuscripts of concertos and overture-suites usually include only a single copy of each part. This is particularly true of the Stuttgart and Darmstadt collections, where one only occasionally encounters a doublet part or two. Depending on whether players shared parts, then, performances of concertos and overture-suites at these two courts would typically have included a basic ensemble of two to four violins, one or two violas, and one to three continuo instruments (Darmstadt performance sets often include two or three differently labeled bass parts, possibly indicating a slightly larger continuo section). Darmstadt musicians shared parts at least some of the time. In the violin parts to 55:c1, oboe solos momentarily cause the staff to be divided into two musical

Three Never from the Heart? 185

lines, indicating that the oboists read from the violinists’ parts; although not in divided-staff notation, cues in the violone part reveal a bassoonist reading along. Oboists also appear to have shared violinists’ parts in 54:D4 and 55:D3, e5, e6, and G11. Two violinists with partly independent lines shared the “Dessus Premier” part to 55:e3, just as pairs of flutes and oboes doubled up on single parts with divided staves. A duplicate set of parts for the same work includes a “Basse pour Violons” part with figuring in Telemann’s hand, suggesting that such part sharing was sanctioned by the composer in Frankfurt. In a case of extreme scribal economy, one set of parts to 55:G5 has the first oboist and first violinist sharing a part and the second oboist sharing with either these players or the second violinist. The “Violino 1” and “Hautbois 2” parts are in fact only fragmentarily notated, meaning that the instrumentalist turns to his part only when he has music that diverges from that of his stand partner.121 At Dresden, where the performance of concertos and overture-suites with orchestral doublings was more common, part sharing seems to have become an established practice by the 1720s. Here, too, there is evidence that musicians sometimes had stand-mates in the case of works transmitted in sets with single parts, which again make up the majority of sources: for 55:c2, oboes and bassoon appear to have read from the “Dessus” and “Cembalo” parts respectively; and for 55:h1, the two concertante violins read from a single part.122 Table 3.5 lists nineteen concertos and overture-suites that survive in Dresden part sets with extensive doublings; these manuscripts may have been produced for special occasions on which the entire court orchestra participated.123 Typical of Dresden performance practice is the frequent reinforcement of violin lines by oboes and flutes, listed here in parentheses. It will also be observed that the violin parts number as many as eight (though four to six is most common), the violas are usually represented by two parts, and the continuo parts vary from two to seven in number. Richard Maunder finds evidence in five of the concerto sets (51:F2, 51:G8, 51:B1, 52:e4, 52:G2) that Dresden players did not share their parts.124 He points especially to the set for 52:e4, arguing that the presence of names on the parts rules out the possibility that they were shared. Although there is no reason why a named player could not have shared his part with an unnamed one, the Hofkapelle does not appear to have had fourteen violins (two solo, twelve ripieno) at its disposal when the manuscript was copied in 1710–11. So this concerto, at least, was evidently performed by players who had their own parts. The same is probably true of the other concertos and overture-suites with orchestral doublets copied during the decade 1710–20 (51:G8, 52:D3, 52:G2, and 55:B9). But does the one-to-a-part hypothesis remain valid for later periods as well? Identification of the copying hands and paper types in the manuscripts listed in

186 The Concertos Table 3.5 Telemann concertos and overture-suites performed with orchestral doublings at Dresden TWV 51:F2 51:G8 51:B1 52:D3 52:Es1 52:e4 52:G2 52:A2 53:D5 54:D2 55:C7 55:D19 55:e8 55:e9 55:F12 55:a6 55:B7 55:B9 55:B11

Source 2392-O-11 2392-O-3 2392-O-58 2392-O-4 2392-O-31 2392-O-56 2392-O-35a 2392-O-37 2392-O-61 2392-O-30 2392-N-2 2392-N-4a 2392-N-18 2392-N-14 2392-N-8a 2392-N-31 2392-O-33 2392-N-9 2392-O-34

Parts Vn conc, 3 vn unisoni, 2 vltta, 2 va, 2 cemb Vn conc, 5 vn (+ 2 ob), 2 va, 3 b, theorbo, 2 bn, cemb Vn conc, 6 vn, 3 va, b, 2 cemb Vn 1 and 2 conc, 4 vn (+ 2 ob), 2 va, 2 b, bn, cemb 2 hn, 4 vn (+ 2 ob), 2 va, 2 b, vne, bn, cemb Vn 1 and 2 conc, 4 vn 1, 2 vn 2 (+ ob), 2 va, 2 vne, 3 bc Vn 1 and 2 conc, 4 vn, va, vc, org Vn 1 and 2 conc, 4 vn (+ 2 ob), 2 va, 2 b, 2 cemb Vn 1 conc, hn, vc obl, bn obl, 3 vn, 3 vn/ob, va 1, va 2, 2 b, bn, cemb Vn conc, 3 hn, 4 vn unisoni (+ ob), va 1 (+ ob), va 2, 4 b, cemb 4 vn (+ 2 ob), 2 va, 2 b, vne, bn, cemb 6 vn (+ 2 ob), 2 va, 3 b, 2 bn, 2 hn 4 vn (+ 2 ob), 2 va, b, bn, cemb 4 vn (+ 2 ob), 2 va, 2 b, vlne, bn, cemb 2 hn, 6 vn (+ 2 ob), 2 va, vc, 2 b, 2 bn 2 ob, 4 vn, 2 va, vc/cemb, 2 b, bn 3 ob (+ 2 fl), 5 vn, 2 va, 2 b, vne, 2 bn, cemb 4 dessus, haute-contre, taille, 3 b, bn 3 ob (+ 2 fl), 5 vn, 2 va, 3 b, vne, 2 bn, cemb

Table 3.5 allows a tentative division of the manuscripts into several overlapping chronological periods: circa 1709 (52:G2), 1710–11 (52:e4), circa 1710–20 (51:G8, 52:D3, 55:B9), circa 1720–25 (51:F2, 51:B1), circa 1725–35 (52:Es1, 52:A2, 53:D5, 54:D2, 55:C7, 55:e8, 55:e9, 55:B7, 55:B11), circa 1735–50 (55:D19, 55:a6), and circa 1750–55 (55:F12).125 During the four decades represented here, the size of the Hofkapelle grew considerably—so much so, in fact, that by the 1720s these concertos and overture-suites would have required only half of the available musicians if no part sharing occurred. It is of course possible that some sort of rotation system was in place, so that any given orchestral performance used only half the available players. But as evidence from Dresden liturgical performances suggests, part sharing is the more likely scenario. Because these performances also constitute one of the more interesting uses to which Telemann’s instrumental works were put during the eighteenth century, it is worth exploring them here in some detail. In keeping with a widespread tradition in Western Europe of performing sonatas da chiesa, sinfonias da chiesa, violin and trumpet concertos, and ripieno concertos during the Catholic Mass, the Dresden Hofkapelle played various in-

Three Never from the Heart? 187

strumental works in the Hofkirche, either complete or as freestanding movements or movement pairs. Such music seems often to have functioned as a Graduale instrumentaliter, and may also have been heard during the Offertory and as preludes and postludes. During the second half of the eighteenth century the Gradual at Dresden was sometimes replaced with a symphony or concerto, and on at least one occasion a baptismal service concluded with an oboe concerto.126 Earlier in the century, the Kapellmeister and Kirchencompositeur Johann David Heinichen, among others, supplied various instrumental pieces for Mass.127 Johann Adam Hiller’s remark that Pisendel composed “several fully worked out instrumental fugues in four voices for the church, played now and then during the Mass in place of concertos” suggests that it was the concerto that most often served to instrumentally embellish the liturgy.128 Indeed, a number of works by Pisendel entitled “Concerto” are likely to have been intended for church performance.129 All of these “church sinfonias” were performed with the kinds of orchestral doublings seen in Table 3.5. This too seems to have been a widespread and long-lived practice. Johann Abraham Peter Schulz, writing in 1774, took it for granted that fugal “Kirchentrios” for two violins and bass are scored for “more than one to a part” (“mehr wie einfach besetzt”),130 and it is possible that what Mattheson called “starcken Sonates” in 1717 were those intended for performance in church.131 Laurie Ongley has found evidence that, at least during the period 1765–1805, the entire Dresden Hofkapelle performed in church, with both strings and winds sharing parts.132 She points to late eighteenth-century petitions from the court orchestra’s administrator (the “Directeur des Plaisirs”) as confirming that four cellists, four contrabassists, and two or four bassoonists played in church, as opposed to only two of each in the opera. To judge from the performances of Telemann’s works in the court church, a similar continuo group was employed earlier in the century. Citing a late eighteenth-century manuscript catalog of the music kept in the Dresden Hofkirche, Ortrun Landmann has suggested that several instrumental pieces by Telemann were enlisted for ecclesiastical duty at the court.133 Table 3.6 lists these and other Telemann works probably heard during Mass between 1725 and 1755. Each is transmitted in a set of orchestral parts, and five (43:Es1, e5, e12, A6; 50:5) include only one or two movements. Several other works (42:B6, 43:C1, 43:G5, 44:11) are four-movement sonatas that might easily have been performed in church as two two-movement pairs. That instrumental music was often heard at two different points during the liturgy is confirmed by the three pastiche works (2392-N-5, N-7, Q-44b). Here distant key relationships between the opening and closing movements bespeak their differing functions, and movement pairs in all three manuscripts are accordingly labeled “N:o 1” and “N:o 2.”

188 The Concertos Table 3.6 Telemann’s Dresden church sinfonias TWV

Source: Title

Parts

43:C1 55:D20 (3 movts), 55:F10/i 43:A6 43:A6/i, ii 42:F11 (2 movts), 42:A11/ii, 42:A12 (1 movt) 42:B6 43:Es1/i, ii 42:e12/i, iv 50:5 (1 movt) 43:e5/i 43:G5 44:11 42:c1/i, ii, 42:e1/i, ii 42:g13 42:g13/i, ii

2392-N-1: [Sonata] 2392-N-5: Ouverture 2392-N-6a: Sinfonia 2392-N-6b: Sinfonia

6 vn, 2 va, 3 b, 2 bn, cemb 5 vn (+ 2 fl, 2 ob), 2 va, 2 b, 2 bn, vne, cemb 2 vn, va, b, cemb 4 vn (+ 2 ob), va, 2 b

2392-N-7: Trio 2392-N-10: Concerto 2392-N-12: Concerto 2392-N-15: Sonata/Trio 2392-N-16: Sinfonia 2392-N-17: Sinfonia 2392-Q-3: [Sonata/Trio] 2392-Q-14a: Sonata 2392-Q-44b: Sonata/Trio 2392-Q-50a: Sonata 2392-Q-50b: Sonata/Trio

8 vn, 7 b, cemb 6 vn (+ 2 ob), 2 va, 2 b, 2 bn, cemb 6 vn, 3 va, 2 b, 2 cemb 7 vn (+ 2 ob), 6 b, bc 6 vn (+ 2 fl, 2 ob), 2 va, 4 b, 2 bn, cemb 6 vn, 2 va, 2 vc, b, 2 bn, cemb 4 vn, va, 2 b, 2 bn (lost: 2 vn, va, b, cemb) 6 vn, 2 va, 5 b 6 vn, 3 b, 2 bn, cemb 2 vn, cemb 4 vn, 6 b

The apparently common practice of limiting liturgical instrumental works to one or two movements is described by Johann Adolph Scheibe in his 1739 definition of “Symphonies for sacred works”: With regard to the type and succession of movements, I must still add the following. One does not compose three separate movements, as one usually does for other symphonies, but restricts oneself to one movement or, at the very most, two. The character of these movements is either slow and pathetic at the beginning followed by a faster movement, or a rapid and fiery movement followed by a slower and more sentimental one. The beginning of the [following] vocal piece will determine just how the symphony should commence. . . . One must observe at least the following, that when two movements are composed, they are not so different that a pause between them is necessary; rather, the end of the first movement must cleverly unite with the beginning of the second movement so as not to appear contrived or artificial, but rather as inevitable.134

Nobility, majesty, seriousness, and a full-voiced sound were among the attributes ascribed by Mattheson, Scheibe, and Johann Abraham Peter Schulz to the church symphony, and the same writers advised that the character of instrumen-

Three Never from the Heart? 189

tal music performed in church should correspond to that of the following vocal work. Schulz, in particular, considered “a pathetic and thoroughly worked out fugue” the most appropriate movement type.135 Thus the Telemann works tend toward a serious affect: two-thirds of the fast movements are fugal, and of course the two French overtures in 2392-N-5 also have fugal fast sections. Aside from the D-major bourrée and courante in the same manuscript (movements that are more difficult to reconcile with a sacred setting), there are only a few binary forms. Many of the slow movements have imitative textures as well, and all are in a relatively conservative Italian idiom. Indeed, very little of this music is colored by the galant style. The parts were copied principally by one or both of the two court scribes, known as Copyists A and D. In at least two instances (2392-N-6a/6b and 2392Q-50a/50b), older single-part sets seem to have been combined with newly copied doublets, a time-saving measure for producing the customary six violin and two viola parts, apparently for twelve violins and four violas.136 The latest sets (2392-N-7, N-15, and Q-50b), produced in the 1750s, are also among the fullest. This no doubt reflects the increased personnel of the Kapelle, and perhaps also the move in 1751 from the Opernhaus-Kirche to the spacious new Hofkirche. An ensemble including as many as sixteen violins and an equal number of continuo instruments (2392-N-7) might appear to be bottom-heavy, but it may be that such a scoring was necessary to overcome an acoustic favoring the treble register. Although we cannot be certain precisely which instruments—and in what numbers—played from the “Basso” parts, they likely included various mixtures of cellos and contrabasses, and perhaps a theorbo as well. Bassoons that are not specifically designated in a set of parts may have been included among the “bassi.” Occasionally bass part titles are more revealing: the continuo instruments in 2392-N-5 and N-17 seem to have included four cellos, four bassoons, two violoni, and organ (the designation “Cembalo” here and on other parts is likely a holdover from secular performances). Odd numbers of violin parts in 2392-N5, N-15, and (in Table 3.5) O-33 may indicate that Pisendel, as concertmaster, did not share a part. At any rate, one first violin part in the last manuscript bears a “P.” for Pisendel, as do parts in 2392-N-4a and 2392-Q-44b (“M.P.” for “Monsieur Pisendel”). Pisendel may have composed the wind trios in 50:5 and is probably responsible for the viola part in 42:B6, which transforms the second movement from a three-voice to a four-voice fugue; the trio’s newly expanded scoring may explain its designation as a “concerto.” In sum, several important points emerge from a survey of orchestras with which Telemann was closely associated over the course of his career. First, some “lost” repertories may be partially recovered through documentary evidence: in-

190 The Concertos

strumental works of Telemann performed in Leipzig during the 1710s and early 1720s; music of other composers performed by the Hamburg collegium musicum; and Telemann sonatas, concertos, and suites performed during Mass in the Dresden court church. Second, orchestras performing Telemann’s music—either under his direction or that of others—varied greatly in size, from as few as a half dozen players to between twenty and thirty. Thus modern performances of Telemann’s concertos and overture-suites with one instrument per part are as historically justifiable as those featuring doubled strings. Finally, even if many of the composer’s own practices seem irrecoverable, there is potentially much to be gained from reconstructing performance contexts indicated by the surviving sources, for “Telemann’s orchestras” were found throughout Germany.

Chapter 4 Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest A Case Study of Transformative Imitation

Asked to compose a setting of verses from Psalm 111 as a demonstration of his allegedly incomparable talent, the character of Caraffa in Johann Kuhnau’s satirical novel Der musicalische Quack-Salber (The Musical Quack) surrounds himself with copies of other composers’ sonatas and concertos in a desperate search for usable material. This, his usual compositional process, inevitably produces music resembling “a beggar’s coat patched together from many stolen patches, not one of which harmonizes with the next in color and texture.” On this occasion Caraffa awkwardly fits the psalm verses to a sonata by someone else, a solution that fools no one. Later, in a further example of his compositional ineptitude, he struggles mightily during a sleepness night to “extract the quintessence of four [borrowed] melodies, and from them prepare the loveliest transformation” for his setting of a poem. But Caraffa is ignorant of “the craft of developing the most splendid variations from the best songs” and is consequently exposed as an unrepentant plagiarist, guilty of having “plowed with someone else’s calf.”1 This humorous portrait of a musical pilferer is in one sense a cautionary tale about the perils of “stealing” another composer’s work, for it gives voice to an emerging conception around 1700 of music as the intellectual property of its creator. Caraffa runs afoul of compositional etiquette by neglecting to transform and improve the objects of his imitation; he fails, in effect, to pay musical interest on the substantial loans he has taken out. Moreover, he violates a largely unwritten prohibition against appropriating other composers’ music too frequently. Thus his crime is not so much borrowing per se, but borrowing excessively and to poor effect. This particular nexus between musical invention and originality is one that also surfaces repeatedly in German theoretical writings of the early eighteenth century; the many admonitions against musical thievery suggest that there were plenty of real-life Caraffas to guard against. Then as now, Handel’s musical borrowings from other composers sparked debate over the degree to which such external stimulation was appropriate during the creative process. But Handel was 191

192 The Concertos

unusual only in the magnitude of his borrowings, for many, if not most, composers of his time mined their peers’ music for inspiration. This chapter explores the musical and aesthetic implications of a particularly revealing case in point: Johann Sebastian Bach’s previously unrecognized borrowing from a movement by Telemann. To wit, the middle movement of Bach’s Fminor harpsichord concerto BWV 1056, justly celebrated as one of the composer’s “most memorable, ‘singable’ melodies,”2 is substantially based upon the first movement of Telemann’s concerto for solo oboe or flute and strings, 51:G2. Unlike many intertextual correspondences that are perhaps too readily presumed to be borrowings, this one goes well beyond the sharing of common melodic and harmonic formulae to suggest a conscious modeling process. Bach’s movement has engendered much discussion about its origins. Ulrich Siegele partially overturned the notion that the F-minor concerto as a whole was originally conceived in G minor for violin and strings, demonstrating that only the outer movements can have derived from this lost work. Joshua Rifkin subsequently showed that the slow movement is not an arrangement of the introductory sinfonia to the 1729 cantata Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe, BWV 156, as had been proposed by Wilfried Fischer, but that both the concerto movement and the sinfonia are dependent upon an earlier movement in F major, scored like the sinfonia for oboe and strings. This F-major movement, in his view, belonged originally to a lost D-minor oboe concerto whose outer movements survive in arranged form as the sinfonias in the 1726 cantata Geist und Seele wird verwirret, BWV 35. More recently, Werner Breig has clarified the multistage process by which Bach revised the ripieno string parts and embellished the solo part in the slow movement of BWV 1056. He proposes that Bach replaced the slow movement of the G-minor violin concerto with that of the D-minor oboe concerto because the relatively circumscribed, vocally conceived line of the latter was better suited to a transformation from “cantilena to coloratura” through the gradual accretion of ornaments.3 Thanks to such source-critical investigations and informed speculation, Bach’s reuse, revision, and recontextualization of BWV 1056/ii (156/i) has come more sharply into focus. That the close connection between Bach’s and Telemann’s movements went unnoticed for so long is attributable in large measure to misleading descriptions of the sole manuscript source for 51:G2 as fragmentary, for these discouraged the appearance of a modern edition until 1998.4 In fact, the missing portions of Telemann’s concerto do not significantly hinder an assessment of the music, and they scarcely affect the first movement at all. The revelation of Bach’s modeling not only adds to the relatively small number of his known borrowings of music by others, but also demonstrates that the stylistic influences on his concertos were

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 193

not limited to Italian works.5 Perhaps most important, it allows us deeper insight into a relatively unfamiliar side of his working method: the transformation of music by another composer into a distinctive expression of his own compositional voice.

Bach’s Borrowing, Telemann’s Model In the absence of a secure chronology for either movement, the proposition that the lost original version of BWV 1056/ii (156/i) was written in response to 51: G2, and not the other way around, is supported by both musical and documentary evidence. First, it is significant, and perhaps not entirely unexpected, that Bach’s elaboration of the musical material common to both movements is richer than Telemann’s. This is not necessarily to denigrate Telemann’s movement, but rather to suggest that Bach was able to benefit from a critical reading of it, in much the same way as Handel often realized—through various processes of imitation—the full potential of the material he himself borrowed from Telemann.6 Had Telemann’s movement been modeled upon Bach’s, we would reasonably expect it to reveal some evidence of a critical reading, which it does not. Further suggesting a Telemann-to-Bach direction of influence is Bach’s well-documented contact with his friend’s concertos at Weimar (see chapter 3). The composers’ early relationship is also attested by C. P. E. Bach in a 1775 letter to Johann Nikolaus Forkel: “In his younger days he saw a good deal of Telemann, who also stood godfather to me. [crossed out:] He esteemed him, particularly in his instrumental things, very highly.”7 Indeed, one opportunity for Bach to examine Telemann’s concertos may have come in March 1714, when the latter apparently traveled from Frankfurt to Weimar for Emanuel’s baptism.8 In considering the music, let us proceed from Rifkin’s conclusion that BWV 156/i differs only in minor details from the lost original version of Bach’s movement.9 Examples 4.1 and 4.2 give the cantata’s complete sinfonia and the opening movement of 51:G2. Not without significance is the fact that at twenty-four measures in common time, Telemann’s Andante is only four measures longer than Bach’s Adagio. While such modest dimensions are common among Telemann’s slow concerto movements composed at Eisenach and Frankfurt, they are most unusual for Bach at any period. Except for the middle movement of the Third Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1048, Bach’s Adagio probably takes less time to perform, on average, than any of his other slow concerto movements.10 Surely the most striking musical parallel between Bach’s and Telemann’s movements occurs in the first two and a half measures, where the two soloists play virtually the same

194 The Concertos example 4.1. Sinfonia to Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe, BWV 156 SINFONIA

Adagio

Oboe

Violins 1 and 2, Viola

Continuo

 c                      c     c      

                                4

7

    

                                                    [

                         

                                   10

[

]

                                                

                       

                    

 

3

3

3

3

3

      

                                         

                                                        13

]

                   

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 195

                             16

               19

Vln 1

Vln 2 Vla

B.C.

[

]

[

    

   

                                                           [

  

   

]

]

[

]

 

              

melody. Bach’s version, however, includes several substantive differences that could be regarded as improvements to Telemann’s original: the elimination of melodic stasis across the bar line in measures 1–2 by reproducing the upward sweep of measure 12 in 14, and by leaping up an octave in measure 21 to provide a registral link to 2ˆ on the third beat of the same measure. Equally striking is the fact that the two passages share a descending bass line, offbeat chordal string accompaniment, and initial harmonic progression (I–V6–VI–IV6–V7–I). Although here Bach injects Telemann’s bass line with an element of rhythmic variety, in BWV 1056/ii he reintroduces the steady eighth-note octave leaps (off rather than on the beat) in the harpsichord’s left hand. With these parallels in mind, Telemann’s arco string parts might be taken as supporting evidence that Bach added pizzicato indications to the ripieno string parts in BWV 1056/ii only to avoid obscuring the rapidly decaying tone of the harpsichord.11 Even though the two movements appear to diverge beginning in the second half of measure 3, there remain significant points of contact between them. In a procedure commonly encountered in his sonatas, especially those in solo scoring, Telemann adopts a modular organization for the remainder of his movement, introducing a variety of contrasting figures that return at different pitch levels and are occasionally extended or altered. Thus, a chromatically inflected sigh figure (mm. 3–4) gives way to a passage that initially reverses this rhythm and elegantly outlines

196 The Concertos example 4.2. Concerto in G major for oboe or flute, strings, and continuo, 51:G2/i Oboe or Flute

Violin 1 and 2, Viola

Continuo

Andante   c     c            c        

[

]

                                                                4

                                7

[

                   

]

[

]

      

    

         

                         

                                                         13

                      

                         

                                 10

                       

                    

[

]

       

       

          

 

      

      

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 197

                                   16

       20

  

                                                                         

              

             22

                      

[

]

[

]

                                           

[

]

 

V7/V on the way to the dominant cadence in measure 7; slurred pairs of sixteenth notes treated sequentially are followed by a return of the sigh figure, now extended in order to effect a cadence in the mediant (m. 12); and a restatement of the slurred sixteenths leads to a variation of the sigh figure (m. 17–18) and the earlier dominant seventh figure, which now leads back to the tonic (m. 21). Virtually lost in the manipulation of these modules is the distinctive opening phrase, of which little trace is to be found later in the movement (but see m. 13). Throughout, the bass line descends relentlessly, breaking its melodic-rhythmic pattern only at cadences. Bach, by contrast, rarely loses sight of the opening phrase’s rhythmic profile, departing from it only for the galant sixteenth-note triplets in measures 13–14 (a gesture perhaps more typical of Telemann than Bach) and providing a literal repeat of the phrase near the movement’s end. But he does seem to retain an element of Telemann’s modular conception in the abrupt tonal shifts between some phrases, especially that occurring at measure 7, where the sudden movement from

198 The Concertos

C major to G minor is underscored by the cross-relation between E-natural (3ˆ in C major) and E-flat (6ˆ in G minor); similarly abrupt, if less dramatic, is Telemann’s shift from B minor to G major at his measure 12.12 We might also note the identical length of Bach’s and Telemann’s second phrases, both of which cadence in the dominant on the downbeat of measure 7. Moreover, Bach’s series of arpeggiated seventh chords leading up to this cadence not only recalls his own measure 23, but is also redolent of the filled-in arpeggiation of V7/V in the analogous passage from Telemann’s movement. Unlike Telemann, Bach frequently interrupts the descending motion of his bass line, retaining only the rhythm established at the outset. Yet on the few occasions when he breaks the bass’s rhythmic pattern, it is, as in Telemann’s movement, to introduce steady eighth notes at each of four intermediate cadences. Notice as well that at Bach’s modulation to the supertonic he adopts Telemann’s solo cadential rhythm (compare Bach’s m. 10 to Telemann’s mm. 6, 12, and 21). Even the final cadences are very similar. True, the two composers handle the soloist’s cadential role somewhat differently: Telemann provides a V–vi deceptive cadence, Bach a melodic extension leading from tonic to dominant. But both employ contrary melodic motion between the outer voices (an ascent on tonic and dominant pitches in the solo part—f⬘–c⬙–f⬙ in Bach, g⬘–d⬙–g⬙ in Telemann—over a descending perfect fourth in the bass) and assign the final cadential motion to the ripieno strings. Bach may not have been the only composer to borrow from 51:G2/i. Telemann appears to have reused his opening theme for the first movement of the flute solo 41:G9 (Essercizii musici). As Example 4.3 shows, the opening of this movement bears more than a passing resemblance to that of the Andante: the solo melody begins almost identically over a descending bass line, includes a large upward leap in the middle of the second measure, comes to a tonic cadence on the downbeat of the third measure, and introduces a similar contrasting figure (though closely related to the mordent-like motive at the beginning of m. 2) in the third and fourth measures on the way to cadencing in the dominant. But the comparison cannot be pushed much further; the melody is harmonized differently, the bass line does not maintain its descent, and the second phrase is shorter. As for the rest of the movement, it runs its course in a total of only fourteen measures by restating the opening theme in the dominant, then further developing the motive from measure 2. If one accepts the beginning of this little movement as a borrowing—and it is not nearly as clear-cut an example as one could wish for— then it conforms to what may have been Telemann’s usual self-borrowing procedure: the quotation of an initial melodic phrase that becomes the basis for an otherwise entirely new movement.13

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 199 example 4.3. Solo in G major for flute and continuo, 41:G9/i (Essercizii musici, Solo 8), mm. 1–6 Flute Continuo

Cantabile      c                               c                        

6

´

6

7

6 6 5

                                                       

4



5 4

3 6

#

6

#

6

Having established a close musical connection between the two concerto movements, we turn now to the question of when and where Bach might have encountered Telemann’s concerto. Rifkin proposes that Bach’s Adagio, in its putative original form as the middle movement of a lost D-minor oboe concerto, dates from the Weimar period.14 His argument turns mainly on stylistic parallels between the concerto’s outer movements and relatively early works such as the Dminor violin concerto, BWV 1052a; the Third Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1048; and Alessandro Marcello’s D-minor oboe concerto, Bach’s keyboard transcription of which (BWV 974) appears to have originated at Weimar. As for the middle movement, Rifkin links its arioso style and avoidance of ritornello form to other early slow concerto movements by Bach, such as the second movement of the First Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1046, composed at Weimar or Köthen. Although this line of argument is rendered less compelling by the substantial debt Bach’s Adagio owes to Telemann, it is nevertheless conceivable that Bach’s interest in Telemann’s Andante was due in part to his own preoccupation at Weimar with the arioso movement type. In this respect, Rifkin’s linking of BWV 1056/ii (156/i) and 1046/ii is particularly apt, for these two slow movements not only share a relative brevity, “vocal” melodic style, and quasi-ostinato accompaniment, but, unlike the Telemann movement, conclude with a modified tonic return of the opening material. These features could indicate that Bach conceived his two concerto movements as instrumental equivalents of a certain type of aria found in his Weimar cantatas. Indeed, the recapitulatory function of the concluding measures might be read as a reference to “free” or “modified” da capo structure, or even as the concluding ritornello in a through-composed aria structure.15 Note as well that the majority of Bach’s Weimar continuo arias—the textural near equiv-

200 The Concertos

alent of BWV 1056/ii (156/i)—feature quasi-ostinato accompaniments.16 Yet the parallels between concerto movement and aria extend only this far, for BWV 1056/ii (156/i), at least, does not allude to a tutti-solo opposition by means of thematic contrasts, harmonic plan, or scoring. If the concluding double return is read as a free da capo, we must imagine the form to exclude any kind of ritornello; if it instead signifies a concluding ritornello, the movement’s opening measures must be viewed, implausibly, as an initial ritornello. But perhaps we have drawn the comparison between Bach’s Adagio and his cantata arias from the wrong angle. That is, the double return might be a reference less to the aria than to a kind of sonata movement based loosely upon an aria type. Several of Bach’s slow sonata movements in two and three parts—BWV 1016/iii, 1021/iii, and 1034/iii—strongly recall BWV 1056/ii (156/i) in both style and structure: all are ariosos that include a modified double return near the end of the movement, and BWV 1034/iii has a quasi-ostinato accompaniment as well.17 BWV 1021/iii is further related to BWV 1056/ii (156/i) by its unusually modest dimensions. Although the return of the opening theme is handled differently in each movement—rescored with new counterpoint in BWV 1016/iii, melodically varied in BWV 1021/iii, and more thoroughly recomposed and extended in BWV 1034/iii—the overall ternary implications of the structures are clear. Each of these sonatas is known to us through manuscripts of early Leipzig origin, but nothing excludes the possibility that all were composed at Köthen.18 That this kind of movement structure was far from unusual during the 1710s and early 1720s is suggested by several of Telemann’s slow sonata movements.19 Whatever these stylistic parallels tell us about Bach’s generic conceptions of aria, concerto, and sonata, they do little to place the earliest version of BWV 1056/ii (156/i) during a specific period in his career; the movement could conceivably have been composed at any time during the late Weimar, the Köthen, or the first Leipzig years. To further illuminate the origins of Bach’s Adagio we must consider the sources and style of his model, for it is a fair assumption that Telemann’s concerto was relatively new when Bach encountered it. The only source for 51:G2 is a set of early eighteenth-century manuscript parts, in two unidentified hands, originally belonging to the Württemberg-Stuttgart court between 1716 and 1731.20 The assertion in the TWV that the manuscript is incomplete owing to the loss of the continuo part is incorrect: both pages of the unfigured “Basso pro Cembalo” part do indeed survive, although they are so badly deteriorated that the musical text is lacking for the second half of the second movement and the last third of the fourth movement, as well as for brief passages elsewhere in the concerto. Despite the unfortunate combination of acidic ink and thin paper, the “Hautbois vel Traversiere,” “Violino 1,” “Violino 2,” and “Viola” parts survive

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 201

complete. At some point after this full set was produced, a second unidentified scribe, known to have been active at the Württemberg-Stuttgart court around 1717–22, made an accurate copy of the solo part in French violin clef and added a title page.21 To judge from the title (“Concerto / 1 Traversiere / 2 Violino / 1 Viola / et / Cembalo / Hamburg”), this second scribe did not know who had composed the concerto, only that the work—or at least the five original parts— had some connection to Hamburg. In the upper right-hand corner of the title page, he assigned the parts number “10” in the court’s cataloging system of music manuscripts. The only attribution to Telemann anywhere on the manuscript was supplied by a third anonymous copyist, who added “Telemann” above “Hamburg.”22 So although the concerto’s style and quality speak strongly for Telemann’s authorship, a small measure of doubt must remain as to its authenticity. Attempting to clarify the chronology of the manuscript, Klaus-Peter Koch took the word “Hamburg” to indicate that the concerto was copied no earlier than 1721, the year of Telemann’s move from Frankfurt to Hamburg.23 On the face of it, this interpretation seems plausible enough, although it begs the question of why the copyist knew the concerto’s place of origin but not its composer. An alternative interpretation, one that addresses this question, is suggested by another manuscript in the Rostock collection with a similarly confused attribution. This set of parts to a D-major trio for two flutes and continuo bears the title “Sonata a 3 / 2 flut-Traversieres / con / Cembalo / Hambourg.”24 The upper right-hand corner of the title page is marked “N.o 9,” and a second hand—possibly the same one responsible for “Telemann” on the concerto manuscript—has added the words “Von Keiser” above “Hambourg.” This is undoubtedly a reference to Reinhard Keiser, who arrived at the Württemberg-Stuttgart court from Hamburg in April 1719 and remained there until August 1721.25 If the attribution is correct, then “Hambourg” might have been intended to indicate that the trio or manuscript came with Keiser from Hamburg and would have distinguished the work from three other trios that Keiser wrote at court in 1720.26 Without wishing to suggest the unlikely scenario of Keiser’s bringing an unattributed Telemann concerto from Hamburg to Stuttgart, we might note that the two manuscripts were apparently filed next to each other as numbers 9 and 10 in the court’s music collection. Although the consecutive numbering may be due to the origin—perceived or actual—of the manuscripts in Hamburg, it seems more likely that we are dealing here with a case of educated guesswork on the part of the author of the concerto’s title page. Faced with an unattributed work, he might easily have included the word “Hamburg” by analogy to the trio, which, having probably just entered the court’s music collection, he had reason to associate with the concerto.27 Such a sequence of events is more likely than it might at first ap-

202 The Concertos

pear, for a similar case of educated guesswork at the court almost certainly underlies the misattribution of Telemann’s trio 42:g15 to the Darmstadt Konzertmeister Johann Jakob Kreß.28 If this interpretation of the concerto’s title page fails to establish a more precise date for the work, it nonetheless leaves open the possibility that it was copied before 1721. Before considering the style of the concerto, it is worth asking which instrument—flute or oboe—Telemann intended to play the solo part. The concerto’s classification in the TWV as a work for flute and strings would seem to rest primarily on the manuscript’s title page, which, as we have seen, is of later origin than the full set of parts.29 The earlier solo part gives the instrumentation as “oboe or flute,” a formulation also found on the same copyist’s solo part to the oboe concerto 51:d1.30 Even more telling is the range of the solo parts to both concertos: d⬘ to b⬙, typical of early eighteenth-century oboe writing but unusually restricted in the upper register for the flute; certainly very few flute parts by Telemann, Bach, and their contemporaries do not call for at least c⵮ or d⵮. Then, too, the relatively low tessitura of the solo parts would in some places cause a flute to be covered up by the string accompaniment. For these reasons, as well as the apparent convention at the Württemberg-Stuttgart court of designating solo parts to wind concertos as suitable for either oboe or flute (probably to satisfy Crown Prince Friedrich Ludwig’s desire for new repertory to perform on the latter instrument), we must conclude that 51:G2 was conceived in the first place for oboe.31 Thus Bach emulated not only the musical substance of Telemann’s movement, but also its scoring. It is even possible, as Bruce Haynes has speculated, that Bach’s movement was originally in G major as well, although none of the surviving sources show any evidence of this.32 If the philological evidence adduced here suggests that 51:G2 came into the possession of the Württemberg-Stuttgart Hofkapelle between 1716 and the early 1720s, the work’s musical style places it slightly earlier, in the company of the oboe and violin concertos 51:c1, c2, d1, e1, f1, g1, and a1.33 Easily the most formally sophisticated movement in the G-major concerto is the second, where the distinction between solo and tutti material gradually breaks down in a manner recalling the sonata in concerto style (see chapter 6). The ritornello-like opening phrase, played by the solo oboe with continuo and cadencing in the tonic, gives way to a contrasting idea played in thirds by the violins over a drone bass (Example 4.4).34 This is followed by the first episode: an extended, motto-like restatement of the opening phrase in which the strings gradually adopt this material by stating it in canon with the soloist or in false stretto among themselves. After the second ritornello, played by both tutti and soloist and combining all the material so far presented, the strings virtually abandon the drone idea, and the

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 203 example 4.4. Concerto in G major for oboe or flute, strings, and continuo, 51:G2/ii, mm. 1–12 Vivace         6 8     6    8    6            8                           

Oboe or Flute

Violin 1 and 2

Viola and Continuo

4

[ ]

    





 

 

 

   

                                         7

    10



                  

   

  

                 



   

    

              



oboe takes it up in both of its remaining episodes. In passages such as that shown in Example 4.5, the oboe and first violin engage in imitation and voice exchange more characteristic of the sonata than of the concerto. A similar instance of voice exchange occurs in the brief, binary-form fourth movement, where the texture often resembles that of a trio sonata with added inner voices (Example 4.6).35 Such motivic interplay between soloist and first violin is also characteristic of 51:c1/ii, c1/iv, and c2/ii, and the second movement’s double-motto opening

204 The Concertos example 4.5. Concerto in G major for oboe or flute, strings, and continuo, 51:G2/ii, mm. 60–65

                                                              60

Oboe or Flute Violin 1 and 2

Viola and Continuo

                            63







      

 

             

   

  

    

   

 

example 4.6. Concerto in G major for oboe or flute, strings, and continuo, 51:G2/iv, mm. 26–29

  c          c                         c 26

Oboe or Flute Violin 1 and 2

Viola and Continuo

                                     28

                        

                              







without an introductory ritornello finds parallels in the concluding movements of 51:d1 and f1. The G-major concerto’s slow third movement, in the relative minor, derives its pathos from the soloist’s angular melody and sigh figures, and through restless harmonic motion arising from the use of secondary dominants, the Neapolitan

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 205

sixth, and modal mixture (Example 4.7). Especially interesting is the texture of the accompaniment, alternating between a bassetto bass supplied by the first violin (for reasons of compass briefly transferred to the continuo in mm. 7–8) and block chords played by all the strings. In two passages the soloist’s sigh figures are accompanied only by a descending chromatic line in the first violin (mm. 5–6 and 16–17). Similar pathetic cantilenas are placed at the start of 51:d1, g1, and a1 (here the solo melodies are accompanied by rhythmic ostinati), and comparable tonal instability and chromaticism are found in 51:c1, c2, and d1. Given these points of style, the parallel transmission of 51:G2 and d1 at the WürttembergStuttgart court assumes greater import, for the two concertos may well have been composed around the same time. In sum, musical and source-critical evidence allows us to posit the following sequence of events: (1) Telemann composed 51:G2 circa 1710–16 as one in a series of concertos for solo oboe and strings that can be connected to his years at Eisenach and Frankfurt; (2) the work entered the repertory of the WürttembergStuttgart Hofkapelle between 1716 and the early 1720s, by which time it must example 4.7. Concerto in G major for oboe or flute, strings, and continuo, 51:G2/iii, mm. 1–9 Oboe or Flute Violin 1 and 2

Viola and Continuo

        4

Adagio  c         c          c

    

                      [ ]

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                        

              [ ]

    

     

      

206 The Concertos

also have come into the possession of Bach; and (3) finding the first movement worthy of emulation, Bach not only borrowed the beginning of Telemann’s theme, making relatively minor alterations to it, but also adopted details of the movement’s scoring, accompanimental string parts, harmony, phrase and cadential structure, and overall dimensions. Exactly how much before 1729 the original version of BWV 1056/ii (156/i) came into being must for the moment remain an open question. But the likelihood that Bach modeled his Adagio on a relatively recent work by Telemann, and the movement’s stylistic and structural similarity to some of his cantata arias and slow sonata movements both point to the mid-to-late Weimar or early Köthen years.

Bach, Telemann, and the Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics of Musical Borrowing Those conversant with Handel’s extensive borrowings from preexistent works by other composers will no doubt find much that is familiar in the relationship of BWV 1056/ii (156/i) to its model, for Bach’s compositional procedure is nothing if not Handelian in varying and extending Telemann’s opening idea, then more subtly appropriating various other elements later in the movement. Yet the traditional explanations for Handel’s frequent use of preexistent material by himself and others—that he did so out of habit born of his musical upbringing; out of necessity because of illness, lack of melodic invention, or time constraints; or out of an altruistic desire to rescue promising, yet unformed ideas from obscurity through a kind of musical alchemy—will clearly not suffice in the case of Bach, and in fact many of these explanations have been wholly or partially discredited for Handel as well.36 Indeed, Bach’s uses of preexistent music by others have been comparatively uncontroversial. On the one hand, their small number does not seriously cast doubt on his facility of invention. On the other, the majority of these borrowings and arrangements—excluding chorale tunes—are acknowledged in his own hand or in those of copyists (effectively preempting the charge of plagiarism), belong to either the first or last decades of his career (inviting us to view them as special cases), or are readily construable as acts of expediency, undertakings of stylistic research, or fulfillments of commissions. Thus stylistic research, commission, or a combination of the two account for a number of keyboard works written up to about 1714: the fugues on subjects of Albinoni (BWV 946, 950, and 951/951a), Corelli (BWV 579), and Legrenzi (BWV 574/574a/574b); the arrangements of sonatas from Reinken’s Hortus Musicus (BWV 954, 965, and 966) and an unidentified source (BWV 967); and

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 207

the arrangements of concertos by Vivaldi, Telemann, Johann Ernst, and others (BWV 592–97 and 972–87).37 Similarly, arrangements of Bassani’s Acroama missale (including the “Credo in unum Deum,” BWV 1081), the “Suscepit Israel” from Caldara’s Magnificat in C major (BWV 1082), Pergolesi’s Stabat mater (the parody arrangement Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden, BWV 1083), and the Sanctus from Kerll’s Missa Superba (BWV 241) seem both to have filled a need for new repertoire and afforded Bach the opportunity to study different styles of sacred vocal music in his later years. Relatively few appropriations of others composers’ music involving significant recomposition or addition can be confidently placed between these chronological poles. The suite for violin and obbligato harpsichord BWV 1025, an arrangement of a lute suite by Silvius Leopold Weiss, seems to have originated around the time of the lutenist’s visit to the Bach household in 1739.38 Somewhat earlier, probably around 1730, Bach fashioned the wellknown concerto in A minor for four harpsichords and strings, BWV 1065, from Vivaldi’s op. 3, no. 10 (RV 580).39 Apparently belonging to the middle Leipzig years as well is the sonata for flute and obbligato harpsichord, BWV 1031, the first movement of which relies heavily upon a trio by Johann Joachim Quantz.40 So BWV 1056/ii (156/i), if it does in fact date from the Weimar or Köthen years, helps plug the chronological gap between Bach’s early borrowings and arrangements and those of his final two decades. Beyond this, its modeling process invites us to reconsider Bach’s relationship to preexistent music by others, for it now appears that this relationship was not invariably “less a matter of imitation of a model than of an awareness of the possibilities, an expansion of his own manner of writing and a stimulation of his musical ideas.”41 In the case of BWV 1056/ii (156/i), the stimulation of Bach’s invention appears to have resulted directly from close imitation of his model. As indicated at the outset of this chapter, such modeling relates to a concept of transformative imitation propounded by many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century musicians, poets, and painters.42 This concept has figured in several studies of Handel’s borrowings but has never been applied to Bach’s musical appropriations.43 Nevertheless, the notion of Bach as a musical critic delighting in reimagining the inventions of his own and others is a frequently encountered trope of Bach criticism. For example, Christoph Wolff finds that “at a very early point, there emerge elements of the most characteristic and essential parameters of Bach’s compositional art: the probing elaboration, modification, and transformation of a given musical res facta originating from himself or another composer, with the aim of improvement and further individualization.”44 And Laurence Dreyfus notes that “wherever one looks in Bach’s oeuvre, one observes a tendency to assimilate musically received ideas, subject them to criticism, and recast them in unusually idiosyncratic ways.”45

208 The Concertos

The principle of model-based composition or rhetorical imitation (imitatio), as is well-known, extends back to Classical Greece and Rome, where such writers as Seneca, Quintillian, Cicero, Homer, and Longinus regarded it as a fundamental basis of invention. Since then it has frequently been expressed through the metaphor of the bee, which, having selected appropriate raw material (nectar from flowers), proceeds to transform it into something new and better (honey and wax). The notion that the thing borrowed must be improved by the borrower is indeed a common theme in, for example, the neoclassical literary criticism of John Dryden, Jonathan Swift, and Alexander Pope, and in eighteenth-century English treatises on painting by Jonathan Richardson the elder and Joshua Reynolds.46 Here the line between imitation and emulation (aemulatio) may appear to blur, for the latter entails an effort at surpassing the model. In Erasmus’s formulation, an imitator “desires to say not so much the same things as similar ones—in fact sometimes not even similar, but rather equal things. But the emulator strives to speak better, if he can.”47 As G. W. Pigman observes, one who emulates “tries not to disguise the relations between text and model because the reader cannot appreciate the victory over the model without recognizing it.”48 Thus the concepts of imitating, transforming, and improving are to some degree bound up with that of competition. A third version of imitation—one that appears to have been all too common, to judge from Kuhnau’s character of Caraffa and the disparaging remarks quoted in the following pages—is identified by Pigman as following or nontransformative imitation. This is a gathering or borrowing of material amounting to little more than a transcription of the model.49 In early eighteenth-century Germany, writers such as Heinichen, Mattheson, Scheibe, Quantz, and Werckmeister all indicate that the use of a preexistent work to stimulate one’s compositional invention was a widespread, if not entirely uncontroversial, practice. Among musical aestheticians it is Mattheson who is most vocal on the subject of transformative imitation. In the July 1722 issue of Critica musica a brief mention of Handel’s borrowings from one of Mattheson’s arias (“almost note for note”) begets a lengthy footnote on the subject of borrowing in general: From time to time it can well happen that someone runs across certain ideas that he may have heard before, without even knowing where, and use them unintentionally. But some have a memory that is almost suspicious and far more successful than others could wish for; this must be very convenient for them. Besides this, there are two advantages to having such a memory: (1) that such ideas—especially if there is good elaboration, which is usually paired with empty invention—must inevitably also please their first inventor and rightful owner, since no one is wont

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 209 to censure his own work; (2) that the latter suffers no particular disadvantage from this borrowing, but indeed gains an extraordinary honor if a famous man now and then happens upon his track and, as it were, borrows from him the very basis of his ideas. If only three people know, that is already honor enough! . . . Those people, however, who turn the invention into a plagiary, and who, as such, wish to excuse themselves with a pleasant elaboration, are on the wrong path and reason falsely. . . . All elaboration, beautiful as it may be, is only interest; but the invention compares to the capital itself.50

Mattheson comes across as a reluctant advocate of borrowing, seeming to prefer that composers elaborate their own ideas, the musical “capital.” But those who wish to pay interest on another’s capital may do so if they substantially transform the borrowed idea, rather than engage in the superficial elaboration associated with plagiarism. And one test of a successful elaboration is whether it pleases the idea’s “rightful owner,” who considers it a high form of flattery if the borrowing is done by a famous composer. Nearly two decades later, in Der vollkommene Capellmeister, Mattheson explains that all imitation falls into one of three categories: (1) Aristotelian mimesis of nature (“all sorts of natural things and affections”); (2) “the effort one makes to imitate this or that master musician’s work, which is quite a good thing so long as no actual musical thievery takes place in the process”; or (3) the successive imitation of “formulas, passages, or short phrases” (contrapuntal imitation).51 In a chapter on invention, he implies that borrowing is a nearly universal practice: The locus exemplorum could mean here the imitation of other composers, but only if fine models are chosen and the inventions are simply imitated—not copied or stolen. When all is said and done, if most is fetched out of the source for invention in just the sense we take it here, then that should not be censured—but only if it is done with restraint. Borrowing is permissible; but one must return the thing borrowed with interest, i.e., one must so construct and develop imitations that they are prettier and better than the pieces from which they are derived. Whoever does not need to do this and has enough resources of his own, need not begrudge such; yet I believe that there are very few of this sort: as even the greatest capitalists are given to borrowing money, if they see special advantage or benefit in it.52

Mattheson’s cautions here and elsewhere about “stolen” inventions and “musical thievery” suggest that he considered much borrowing to be outright plagiarism.53 And he seems to have been joined in this perception by a number of his contemporaries. In his Cribrum musicum (The Musical Sieve; 1700), Werckmeis-

210 The Concertos

ter describes incompetent composers affixing a famous name to their inferior music so as to give the first performance of a supposedly important work; they are forced to admit the ruse when their music inevitably fails to please.54 Heinichen reports in his 1728 continuo treatise on the considerable trouble taken by more respectable composers to avoid the charge of plagiarism, and the zealotry of those doing the charging: Indeed, even nowadays one has to avoid the misfortune to include in so many large theatrical works a single aria or even a melodic pattern of a few notes seeming to have the slightest similarity with a former work. For even if these [similarities] are only approximations and occur contrary to the composer’s intention, or the inventions are barely similar in tertio, quarto, comparable to women who resemble each other in sexu feminino; there will be those who will in stupidity and passion take the opportunity to rebuke the composer for plagiarism (because he who could not write instead of such a little formula twenty others extemporaneously must be considered a poor composer).55

Either in response to or in anticipation of such rebukes, the Weißenfels composer and viola da gambist Konrad Höffler (1647–ca. 1705) included the following disclaimer in the preface to his Primitiae Chelicae, oder Musicalische Erstlinge (1695): I hereby protest publicly that I have never attempted to reap with someone else’s sickle, or to steal another’s work. A preacher is not forbidden to interpret another’s text differently, and if, against all hope, a preexistent subject were to be appropriated, then the clothes would no doubt be fitted differently, even though the material is the same. . . . They are greatly mistaken who consider with far too shallow an understanding that imitating is equivalent to copying.56

While discussing the efficacy of the rhetorical loci topici as a stimulant to a composer’s “natural imagination,” Heinichen mentions “musical raw beginners,” evidently in Italy, who mechanically appropriate ideas from others without adequately “restirring the brew.” Composers of integrity, he adds, avoid listening to great music before composing, thus eliminating the possibility of inadvertently including a reference to it in their own works and arousing the “suspicion of ignorant censors.”57 More than two decades later, Quantz also speaks of novice Italian opera composers who, having won popular acclaim despite their insufficient training, avail themselves of music by others when cobbling together their latest operas: “They bring along their inventions not in their heads but in their luggage.”58 The association of plagiarism with Italy is further underscored by Francesco Maria Veracini, who notes that

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 211 [composers of today] laugh at whomever discovers that the compositions they produce are [composed] by others, even though they sometimes falsely write their names above them. Likewise they are not offended, but rather ignore it and do not consider it an injury, if someone says that this bass, or that motive, or all of that passage is stolen, and that the accompaniments of the bass and the other parts are copied ad unguem from the writings of another composer.59

But it was not simply a matter of certain Italians “decking themselves out in another’s plumes,” for Quantz more generally cautions the beginner to avoid the works of “self-taught composers who have not learned composition through either oral or written instruction. . . . The majority consist of a hodgepodge of borrowed and patched-up ideas.”60 (Recall the description of Caraffa’s compositions as a beggar’s coat made of stolen and mismatched patches.) Evidently wishing to disassociate himself from autodidactic plagiarizers, Quantz disingenuously points out in his autobiography that as a young composer he managed to study “the scores of acknowledged masters, attempting to imitate trios and concertos and their method of composition, without actually writing them down.”61 If the line between “patched-up” thievery and original invention in these passages often seems faintly drawn, it is surely by design, for Mattheson’s “prettier and better” is as impossible to objectify as musical “interest” is to calculate; we can hardly expect to be told exactly how much and what manner of transformation is sufficient to convert a plagiarism into an original work of art. Yet Mattheson comes very close to telling us. A passage in Der vollkommene Capellmeister describes the collecting of “moduli”—assorted brief melodic figures, turns, cadences, and the like—as a good way of building a compositional vocabulary. Even if these snippets come from the works of others (which is, Mattheson tells us, the best way of collecting them), their combination into a new melody constitutes a “unique invention.” However, Mattheson cautions that building such a vocabulary is best done mentally, because constructing melodies from a collection of written-down moduli will likely result in a “lame and botched arrangement, if one’s clumsy melody is patched together from such bits.”62 This sort of mindless ars combinatoria is presumably the kind of process that Kuhnau, Heinichen, and Quantz inveighed against—and what “ignorant censors” of the time regarded as plagiarism. Indeed, Mattheson’s own example of a four-measure phrase derived from three motives makes it plain that at least a modest degree of transformative imitation was expected when composing with moduli. The different attitude toward borrowing in the eighteenth-century world of letters is described by Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariae. Straddling the literary and

212 The Concertos

musical world as both a poet and composer, Zachariae treats the subject with a refreshing sense of irony: I hear with great pleasure that in music, copying is not considered as great a crime as in the literary world. It comforts me to know that stealing a few measures from someone would be considered a trifle. Anyone with a heart would steal entire arias, entire symphonies, and even entire operas. I am amazed by this, and I must tell you that in the literary world neither poets nor critics would go so far. Poets in particular still strive to maintain their honesty by placing under their verses the original passages that they have copied. It is therefore not copying, but imitating, and such poems make no small impression if the poet thus shows his ability to “plunder” in all languages, and that he is equally at home in Greece and in England. Since I am perhaps the first poet who cannot satisfy his creative impulses through poetry alone, but also turns to music for assistance, the least I can do is bring myself fame through a new invention with which my fellow citizens, the musical copiers, can preserve their honor. To wit, we shall be honest (as I have already begun to be) and place beneath copied passages small notes with the names of composers from whom they were stolen.63

One logical inference to be drawn from the writings of German critics is that most musicians of Bach’s time would have considered the process of transformative imitation in BWV 1056/ii (156/i) to pay back Telemann’s invention with more than the requisite interest. But would Bach’s Adagio have pleased Telemann himself, the “first inventor and rightful owner” (to quote Mattheson) of the borrowed ideas? An answer in the affirmative seems to be provided by a brief passage in Scheibe’s Ueber die musikalische Composition (1773). After acknowledging that Handel and Hasse often borrowed the inventions of Reinhard Keiser, Scheibe points out that “they nevertheless understood the art of making these inventions their own, so that they were transformed in their hands into new and original ideas. Mattheson and Telemann assured me of this more than once, and in light of other reliable reports I cannot doubt it.”64 We have every reason to believe Scheibe’s assertion that Telemann knew and approved of Handel’s borrowings, for the two composers were intimately familiar with each other’s music, Telemann having performed many of Handel’s operas at Hamburg and Handel having borrowed liberally from Telemann’s Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst, Musique de table, and Sonates sans basse over the course of more than two decades.65 And given that Bach’s process of imitation in BWV 1056/ii (156/i) unquestionably produces “new and original ideas” and closely mirrors some of Handel’s own borrowing procedures, one easily imagines that Telemann would have sanctioned it. This report of Telemann’s apparently sympathetic stance toward transformative imitation is corroborated by a growing body of evidence that he, too, prac-

Four Bach’s Debt Repaid with Interest 213

ticed the craft at various stages of his career. In chapter 2 we noted the dependence of three movements in 55:e8 upon dances from Destouches’s opera Omphale. In the first movement of 43:g4, Telemann borrowed both principal motives from the “Allamande” of Partia 4 in Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Harmonia artificiosa-ariosa (1696).66 And the theme of the variation set that concludes 43:a2 (Nouveaux quatuors no. 2) is based upon that of the A-minor Gavotte et doubles in Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin (1728).67 In each of these borrowings Telemann, like Handel and Bach, critiques and recontextualizes material from his model: interest payments for Destouches’s dances are made through frequent departures in melody and harmony; Biber’s motives are subjected to more rigorous contrapuntal treatment in the context of a modern, ritornello-form movement; and the first eight measures of Rameau’s variation theme are melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically enriched before a new continuation is provided. Returning to Bach, something of his own view toward imitation can be gleaned from a contemporary account of his playing. In a 1741 Leipzig journal, Johann Leberecht Pitschel reported that Bach the improviser was not warmed up until his powers of invention had been roused by playing the music of other composers: You know, the famous man who has the greatest praise in our town in music, and the greatest admiration of connoisseurs, does not get into condition, as the expression goes, to delight others with the mingling of his tones until he has played something from the printed or written page, and has [thus] set his powers of imagination in motion. . . . The able man whom I have mentioned usually has to play something from the page that is inferior to his own ideas. And yet his superior ideas are the consequences of those inferior ones.68

This passage reads almost like a description of Handel’s creative process, and indeed it is tempting to imagine that Bach’s improvisations were generated through transformative imitation of others’ “inferior” ideas. Pitschel’s report meshes nicely with two often-cited recollections by C. P. E. Bach that testify to the intellectual stimulation his father derived from external sources. In the obituary written with the help of Johann Friedrich Agricola in 1750, Emanuel noted that his father “needed only to have heard any theme to be aware—it seemed in the same instant—of almost every intricacy that artistry could produce in the treatment of it.”69 Later, in a December 1774 letter to Forkel, Emanuel recalled that his father liked to improvise a fourth contrapuntal voice when accompanying the trios of other composers, a practice that recalls the arranging process in BWV 1025.70

214 The Concertos

Although the concept of transformative imitation may help explain the aesthetic impulses behind Bach’s borrowing of Telemann’s music, and in particular why he sought to reconceptualize the model so thoroughly after the opening measures, it cannot tell us why he chose to borrow from this particular piece in the first place. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that Bach’s interest in Telemann’s Andante was based upon the quality of its musical invention and its potential for elaboration. He may also have been drawn to its scoring, for solo wind concertos were still unusual during the second decade of the eighteenth century. Consider that of all the Bach concerto transcriptions whose sources are known, only one— the Marcello transcription BWV 974—is based on a solo wind concerto. Johann Gottfried Walther’s roughly contemporanous concerto transcriptions are also mostly of string works, the exception being Telemann’s concerto for oboe and violin, 52:c1.71 In fact, the oboe concertos of Marcello and Telemann may have been the first solo wind concertos Bach encountered at Weimar or Köthen.72 One might also speculate that Bach’s borrowing was to some degree motivated by admiration for and friendly competition with Telemann, who in the years before 1715 was probably a more experienced composer of concertos. In appropriating elements of Telemann’s Andante, then, Bach may have sought simultaneously to pay a compliment to his friend (interest and all) and to demonstrate his emerging mastery of the concerto as a genre through the rhetorical technique of aemulatio.Whatever Bach’s motivations for this borrowing, the discovery that one of his most famous melodies owes its inspiration to Telemann not only enriches the musical and aesthetic contexts in which we may understand both composers’ achievements, but also imposes a fresh layer of meaning onto Theodor Adorno’s bon mot, “They say Bach, mean Telemann.”73

Part III The Sonatas

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chapter 5 “Something for Everyone’s Taste” Telemann’s Sonatas to 1725

Telemann’s penchant for stylistic and generic amalgamation is perhaps most vividly expressed in his sonatas. Scored in one to seven parts for a vast array of instrumental combinations, these works chart his compositional inclinations over the course of a half century. The earliest among them, considered in this chapter, reveal sides of the composer that seem far removed from the galant aesthetic he would later cultivate in his published sonatas at Hamburg, yet are hardly less compelling for it. Embodied in this music is Telemann’s youthful mastery of the principal Italian, French, and German idioms of the late seventeenth century. Present, too, is an emerging individuality of expression that culminates, by the time of his first four sonata publications (1715–18), in a stylistic eclecticism anticipating that of the later Hamburg works. Indeed, when Telemann claimed in the preface to Die kleine Cammer-Music (1716) that he had “endeavored to present something for everyone’s taste,” he could just as well have been referring to his sonatas as a whole. Like most young composers during the late seventeenth century, Telemann early on fell under the spell of Corelli’s trios, probably while a Gymnasium student at Hildesheim. He may also have encountered the Italian’s op. 5 solos a few years later while attending university in Leipzig, for an edition of the collection was advertised there during the Easter book fair of 1704.1 The lessons Telemann learned from Corelli and other Italian composers are already evident in the one-movement sonatas opening several sacred vocal works composed at Hildesheim or Leipzig. Many stock devices found in the first movements of Corelli’s trios da chiesa are reflected, for instance, in the sonata opening Ach Herr, strafe mich nicht, TVWV 7:1, a setting of Psalm 6 for alto, two violins, and continuo: opening hymnic gestures, chains of suspensions over a walking bass, and a series of descending first-inversion chords (Example 5.1).2 Equally reflective of the young Telemann’s stylistic influences is the trio for two scordatura violins and continuo, Anh. 42:A1, which

217

218 The Sonatas example 5.1. Sonata from Ach Herr, strafe mich nicht, TVWV 7:1, mm. 1–13, 23–27 Violin 1

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5 6 5 6 5 # 4 # 4 4

#

bears the strong imprint of German sonatas from the 1680s and 1690s.3 The scordatura tuning, used to good effect in reinforcing chords with open strings, itself harks back to the seventeenth century, and indeed Telemann called for it in only two other relatively early sonatas (42:D15 and d6). Opening the trio is a highly sectionalized “Affettuoso” marked by abrupt shifts in texture and rhythm, harmonic stasis, pizzicato arpeggios above bassetto pedal tones (the only example

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 219 example 5.2. Concerto in A major for two scordatura violins and continuo, Anh. 42:A1/i, mm. 11–22 (violins at sounding pitch) Affettuoso   

   43                               43  

        

 43



pizzicato

Violin 1

Violin 2

Continuo









                                                    

         16



                    20



[

]



con l'arco

 

                         





  

                       

arpeggio

of pizzicato in Telemann’s sonatas), rapid arpeggiated figuration, and an overall improvisatory affect (Example 5.2). Together these features evoke the stylus phantasticus, a mode of expression that was rapidly falling out of favor in Germany (at least, with regard to the sonata) by the beginning of the eighteenth century.4 The third movement is a menuet en rondeau scored, unusually, for only the first violin and continuo. It belongs to the same stylistic orbit as several movements from Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Sonatæ a Violino Solo (1681), such as the themes of the “Aria e Variatio” sets in the third and fourth sonatas, and the sarabanda of the eighth sonata. Rounding out the trio are a fugue, in which the thematic material is confined to the upper voices, and a pair of lively bourrées. Thus in its combination of Italo-German and French stylistic elements, the work evinces a mixed taste—albeit in a distinctly seventeenth-century sense. It is, moreover, a highly attractive sonata by a composer who was likely still in his teens or early twenties.

220 The Sonatas

Solos and Trios in the Italian Style In view of Telemann’s exposure to Corelli’s music, it is not surprising that the majority of his earliest sonatas—several dozen works in two to five parts, all probably composed before the Frankfurt sonata publications—lean heavily toward the Italian style. Our exploration of this repertory commences with six solos (41:fis2, g9–11, A7, B8) and seventeen trios (42:C3, c7–8, D13–14, d6, d9, e10, F7, F12, G11, g12–15, A13, h7) transmitted mostly in Dresden manuscripts dating from the 1710s or early 1720s.5 Their composition most likely falls into the Eisenach years, when Telemann cultivated the sonata with particular intensity. During this period, as he recalled in 1718, “I took a greater liking to sonatas, of which I wrote a large quantity in two and three to eight and nine parts. In particular, people wished to persuade me that trios were my greatest strength, because I arranged them so that one voice would have as much to do as another.6 Telemann expanded on this recollection in his 1740 autobiography: And how could I possibly remember everything I composed for strings and winds? I particularly devoted myself to the composing of trios, and arranged it so that the second part appeared to be the first, and that the bass progressed as a natural melody and in closely following harmony, every note of which had to be that way and not otherwise. People even flattered me as having done my best work here.7

But the sonatas in two parts appear to have made a strong impression as well. As a student in Merseburg between August 1708 and December 1713, Johann Joachim Quantz studied violin solos by Telemann that his teacher seems to have obtained in Leipzig.8 One of these works may have been 41:A7, the only source for which is a Dresden copy in Quantz’s youthful hand. This sonata, like many of the other Dresden solos and trios, suggests the influence of Corelli’s first five opuses and the Venetian sonata collections they inspired by Tomaso Albinoni, Antonio Vivaldi, and others during the 1690s and 1700s.9 The A-major solo begins with an Adagio constructed largely from a single motive, introduced in the second measure and treated sequentially throughout. The following Allegro is a binary moto perpetuo in the tradition of Corelli’s op. 5, no. 1/iii, a movement type that also appears in a few of Telemann’s early concertos (e.g. 43:B2/iii and 52:e3/iii). After a sarabanda, the solo concludes with a binary giga. Other common movement types encountered in the early solos are the Adagio with walking bass (41:g10/i and g11/i, identical for the first six beats) and the twovoice fugue (41:fis2/iv and g10/ii). A three-voice fugue is found in 41:B8, where the violin plays two voices by means of multiple stops alla Corelli’s op. 5.10

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 221 example 5.3. (a) Corelli, Trio in F major for two violins and continuo, op. 4, no. 9/iii, mm. 1–5; (b) trio in D major for two violins and continuo, 42:D14/iv, mm. 1–4 (a) Violin 1

Violin 2

Continuo

Tempo di Gavotta. Allegro

 C    C   C 

                             6

(b) Violin 1

Violin 2

Continuo

7

7

7

7

6 5

b

3

Presto       C                        C   C       



6

6

7

6 5

    

6

            

7

6 5

#

Particularly interesting is 41:g9/iii, one of Telemann’s earliest instrumental recitatives. Telemann’s activity as a violinist at Eisenach may explain why most of his earliest solos and trios involve one or two violins; like the early double violin concertos, the trios could have been intended as vehicles for himself and Pantaleon Hebenstreit. Given Telemann’s professional associations during this time, it is not hard to imagine further performances of the trios with Telemann and Bach at Weimar, Telemann and Johann Georg Pisendel at Leipzig, and Pisendel and JeanBaptiste Volumier at Dresden. The best of these works incline one to agree with Telemann’s contemporaries that they represented his “greatest strength.” Most are cast as three- or four-movement sonatas da chiesa, although there are also occasional dance-based movements invoking the gavotta (42:D13/iv, d6/iv), giga (42:G11/iv), and menuet or passepied (42:g15/iii, A13/iii). Example 5.3 juxtaposes gavottas from 42:D13 and Corelli’s op. 4, no. 9. Note that both movements open with close imitation, but that Telemann adds textural interest by maintaining cross-rhythmic interplay throughout his dance. Like Corelli, Telemann makes relatively modest technical demands of the violinists, limiting the instrument’s upward range to notes accessible in third position and only occasionally writing extended passages of multiple stops and bariolage, the concerto-like 42:D14 being a notable exception in this respect.

222 The Sonatas

A majority of the fast trio movements are fugues, which tend to be relatively modest in scope and avoid artifice such as inversion, augmentation, and diminution (although stretto and false subject entries are not uncommon). Imitation usually extends to all three voices, with the dux supported by the continuo, yet there is a tendency to minimize the polyphonic effect of expositions and subsequent subject entries by assigning the countersubject (or accompanying voices, if there is no distinct countersubject) to double much of the subject in thirds, as in 42:d6/ii. Nevertheless, movements such as 42:F7/ii (a double fugue) and g15/i (in which the subject is treated canonically, as in 42:G11/ii) involve a considerable amount of contrapuntal interplay. One of the most interesting aspects of the fugues is the subjects themselves, which often embody a youthful exuberance. Three of the fugues in Example 5.4 have dance-based subjects: 42:G11/ii is a giga-fugue, a common type in Telemann’s sonatas; 42:c7/iv has a subject recalling the canarie, the dance’s characteristic syncopation animating an ascending chromatic line in measures 3–4; and the arch-shaped subject of 42:d9/iv has a gavotta-like rhythmic profile. This last subject and those of 42:G11/ii and g15/i are remarkable for their bold leaps and rhythmic drive. Finally, the subject of 42:d9/ii evokes the concerto in its figurative display, at first consisting of a tremolo. In several fugues the episodic material takes on a soloistic character. The first episode in 42:G11/ii highlights both violins in turn and is sharply differentiated from the exposition through its disjunct melodic motion, even rhythms, homophonic texture, and harmonic intensity. Episodes in 42:g15/i and 42:A13/ii feature perfidia-like passages of brilliant figuration over a bass pedal tone, a texture rarely encountered in Telemann’s later trios but that has a number of antecedents in the sonatas of Corelli.11 Among slow movements, the Adagio in 3/2 (sometimes in 3/4) is particularly common. Seven of these reveal Telemann’s early fondness for ostinato bass accompaniments. The second movement of 42:C3 is built upon a four-measure descending tetrachord that appears at different pitch levels throughout the movement and is ultimately extended melodically to encompass an octave. Also treated freely is the descending bass in the Corellian first movement of 42:A13, where an ostinato pattern is built from a one-measure rhythmic unit repeated almost without interruption. Particularly beautiful is the third movement of 42:G11, excerpted in Example 5.5, where the one-measure ostinato figure controls the rhythm of the violin parts and eventually migrates to them (mm. 24–26, not shown). The ostinato in 42:d9/iii supports a dialogue between the violins that seems vocally conceived in its conjunct melodic contours, short-breathed phrasing, and lightly imitative texture. Ciaccona-like in its descending eight-measure bass pattern, the third move-

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 223 example 5.4. Fugue subjects in the early Italianate trios: (a) 42:G11/ii; (b) 42:c7/iv; (c) 42:d9/iv; (d) 42:g15/i; (e) 42:d9/ii (a)

Vivace            c                    3





3

3

3



3

3

3

3

3

3

3





3

(b)

Allegro               46              



(c)

Presto          44                       

(d)

Vivace   23                                   

(e)

Allegro                                   44 

                         

ment of 42:d6 is not far removed in style from the Largo of Corelli’s op. 3, no. 3. One of the most interesting of the ostinato movements is 42:F12/iii, in which the oboe and violin engage in a strict canon at the unison. A number of other slow movements consist of block chords or chains of suspensions serving as brief harmonic bridges between fast movements. The Adagio of 42:g14, illustrated in Example 5.6, is evidently modeled on movements such as Corelli’s op. 1, no. 7/ii, and the Adagio sections in op. 4, no. 6/i. One slow movement, 42:g15/ii, adumbrates a movement type that would become common in Telemann’s Frankfurt and Hamburg sonata publications. Usually marked “Af-

224 The Sonatas example 5.5. Trio in G major for two violins and continuo, 42:G11/iii, mm. 1–14

                                23                  

 23  3  2  

Violin 1

Violin 2

Continuo

Grave

6

6 5

6 4

                        

                          

     4



6 5

6 4

6 4

                  []                                        7



§

6

                 10



7

#

6 4

   

[ ]

[ ]



6

7

6

#

6 #

#

   





7

6

6





            

5 #

                                             13

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 225 example 5.6. Trio in G minor for oboe, violin, and continuo, 42:g14/iii, mm. 1–4 Adagio  Oboe

Violin

Continuo

         c                c       c                       ¿

7

7

6 5

§

7§

#

6 5

#

3 9

6

5b 4

6 5b

fettuoso,” “Cantabile,” or “Soave,” this type establishes a tender affect and a singing quality through short-breathed phrasing, gentle syncopations, wide ranging melodies full of sighing rhythmic figures, and emotive rests on downbeats (Example 5.7). It is undoubtedly movements such as this that Johann Adolph Scheibe had in mind when he described the opening Adagio of a trio as pleasant and charming, or of a touching earnestness, captivating the listener through its tenderness and gracefulness.12 There are also a few examples of the mixed taste among the trios. The Frenchness of 42:g15/iii (a menuet en rondeau) is implicitly acknowledged in both manuscript sources by the indication “doucement” at the start of the first couplet. The first movement of 42:d9 recalls the slow section of the French overture or the entrée grave through its stately dotted rhythms and binary structure. But this allusion to the French style may ultimately derive from Italian works such as the first movement of Corelli’s op. 3, no. 10, which is likewise notated in the “overdotted” manner.13 With its homophonic texture and dotted rhythms, 42:d6/i is essentially a French prelude in which the first violin’s line has been embellished with an odd mixture of Italian passaggi and French agréments (double cadences, mordentes, tierces coulées, ports de voix, tiratas, and coulades). Given that both manuscript sources for the work transmit the same “mixed” embellishments and that written-out ornamenexample 5.7. Trio in G minor for flute, viola da gamba, and continuo, 42:g15/ii, mm. 1–3 Cantabile 

     c                          Viola   c         da gamba                            Continuo  c     Flute

3

6

6 6

6 6 4

6 6 4

6

6 7

6 6

226 The Sonatas

tation of this kind is extremely uncommon in manuscript copies of Telemann’s instrumental music, it is tempting to attribute them to the composer himself. Indeed, some of the more elaborate passaggi resemble those found in the first movement of Telemann’s Six sonates à violon seul (1715).

Trios alla francese The most popular among Telemann’s unpublished sonatas appear to have been his French-style trios. Mattheson lauded these works, pointing out that they retained their Gallic flavor despite some Italian seasoning: As concerns the true French trios, vocal as well as instrumental, Lully is still to be placed first. For among the more modern Frenchmen who apply themselves to music are very many who use Italianized frills to such a degree that they become nothing but affected eccentrics and are not worthy of imitation. Kapellmeister Telemann, on the other hand, deserves to be emulated because his trios, though something Italian is mixed in, nonetheless flow very naturally and in the old French manner. One sees pieces of this type by him of which Lully himself would in no way be ashamed, especially since he did not conceal his native style. Whether Telemann used his Parisian journey to learn or to teach is in doubt. I believe it was more for the latter than the former purpose.14

In his Versuch, Quantz advised that a beginning instrumentalist ought to practice well-elaborated duets and trios which contain fugues and are composed by solid masters, and should continue with them for a considerable time. They will improve his ability to read notes and rests and to keep time. For this practice I wish to recommend especially Telemann’s trios written in the French style, many of which he had already fashioned thirty or more years ago. Unfortunately, they may be difficult to obtain, since they were not engraved.15

This passage caught Telemann’s eye soon after the Versuch was published in 1752, and in an untraced letter to the author he seems to have asked why these particular works—decades old and hard to come by—were singled out for praise. In his January 1753 reply, Quantz justified his choice: By no means do I set myself up as judge of your trios and quartets. I hope that I am not said to have intentionally given occasion to such thoughts. In the passage in which I mention the trios—which, if you wish to take the trouble to consult it again, you will find on page 94—I speak only of those composed in the true

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 227 French style; these I had to cite there for my purpose. Others that are not composed wholly in this style are not taken into account at all at this place.16

Which works were at issue here? If the trios had been written “thirty or more years ago,” they would date from about 1720 at the latest. And by the “true French style,” Quantz would presumably have meant works with little hint of the mixed taste. An important clue as to the trios’ identity is provided by the Solfeggi Pour La Flute Traversiere avec l’enseignement, Par Monsr. Quantz, a manuscript collection of musical exercises and excerpts with pedagogical commentary that provides valuable insights into Quantz’s method of teaching flute. The collection appears to have originated between 1775 and 1782, probably in the circle of Augustin Neuff, a Quantz student and flutist in the Berlin Hofkapelle from 1751 to 1792. In compiling the manuscript, the unknown copyist drew on various older sources connected with Quantz.17 Not surprisingly, many of the excerpts from solos, duets, trios, and concertos, and perhaps all of the anonymous exercises in the Solfeggi, are by Quantz himself. There are also numerous passages from works by his colleagues at Dresden and Berlin. However, next to Quantz, Telemann is the best-represented composer in the Solfeggi, with excerpts from over thirty duets and trios. These are listed in Table 5.1.18 In the “true French style” are 42:D16, d11, e11, and A16, collectively identified in the Solfeggi as “Trio alla Frances. di Telemann.”19 Of these works, the A-major trio has no known source. The D-minor trio was considered lost as well until 1994, when manuscript parts for it and the similar 42:c4 and h5 turned up in the music collection assembled by Count Rudolf-Franz Erwein of SchönbornWiesentheid (1677–1754).20 As shown in Table 5.2, these six trios were widely disseminated during the eighteenth century and were offered as a set of works for “2. Flauti coll Basso” in the 1763 Breitkopf thematic catalog. A seventh trio in Breitkopf ’s set, 42:e14, has vanished without a trace; one can only speculate as to whether it too was in the French style.21 The recent discovery of Berlin sources for 42:D16 and d11 seems to strengthen the connection between Telemann’s trios alla francese and Quantz.22 That the trios were composed as a set at Sorau or Eisenach is indicated by the early manuscript transmission of 42:c4: the first listed source, in the hand of Johann Georg Pisendel, appears to have been left at Darmstadt by the violinist in 1711 or 1714; this copy may have been the model for Anton Eberhard Helffmann’s Darmstadt parts of about 1715. Pisendel also copied out the Dresden source for the trio, on paper that can be dated to between 1707 and 1723.23 Although these and a few other manuscript sources for the trios call for oboes or violins, the upper parts’ range (d⬘ to e⵮) seems designed for the flute.

Table 5.1

Telemann duets and trios excerpted in Quantz’s Solfeggi

Work/Movements

Pages in Solfeggi (modern edition)

Principal sources

40:101/ii 40:102/i–ii 40:103/i–ii

90 90 92

Sonates sans basse (1727)

40:123/i

75

XIIX Canons mélodieux (1738)

40:124/i–ii 40:125/i–iii 40:126/i, iii 40:127/i–iii 40:128/i–iv 40:129/i–iii

43, 83, 86 43, 83 43, 86, 89 86, 89 87, 89 45, 87, 90

Second livre de duo (1752)

40:130/i–ii, iv 40:131/i–iv 40:132/i–ii 40:133/i–ii 40:134/i, iii–iv 40:135/i–ii

76, 88 76, 85, 88 76, 89 76, 86, 90 36, 77, 86 36, 77, 86

Sei duetti per il flauto traverso primo, flauto traverso secondo (D-Bds, Mus. ms. 21787)

40:141/i–iii 40:142/i–iii 40:143/i–iii 40:144/ii, iv 40:146/i 40:147/ii 40:148/ii–iv 40:149/i, iii

46, 83, 91 46, 91 27, 92 27, 84 84 92 84, 92 84, 92

9 sonatas for two flutes (D-Bds, SA 3903)

42:c1/ii, iv 42:D4/ii 42:d2/i 42:e1/ii, iv 42:G12/iv 42:A2/ii

85 81 81 81–82 82 81

Six sonates en trio dans le goust italien (1731–33)

42:D19

57

?

42:D16/ii 42:d11/i–iv 42:e11/i–ii, iv 42:A16/i

56 55–56 56 56

See Table 5.2

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 229 Table 5.2

Telemann’s trios alla francese

TWV 42:

Sources

Scoring (+ bc)

c4

D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/28a D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/28b D-Dl, Mus. 2392-Q-78 D-WD, Ms. 876 Breitkopf catalog, Part 3, col. 10 D-Bds, SA 3552 D-ROu, Mus. saec. XVII. 18–4520 D-ROu, Mus. saec. XVII. 18–5156 Quantz, Solfeggi, 56 Breitkopf catalog, Part 3, col. 10 D-Bds, SA 3904 D-WD, Ms. 875 Quantz, Solfeggi, 55–56 Breitkopf catalog, pt. 3, col. 10 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/81 D-ROu, Mus. saec. XVII. 18–4524 Quantz, Solfeggi, 56 Breitkopf catalog, pt. 3, col. 10 Quantz, Solfeggi, 56 Breitkopf catalog, pt. 3, col. 10 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/16a (score) D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/16b D-WD, Ms. 873 Breitkopf catalog, pt. 3, col. 10

2 ob/vn 2 dessus/ob 2 vn 2 dessus 2fl 2 dessus 2fl 2fl 2fl 2fl 2 dessus/fl 2 dessus 2fl 2fl 2 vn 2 vn 2fl 2fl 2fl 2fl 2 vn 2 vn 2 dessus 2fl

D16

d11

e11

A16 h5

Even a cursory glance at the five extant trios reveals that Telemann’s “true French style” admits Italianate elements. Such subtle stylistic mixture went unrecognized by Quantz, who considered the music of Lully and later generations of French composers to be cut from the same stylistic cloth: “Since, as everyone knows, the Italian style in music has changed very considerably since the death of Lully, while that of the French has remained exactly the same, the difference between the two has gradually become more and more pronounced since that time.”24 Telemann’s trios alla francese are Italianate insofar as they contain a few harmonictransitional slow movements, through-composed structures, and occasional suspensions in the upper voices. Yet for all this, they are in a “truer” French style than the solo and trio suites he composed later in his career. Quantz must have regarded the trios as effective pedagogical tools for promoting a mixed taste among his students, because they are almost the only examples of the French style in the Solfeggi. Telemann’s inspiration for the trios likely derived from French publications of suites for two treble instruments and bass. In France, instrumental trio suites

230 The Sonatas example 5.8. Trio in D minor for two treble instruments and continuo, 42:d11/i, mm. 1–13 Dessus 1

Gravement                      46  6                 4      46         



[ ]

Dessus 2

Continuo

#

5

       

D

2

                     ¿ ¿ 6

                                       

9



                                            b D ¿ ¿

    

6

11

6

6

6 4

5

2

  

6

b

          

4 2



6

                              5 3

6 5

6 5

3

D

arranged from Lully’s theatrical music had circulated in manuscript copies from at least the 1670s. But it was only during the 1690s that French composers, and a few foreign imitators, began to publish newly composed trios. In the twenty years following the 1692 publication of Marin Marais’s Pièces en trio pour les flutes, violon, & dessus de viole, some thirty-eight publications containing trio suites appeared in Paris and Amsterdam.25 Each of Telemann’s trios alla francese consists of four movements confined to the tonic key and bearing French, or Frenchified, titles. Although essentially suites with a prelude for the first movement, they display the slow–fast–slow–fast movement succession of the sonata da chiesa. As in

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 231

many contemporaneous French suites, four of the preludes are imitative. Note that in the loure-like prelude of 42:d11, shown in Example 5.8, the mildly imitative texture is moderated through frequent rhythmic unisons between two or all three voices. Indeed, seldom in the five trios does Telemann allow himself to depart too far from an overall homophonic conception. Most of the movements following the preludes are indebted to standard French dance types, such as the canarie, bourrée, gavotte, gigue, minuet, passepied, rigaudon, and sarabande. Several slow movements make liberal use of agréments (tierces coulées, ports de voix, ports de voix doubles, chûtes, and tremblements). The third movement of 42:D16 evokes the theatrical sommeil with conjunct quarter-note motion slurred in pairs and suggests through frequent dynamic contrasts the typical alternation of two flutes or recorders with a string orchestra. Alternatively, the dynamic contrasts may be an allusion to French galanterie pieces entitled “Echo” or the like.26 Easily the most dramatic slow movement is 42:e11/iii, which would not seem out of place in a French opera or cantata of the préramiste period. Other stylistic features indicating the trios’ close relationship to French models are the sautillant rhythms of the gigue concluding 42:D16 and the petites reprises of 42:e11/iv and 42:h5/i. example 5.9. Trio in D minor for two treble instruments and continuo, 42:d11/ii, mm. 1–16 En Menuet         43   3         4     43                                                  

Dessus 1

Dessus 2

Continuo

6



             

                                      12



232 The Sonatas

The refrain of 42:d11/ii, a menuet en rondeau, has the iamb-trochee rhythmic pattern of the Favier-style menuet discussed in chapter 1 (Example 5.9). This particular melody seems to have had wide currency during the late seventeenth century: it is similar to the “Minuet pour les Faunes et les Dryades” from Lully’s 1670 comédie-ballet Les amantes magnifiques (quoted later that year in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme), and to menuets by Giovanni Bononcini, Georg Muffat, and Alessandro Scarlatti. Transposed up a fourth, the first eleven beats of Telemann’s “Dessus I” part correspond exactly to the beginning of the sixth movement of Corelli’s G-minor sonata for two violins, violetta, and continuo, WoO2, a work published in 1699. More striking still, the first eleven beats of both melody and accompaniment appear almost note for note at the start of the D-minor “Air Menuet I” from Erlebach’s VI Ouvertures no. 4 (1693).27 Regardless of whether Telemann consciously “borrowed” from one or more of these composers, it is significant that his “En Menuet” participates in a dense intertextual web implicating French, Italian, and German composers around the turn of the eighteenth century. By this time, the movement’s melody may have been understood as an emblem of the Lullian style.

The “True Touchtone of a Genuine Contrapuntist”: Quartets for Strings and Winds Despite the high regard in which Telemann’s contemporaries held his solos and trios, it was the quartets that were most often singled out for special praise. The only two theoretical discussions of late-baroque sonatas in four parts—by Scheibe and Quantz—both cite Telemann’s works as paradigmatic. In formulating the following passage, Scheibe drew on what must have been an intimate acquaintance with Telemann’s music of the 1730s. Indeed, his recommendation of flute, violin, and viola da gamba for the upper voices of a quartet, his emphasis on counterpoint and idiomatic writing, and his advocacy of the French style likely stem directly from an appreciation of the Quadri (1730) and Nouveaux quatuors (1738): In general, it is best if one uses four different instruments. In particular, a flute, a violin, a viola da gamba, and a bass sound best together. Nevertheless, one also finds quartets in which a different disposition of instruments occurs. Two oboes and two bassoons are also very pleasant to hear. In the case of the first kind, when four different instruments are used, more alterations and more agreeable writing are permissible. The contrast of the instruments themselves may aid the composer therein. And this contrast also makes them clearer and more agreeable to the ear. In general, these pieces require much thorough work as well as a great deal of ex-

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 233 perience and care. One has three upper voices. All these voices must nevertheless be given their own melodies. They must all agree exactly with one another. No constraint or harmonic filling-in may occur. Everything must be singable and flowing. And to be sure, we will come across few composers who are successful with such works. The famous Telemann has really surpassed almost all other composers with his excellent quartets. And whoever wishes to observe and become intimately acquainted with the true essence of these singular musical pieces has only to turn to the beautiful works of this great composer for instruction. From them we see both that a certain style of writing having much in common with the French is most practical, and that one must everywhere take care to observe as exactly as possible the nature and true properties of the instruments employed.28

Quantz’s more detailed discussion reads much like an analysis of Telemann’s works, specific examples of which he cites after enumerating the qualities of a good quartet: A quartet, or a sonata with three concertante instruments and a bass, is the true touchstone of a genuine contrapuntist, and is often the downfall of those who are not solidly grounded in its technique. Its vogue has never been great, hence its nature may not be well-known to many people. It is to be feared that compositions of this kind will eventually become a lost art. A good quartet requires: (1) a subject appropriate for treatment in four parts; (2) good, harmonious melody; (3) short and correct imitations; (4) a discerningly devised mixture of the concertante instruments; (5) a fundamental part with a true bass quality; (6) ideas that can be exchanged with one another, so that the composer can build both above and below them, and middle parts that are at least passable and not unpleasing; (7) preference for one part should not be apparent; (8) each part, after it has rested, must re-enter not as a middle part, but as a principal part, with a pleasing melody; but this applies only to the three concertante parts, not to the bass; (9) if a fugue appears, it must be carried out in all of the four parts in a masterful yet tasteful fashion, in accordance with all the rules. A certain group of six quartets for different instruments, mostly flute, oboe, and violin, which Mr. Telemann wrote some time ago, but which have not been engraved, may provide excellent and beautiful models for compositions of this type.29

We shall consider the possible identities of the “six quartets” below, but for now it is worth noting that although Quantz praises several other composers in the Versuch, including Corelli, Vivaldi, and Handel, Telemann’s trios and quartets are the only specific works he recommends as models for aspiring performers and composers. If the surviving works are any indication, Telemann did not begin to invest much effort into the quartet until his Frankfurt period. The earliest examples are

234 The Sonatas

likely the three-movement quartet for recorder, violin, viola, and continuo, 43:g4, and the original string versions of the Quatrième livre de quatuors (discussed below). The G-minor quartet’s transmission in a Dresden manuscript of circa 1710–15 suggests its origin at Eisenach, as does its style. As noted in chapter 4, the two motives that comprise virtually all of the first movement’s thematic material (an eighth-note turn figure on G followed by sequential Fortspinnung) were borrowed from an allemande in Biber’s Harmonia artificiosa-ariosa. Although both Allegros are strongly informed by the solo concerto (see chapter 6), the close imitation between recorder and violin suggests the trio sonata as a primary point of departure for the work; the viola, in fact, seldom shares in the thematic material. Particularly reminiscent of Telemann’s early Italianate trios is the second movement, a lovely sarabanda-like Adagio. Nearly all of the remaining Telemann quartets transmitted in manuscript sources (43:C2, D6, d3, F6, G6, G10–12, g2, a3, h3) seem to fall into the period between about 1715 and 1730. These works dispense with the viola as a middle voice and instead adopt one of three configurations for the obbligato parts: three trebles, one treble and two basses, or two trebles and one bass. Two of the earliest quartets in this group, 43:D6 and d3, share a scoring of flute, violin, bassoon or cello, and continuo, and are transmitted together in a Wiesentheid manuscript (where they are claimed to be “Par Le Sieur Handel”). The most noteworthy movement among them is the expressive opening of the D-minor quartet, a wordless aria patetica for flute with dotted ostinato accompaniment supplied by an “orchestra” of violin, bassoon or cello, and continuo (Example 5.10). Although lacking the typical double-motto entrance of the “singer,” this aria opens with a brief ritornello that, slightly modified, is repeated as an accompaniment to the flute’s initial phrase. The lamenting descent of the bass line is heard thrice during the first nine measures, but gives way to an E pedal (mm. 9–11) that becomes the root of a dominant ninth chord. At this moment of greatest harmonic intensity, the flute achieves its highest note (d⵮) of the aria, only to counter its angular ascent with a largely stepwise descent to the dominant (m. 12). Surrounding a tonic repeat of this dramatic sequence (mm. 7–12 = 14–19) are evaded cadences, the last of which delays tonal closure by means of the Neapolitan sixth. The D-minor quartet’s attribution to Handel, taken seriously for a time, has been dismissed in recent years.30 Yet its first movement closely resembles the opening “Grave” of the G-minor oboe concerto, HWV 287. As shown in Example 5.11, the concerto’s string accompaniment is built from a remarkably similar ostinato, with the two violins trading dotted figures in the manner of the quartet’s middle voices. Instead of a chromatically descending bass, the concerto’s ritornello features a chromatic ascent in the first violin (mm. 4–5). The oboe can-

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 235 example 5.10. Quartet in D minor for flute, violin, bassoon/cello, and continuo, 43:d3/i, mm. 1–12 Adagio  Flute

Violin Bassoon or Violoncello Continuo

  c   c                             c        c           6

3

                                                   

7

6

#

4

                                               



                 

#

6

7

6



                   6

                                                    

                                                  

                                                      

                                              

5



6

7

6

7



§

6

7

6

#

§

7

6

(continued)

236 The Sonatas example 5.10.—Continued

                                                                                                      9



7

6

9 7

#



                                                                                                                     11

E #

3

E #

6

D

2

6

4

#

6 5

b

6

4

#

tilena floats above the string accompaniment in a way that recalls the quartet’s flute part, and though initially less breathless and more melodically conjunct, it gradually incorporates wider leaps. As in the quartet, the final return to the tonic is momentarily deflected (m. 25). These suggestive parallels may indicate that one movement was modeled upon the other. Given the questions surrounding Handel’s authorship of the concerto,31 one might even entertain the notion that the same composer—either Handel or Telemann—was responsible for both works. One of Telemann’s best quartets, the equal of his finest published works from the 1730s, is the “concerto” for recorder, oboe, violin, and continuo, 43:a3. Intensely expressive from start to finish, it provides a foil to the identically scored but much sunnier 43:G6. The first movement presents an unrelenting succession of sigh figures and a texture in which material is passed seamlessly among the three obbligato instruments. The ensuing triple fugue, virtually free of nonthematic material, is the only one of its kind among Telemann’s quartets. After an exposition in which the subject is stated eight times in sixteen measures, the continuo line becomes fully thematic (it had accompanied the exposition with rhythms based on the countersubject). Now shorn of its countersubject, the subject is combined with two new ones. As shown in Example 5.12, the brief third subject may be stated two or three times during single statements of the first and second subjects. Although this section of the movement (mm. 17–38) has many

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 237 example 5.11. Handel, Concerto in G minor for oboe and strings, HWV 287/i, mm. 1–8 Grave Flute or Oboe solo Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Continuo

   c          c           c                    c           c         

                                         9

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            3

9

9

9

4§ 2

6

6

6

#

4

#

6

#

6

7

7

7

7

7

7 #

characteristics of the so-called permutation fugue, none of the four voices states the subjects in a strict order; each follows a different pattern. The fugue’s contrapuntal density provides an ideal counterweight to the substantial concerted movement that concludes the quartet (see chapter 6). Separating these movements is a closely imitative Adagio in which a single motive is presented in closely overlap-

238 The Sonatas example 5.12. Concerto in A minor for recorder, oboe, violin, and continuo, 43:a3/ii, mm. 24–32

              Recorder  c    Oboe  c         Violin  c   c     Subject 2

24



Subject 1

Subject 3

Continuo

               

 

          6 4

E

3+

                                             26



6

5 3

4 2

6

                    29







6 31

5



                              7

#

¿

6

6 4 2

6

7

6

#





¿



      6

7

6

                 6

#







                        #

#

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 239

ping statements. This pseudo-canonic texture begins to dissolve at the movement’s midpoint, as the motive first fragments into a sigh figure and then into a single, repeated pitch. This now barren sound world—far removed from the complexity of the opening measures—takes an unexpected turn to the minor mode before concluding in C major. Likely written during the 1720s, the quartet reminds us that Telemann’s galant style of the time did not preclude profundity and “baroque” complexity. Nearly as attractive as the A-minor concerto are two quartets with the apparently unique scoring of flute, two violas da gamba, and continuo, 43:G10 and G12.32 Both treat the gamba parts as completely independent of the continuo and include one or two fast movements in concerto style (discussed in the next chapter). These mature works are probably the latest of Telemann’s quartets transmitted in manuscript sources. Indeed, 43:G12 in particular displays many characteristics associated with his published sonatas of the 1730s: slow harmonic rhythm, drum bass lines, prominent use of alla zoppa and triplet rhythms, permutational treatment of musical segments (movement 1, mm. 33–41; movement 3, mm. 43–52), passages in which the continuo drops out for long stretches, and rudimentary sonata-allegro form (movement 4). It is also worth calling attention to the quartets’ beautifully expressive slow movements. The Andante of 43:G10 features neo-Corellian suspension chains over a walking bass (compare the opening of 43:A1/iii from the Quadri), whereas both slow movements of 43:G12 are more galant, the opening “Dolce” providing an especially fine example of the singing Affettuoso style. Let us return once more to Quantz’s January 1753 letter to Telemann. Just as the recommendation in the Versuch of “trios written in the French style” had concerned Telemann, so too did the unpublished “group of six quartets for different instruments, mostly flute, oboe, and violin” seem like an unusual choice. Why, he must have wondered, were published collections such as the Quadri and Nouveaux quatuors not mentioned instead? Quantz’s response was again conciliatory but unapologetic: I am all too convinced, esteemed Sir, that you have indeed already written a great many [quartets] of equal if not greater quality and possess a superabundance of the fire, invention, and judgment to write many more at any time. But the reason I have strongly recommended precisely the aforesaid quartets is that they are more familiar to me than the others; and, since I find all [the] perfections of good quartets united in them, I hardly felt that I had to search further. These very quartets are the ones that first made me personally most clearly aware of the characteristics of good quartets and inspired me some years ago to venture into just this field. Would you blame me if, without slighting the others, I have a special love for these?33

240 The Sonatas

Identifying Quantz’s favorite Telemann quartets is not so straightforward a matter as locating the trios alla francese.34 If we assume that Quantz encountered them at Dresden, and prior to his travels to Italy, France, and England between 1724 and 1727 (by which time he was already composing quartets), then three works come most readily into play.35 One of these is 43:G6 (recorder, oboe, violin, and continuo), copied out in a study score at Dresden by Quantz himself.36 The others are 43:g4 (recorder, violin, viola, and continuo), which was apparently in the Hofkapelle’s repertory before Quantz joined the organization in 1718, and 43:D6 (flute, violin, bassoon or cello, and continuo), also copied at Dresden by the mid-1720s. Nothing indicates that these three quartets were regarded as belonging to a group, however, and so it may well be that Quantz had other works in mind. But it is not difficult to see why 43:D6, G6, and g4 might have appealed to the young composer, for they combine idiomatic writing with a sure handling of form and texture, not to mention a healthy dose of the Italian concerto style that was very much in vogue at Dresden from the late 1710s onward.

When Is a Quartet not a Quartet? Among the most intriguing aspects of Telemann’s early quartets is the status of the obbligato bass part(s) found in most works.37 Depending on how musical material is distributed among the concertante voices, these quartets may be likened to a three-way conversation among equals, a dialogue with an unusually active bass accompaniment, or something in between. Thus two related questions arise: where does one draw the boundary between trio and quartet, and is such a distinction meaningful in the first place? These questions bear closely on the relationship between composition and performance during the early eighteenth century, for it turns out that a quartet’s essence could depend as much on its performers as its composer. Providing answers requires us to delve into mostly unfamiliar music by Telemann’s contemporaries and to explore conceptions of bassline variation in both theory and practice. For a start, let us consider what late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century musicians meant by the terms “trio” and “quartet.” In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, composers gradually abandoned the sonata a tre, with its two possible bass-line scorings—melodic bass (producing an overall scoring of SSB or SBB) or melodic bass simplified and doubled by chordal continuo (SSBbc or SBBbc)—in favor of the classic “trio” sonata of the eighteenth century, which excluded the possibility of an active melodic bass supported by a simpler chordal continuo, and frequently called for both instruments on the single bass line (SSbc

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 241

or SBbc).38 With the chordal continuo now counted as an essential and independent part, the mathematics of sonata scoring was turned on its head: a due (SSbc or SBbc) became “trio,” and a tre (SSBbc or SBBbc) became “quartet.” It is therefore telling that the 1697 posthumous edition of Henry Purcell’s sonatas a tre (SSBbc; composed ca. 1680) describes the works as Ten Sonata’s in Four Parts, whereas Purcell’s own edition of his identically scored 1683 set is entitled Sonnata’s of III Parts. Defining “Suonata” at the turn of the eighteenth century, Sébastien de Brossard still considered an elaborate melodic bass part a common feature of sonatas for two violins and continuo: “We have Sonatas from one to seven and even eight parts; but usually they are performed by a single Violin, or with two Violins and a thorough Bass for the Harpsichord, and frequently a more figured Bass for the Bass Violin.”39 Brossard’s definition is colored by his reception of Corelli’s sonatas (as the revised “Suonata” article in the third edition of his dictionary makes clear), and indeed opp. 1 and 3 remain the best-known examples of the sonata a tre. Not only does Corelli provide a separate melodic bass part (“Violone, ò arcileuto”) for his trios da chiesa, but there are tutti passages in his op. 6 concerti grossi (both da chiesa and da camera) where the “Violoncello concertino” stops doubling the “Basso concerto grosso” to play a more elaborate version of the bass line. The practice of including a melodic bass part in sonatas was maintained by some composers in Italy during the 1690s and 1700s, as witnessed by trios with a “violoncello obligato” part such as Giuseppe Maria Jacchini’s op. 2 (Bologna, 1695), Antonio Caldara’s op. 1 (Amsterdam, 1698), and Lorenzo Balbi’s op. 3 (Venice, 1710).40 In French solo and trio collections, the practice may be observed into the 1720s, as in Jean-François Dandrieu’s Sonates en trio (1705), Jean-Féry Rebel’s Sonates à violon seul mellées de plusieurs récits pour la Viole (1713), and publications by Jacques Aubert, Charles De la Ferté, Louis and François Francoeur, Marin Marais, and Jean-Baptiste Senaillé.41 Although most title pages in eighteenth-century German sources refer to fourpart sonatas with obbligato bass as “Sonata a 4,” “Concerto a 4,” and (less often) “Quadro” or “Quatuor,” it appears that some musicians during the 1710s and 1720s still regarded such works as trios. In Mathias Nikolaus Stulyck’s colorfully scored “Concertino à 4 Stromenti” for oboe, chalumeau, bassoon, and continuo, the bassoon embellishes the continuo line and plays occasional solos. Yet the oboe part bears the title “Concerto â 3,” suggesting some indecision on the copyist’s part as to whether the work is a trio or quartet. Another Stulyck work, a “Sinphonia” scored for flute, violin, bassoon or cello, and continuo, contains an obbligato bass part that occasionally diverges from the continuo line. Although this part is labeled “Violoncello o Fagotto obligato” in one manuscript source, the accompanying title page describes the piece as a “Sonata a 3,” and three of four

242 The Sonatas

parts bear the genre designations “Trio” or “Sinphonia en trio.”42 Jan Dismas Zelenka, copying sonatas by his teacher Johann Joseph Fux at Vienna in 1717, also used seventeenth-century terminology when he entitled one work for violin, cornetto, trombone, obbligato bassoon, and organ “Sonata à 4,” and another for two violins, partially obbligato bassoon, and continuo “Sonata / a 3: 2 Violi et Basso / con Fagotto un poco / variatio.”43 And the partially autograph set of parts to Zelenka’s own sonata for two oboes, obbligato bassoon, and violone or continuo, ZWV 181/2, bears the following title in a copyist’s hand: “Suonata 2da / à 3 / Oboe 2 / Fagotto Concer: / Violone ò Basso Contin:.” To judge from the writings of Scheibe and Quantz quoted earlier, the terminological shift from sonata a tre to quartet was complete by the 1740s. According to them, each of the three concertante parts in a quartet must be independent from and engage in imitation with the others, and be given a “proper” and “pleasing” melody. Furthermore, there must be no harmonic filling-in nor preference shown to any one of the parts. We have already seen that these prescriptions stem partly from an appreciation of Telemann’s quartets, most likely the Quadri and Nouveaux quatuors in particular. But here it is important to recognize that these published works, with their extremely active and fully thematic obbligato bass parts, are by no means typical examples of the genre. Together with several other works by Telemann (43:d3, e2, G10, G12), Fasch, Heinichen, Stölzel, and Zelenka, they form a relatively small corpus of music that meets all of Quantz’s and Scheibe’s criteria for a good quartet.44 Hence both writers’ observation that few composers have mastered the genre. What is actually typical of German obbligato bass quartets from around 1715 to 1740 is a bass-line texture remarkably similar to that of the older sonata a tre: an active obbligato bass part that divides its time between doubling a relatively simple continuo line, playing an elaborate version of this line, and engaging in imitative dialogue with other concertante parts. Table 5.3 lists about seventy obbligato bass quartets by Califano, Fasch, Graupner, Hasse, Heinichen, Lotti, Molter, Stölzel, Stulyck, Telemann, Vivaldi, Werner, and Zelenka. This lineup establishes the Dresden court as a major center for the composition and performance of such works, as it was for quartets generally. Although the obbligato bass quartets now preserved at the Sächsische Landesbibliothek are limited to just four apiece by Fasch and Zelenka, one by Hasse, and one by Telemann besides the Quadri and Musique de table, those by Califano, Heinichen, and Lotti surviving in other collections were probably composed at the electoral court and must once have belonged to the repertory of the Hofkapelle.45 To judge from the works of Califano, Heinichen, Lotti, and Zelenka, Dresden composers favored virtuosic writing for two oboes, bassoon, and

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 243 Table 5.3

Obbligato bass quartets in Germany, ca. 1715–40

Composer

Works (scoring + bc)

Arcangelo Califano Johann Friedrich Fasch

Quartets in C, Bb, F, a: 2 ob, bn FWV N:d2, F1, F2, g1, B2: 2 ob, bn FWV L:C3, N:D1: fl, vn, bn FWV N:F4: ob, vn, bn FWV L:d6: ob, [tr inst?], bn. Quartets in A, d, g, F, C, e: 2 vn, vc Quartet in g: 2 rec, vc/vdg Quartet in F: ob, chal, vc Seibel 236/257: 2 ob, bn Seibel 220: fl, bn/vc, vc Quartet in D: vn/fl, bn, b Quartet in F: 2 ob, bn MWV IX/22–26: fl, tr vdg, vdg Quartets in G and e: 2 vn, vc Quartet in g: fl/vn, ob, bn Quartet in G: vn, 2 vc Quartet in Bb: ob, chal, bn Quartet in A: fl, vn, vc Quadri and Nouveaux quatuors: fl, vn, vdg/vc Six quatuors ou trios: 2 fl/vn with 2 vc/bn, etc. 43:C2 and h3: fl, vdg, bn 43:D6 and d3: fl, vn, bn/vc 43:G10 and G12: fl, 2 vdg 43:G11: fl, vn, bn/vc 43:g2: ob, vn, vdg 43:e2 (Musique de table III): fl, vn, vc 43:F6/Anh. 42:F3: vn, hn, vne RV 801: fl/ob, ob/vn, bn/vc Quartet in Bb: 2 ob, bn ZWV 181/2, 4, 5, 6: 2 ob, bn

Christoph Graupner Johann Adolf Hasse Johann David Heinichen

Antonio Lotti Johann Melchior Molter Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel

Mathias Nikolaus Stulyck Georg Philipp Telemann

Antonio Vivaldi “Werner” Jan Dismas Zelenka

continuo—a scoring recommended by Scheibe (but not the former Dresden court flutist Quantz) as an alternative to the combination of flute, violin, viola da gamba, and continuo. The similar style and scoring of Fasch’s works may stem from his 1727 visit to the Dresden court. As in the seventeenth-century sonata a tre, obbligato bass quartets often revert to a three-part texture in slow or fast movements by doubling the continuo line with the obbligato bass. An extreme example of such trio scoring occurs in Telemann’s “concerto” for violin, horn, violone, and continuo, 43:F6/Anh. 42:F3, which has been listed in the TWV as both a trio and a quartet. Here the violone part departs from the continuo line only to play a few measures of bass-line di-

244 The Sonatas

visions. Similarly, in Telemann’s “concerto” for flute, viola da gamba, bassoon, and continuo, 43:h3, the bassoon and continuo parts are identical throughout the third and fourth movements. Telemann also reduces the texture from four to three parts in the slow third movements of 43:C2 and D6. Additional instances of three-part texture throughout a movement are encountered in works by Califano, Graupner, Lotti, Stulyck, Vivaldi, and Zelenka; like 43:F6, most of Califano’s Fmajor “Sonata à 4” is actually in three parts. In some quartet movements, three real parts are made to simulate four through the division of a single bass line between a pseudo-obbligato bass and the continuo. This procedure is seen in its simplest form in Fasch’s trio for two oboes and continuo, FWV N:d1, a work misleadingly listed as a quartet in the catalog of the composer’s works. Both manuscript sources for the trio contain a single bass part (labeled “Cembalo e Bassone”) in which the cembalo occasionally drops out for a measure or so, leaving only the bassoon to provide harmonic support for the oboes. Such alternations are too brief to establish and maintain an illusion of four real parts, and indeed they are best viewed as written-out examples of what may have been a common performance practice of the time. At the opposite end of the spectrum are works such as Califano’s F-major quartet, where the continuo yields to the bassoon for up to twelve measures at a time, and Zelenka’s ZWV 181/2, in which the bassoon alone provides the bass accompaniment for no fewer than twenty-eight consecutive measures at one point during the second movement. In these and similar passages by Lotti, Graupner, and Telemann, when the cembalo or continuo does play, it doubles the bassoon or other sustaining bass instrument. One of the most striking features of obbligato bass parts in this repertory is the emphasis on virtuosic bass-line divisions, particularly in the works of Fasch and Zelenka. Some of these parts are so elaborate as to resemble diminution exercises, and it is tempting to view them as the “frozen” improvisations of bassoonists or cellists. As is apparent from Example 5.13, a representative sample of bass-line divisions from works by Fasch, Heinichen, and Telemann, an increase of activity in the obbligato bass part is usually accompanied by a corresponding decrease of activity in the continuo part. Upon encountering passages such as these, in which a relatively simple, nonthematic continuo part is juxtaposed with a more florid obbligato bass part, it may seem that the obbligato bass is playing the “real” bass line, while the continuo merely simplifies or doubles in the manner of a basso seguente. Although such appears to be the case in the majority of seventeenth-century sonatas a tre,46 it is far from universally true among eighteenth-century quartets. As we shall see, there is evidence to suggest that composers and performers often viewed the obbligato bass part as an elaboration or variation of the continuo line.

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 245 example 5.13. (a) Telemann, 43:g2/iv, mm. 10–12; (b) Fasch, FWV N:F4/ii, mm. 13–17; (c) Heinichen, Seibel 220/ii, mm. 11–15 (a)

    c                                                       Continuo   c  10

Viola da gamba

(b) Bassoon Continuo

  24           24    

13

(c)

                                    

    4                   2                      4  2 11

Violoncello 2

Continuo

The fluid line between trio and quartet is nowhere better demonstrated than in works transformed from the former into the latter by the addition of a new line of music. Particularly interesting in this respect are Zelenka’s set of six sonatas for two oboes and continuo, ZWV 181, with a bassoon part that is occasionally obbligato.47 Although considered by some to be quartets, Zelenka’s sonatas are in fact hybrid works that lean more toward the trio in their texture: the first and third sonatas, and several movements among the others, are scored in three parts throughout. Yet at a certain point during the compositional process, Zelenka began to conceive these works in four parts. The composing score containing all six sonatas switches from three to four staves in the third movement of the fourth work, and it is here that the bassoon first achieves some measure of independence from the continuo line. The bassoon retains its obbligato status throughout the fifth sonata and in the last two movements of the sixth. But Zelenka returns to trio texture in the first movement of the sixth sonata and divides a single bass line between bassoon and continuo in the second movement, the two parts alternating with each other when they are not identical. Most interesting for our purposes is a partly autograph manuscript of the second sonata containing two bass parts: one (in the hand of Zelenka) entitled “Violone ò Basso Contin[uo]” and another (in a copyist’s hand) entitled “Fagotto.” Example 5.14 gives the opening six measures of the sonata as transmitted in these two bass parts.

246 The Sonatas example 5.14. Zelenka, ZWV 181/2/i, mm. 1–6 Adagio    c                    

                                                                         

         Continuo   c Bassoon

4

Zelenka has in effect transformed a trio into a quartet by composing a new, relatively simple continuo part and assigning the original continuo part to the bassoon. The same procedure is followed in the third and fourth movements. But in the second movement, as in the second movement of the sixth sonata, Zelenka simply divides up the original continuo part between the bassoon and continuo. Here the division of labor is unequal: the two parts mostly double each other, but only the bassoon receives “solos.” A similar process, but one involving the composition of a new obbligato bass part rather than a simplification of the original continuo part, may be observed in the autograph score of Christoph Graupner’s canonic sonata for two recorders, cello or viola da gamba, and continuo. This six-movement work was originally conceived as a trio for two recorders and continuo. Some time after its composition, Graupner decided to add an obbligato bass part to the first four movements.48 Lacking empty staves on which to notate the part, he squeezed it onto the “Cembalo” staff. Although the new part provides little more than harmonic filler in the first and third movements (something expressly forbidden in Scheibe’s definition of the quartet), it assumes more of a thematic role in the second and fourth. Figure 5.1 shows a page from the sonata’s third movement. Note in the top system that the obbligato bass provides harmonic filler, while in the bottom system it embellishes the continuo line through sixteenth-note divisions. Graupner also added obbligato cello parts to the autograph score of twelve trios for two violins and continuo. These parts take the form of notations in green ink on the continuo staff or on the empty staff separating each system; they are clearly later additions.49 Sonatas 1–5 and 11 remain in trio texture, as do many movements in the revised sonatas 6–10 and 12. Already in the fugal fourth movement of Sonata 5, Graupner writes “Violoncello” and several measures of rest on the empty staff below the continuo line to indicate that the cello enters

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 247

figure 5.1. Graupner, “Canon all’unisono,” movement 3, mm. 7–19 (D-DS, Mus. ms. 408)

only at the appearance of the subject in the bass. This tentative attempt at an obbligato bass part gives way rather suddenly, in the second movement of the sixth sonata, to eighth-note divisions of the continuo line (Figure 5.2). The cello’s obbligato material in subsequent movements ranges from complete parts such as this one, to intermittently notated eighth- and sixteenth-note divisions of the bass line, to embellishments that integrate the cello into a fugal texture or imitative dialogue with the violins. The last two types of interpolation are illustrated in Figure 5.3, where in the top system a point of imitation is extended to the cello, and in the bottom system the continuo’s quarter and eighth notes are divided into running sixteenths.

figure 5.2. Graupner, Sonata 6/ii, mm. 1–38 (D-DS, Mus. ms. 472/1)

248 The Sonatas

figure 5.3. Graupner, Sonata 10/i, mm. 9–25 (D-DS, Mus. ms. 472/1)

To return for a moment to the French repertory, François Couperin’s sonades provide what appears to be a further instance of a composer adding an obbligato bass part to a trio after the fact of composition. In La Françoise, published in Les Nations (Paris, 1726), the basse d’archet plays an extended solo consisting of sixteenth-note figuration derived from the basse chiffrée.That the solo, excerpted in Example 5.15, was not part of Couperin’s original conception of the piece is clear from a manuscript transmitting an earlier version of the work. In this version, which must date from no later than the mid-1690s, the basse d’archet simply doubles the basse chiffrée. Kenneth Gilbert and Davitt Moroney offer the plausible suggestion that the basse d’archet solo either is the result of Couperin’s own left-hand improvisations in the two-harpsichord version of the piece, or reflects the spontaneous improvisations of a viol player in the composer’s circle.50 In fact, three out of four sonades in Les Nations were given basse d’archet solos some time before publication, although the solo in La Françoise is easily the most extensive. Moreover, in revisions that recall the newly composed continuo part in Zelenka’s second sonata, Couperin occasionally assigns a simplified version of the original bass line to the basse chiffrée, allowing the basse d’archet to play the more florid version. Telemann’s Six quatuors ou trios (1733) take a somewhat different approach to blurring the line between trio and quartet. The full title of the collection reads: “Six Quartets or Trios, for 2 Transverse Flutes or 2 Violins, and for 2 Cellos or 2 Bassoons, the second of which can be left out entirely or played on the Harpsichord.”51 Thus the second cello part, which may function as a continuo line (Telemann supplies it with figures), is entirely optional, and the works are playable as either quartets (SSBB or SSBbc) or trios (SSB). This is no empty promise intended to broaden the collection’s appeal, for the Six quatuors ou trios yield satisfying results in each of these configurations.52 The key to the collection’s flexible scoring lies in the nature of the first cello part, which, despite its significant the-

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 249 example 5.15. Couperin, La Françoise, mm. 133–36

   8                6              8  6 133

Basse d'archet

Basse chiffrée

example 5.16. Telemann, 43:G3/i (Six quatuors ou trios no. 4), mm. 1–5 Violoncello 1

Violoncello 2

    4         3                   4  3

Largo

matic content and motivic interplay with the flute parts, often has what Quantz would call a “true bass quality.” The simpler second cello usually doubles the accompanimental material of the first, and when the two parts diverge, it is clear that Telemann, like Zelenka in his second sonata, has derived the optional continuo line (second cello) from the more elaborate obbligato bass line (first cello). Occasionally, as in Sonata 2/iii and Sonata 6/ii, the first cello plays the kind of bass-line divisions illustrated in Example 5.16. What is new here is Telemann’s willingness to forgo the harmonic support of a chordal continuo instrument, or even the continuo line itself. Bass-line divisions similar to those in sonatas are occasionally found among concerto movements in trio scoring. In the third movement of Telemann’s “sonata” or “concerto” for alto chalumeau, bass chalumeau, unison violins, and continuo, 43:F2/52:F5, the two treble parts are supported by bass chalumeau playing divisions of the continuo line. Likewise, the mostly obbligato cello in the second movement of Bach’s Sixth Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1051, provides quarternote divisions of a continuo part moving mostly in halves and wholes. Only when the counterpoint between the two violas is particularly dense (mm. 40–45), and at an important structural cadence (mm. 56–58), does the texture revert to three real parts. Several solo passages in the outer movements of Bach’s Fourth Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1049, feature the “Continuo” (harpsichord) playing divisions of the “Violoncello” part.53 These diminutions, some of which are shown in Example 5.17, are limited to places where the reduced scoring of soloists and continuo ensures that they will be audible; indeed, when the strings’ accompanimental chords threaten to cover up the harpsichord’s left hand in mm. 291–94 of the first movement, the diminutions are played by the cello as well. But why doesn’t

250 The Sonatas example 5.17. Bach, BWV 1049/i, mm. 286–96

8                 38                           Continuo   3 286

Violoncello

 291

   

                                                

the cello play all of the diminutions? The answer may be that they reflect Bach’s own extemporaneous variation of the continuo line in performance. The emphasis on bass-line diminution in obbligato bass quartets, and its use by composers—and perhaps performers—to turn trios into quartets, relates to a tradition of improvisatory variation that remained fundamental to compositional technique throughout the baroque period.54 Indeed, it is no accident that Zelenka’s copy of a Fux sonata, mentioned earlier, refers to the obbligato bassoon part as “un poco variatio.” Variation, as Brossard informs us, “is the different manner of playing or singing the same song, air, or tune, either by subdividing the notes into several others of less value, or by adding of graces in such a manner, however, as that one may still discern the ground of the tune thro’ all the enrichments.”55 And Johann Gottfried Walther, using similar language, explains that “Variazione” occurs “when a simple vocal or instrumental melody is altered and embellished through the insertion of smaller note values, but in such a way that one can nevertheless recognize and understand the fundamental melody.”56 Thus one may vary through diminution, as in the French double, or through ornamentation. Both types of variation were understood by writers of dictionaries and treatises as basically extemporaneous in nature. Especially relevant to the obbligato bass quartet are several continuo treatises of the early eighteenth century that devote considerable space to the practice of varying simple bass lines. Read alongside contemporary accounts of continuo playing, these suggest that the improvisation of bass-line variations—chiefly in the form of divisions—was a common, if somewhat controversial, practice among continuo players. The extent to which players of melodic bass instruments in particular took part in this practice remains unclear, but there is tantalizing, albeit limited, evidence of gambists extemporaneously embellishing bass lines and cellists realizing figured basses in the absence of a chordal continuo instrument.57 The earliest eighteenth-century treatment of bass-line variation is found in the

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 251 example 5.18. Niedt, Handleitung zur Variation, chapters 3–5         

c   c                 c                  c                  c           Original bass  c  

                                       3

          

 

   

                            

                                      

first part of Friedrich Erhardt Niedt’s Musicalischer Handleitung (1700), where two divisions of a simple bass line are provided.58 Though not particularly noteworthy as examples of diminution technique, they anticipate Niedt’s Handleitung zur Variation (1706), in which he devotes no fewer than three chapters to the variation of simple bass lines.59 This part of the Handleitung is essentially a diminution manual in the tradition of Christopher Simpson’s treatise The Division-Violist, and indeed Niedt’s bass-line variations are remarkably similar to those that Simpson terms “breaking the ground.”60 Following a long series of formulae for filling in all ascending and descending melodic intervals in chapter 2, Niedt shows in chapters 3–5 how a bass line moving in even half notes, dotted half notes, or dotted quarter notes may be composed out so as to intensify its rhythmic and melodic motion while providing a lateral realization of the harmony. Example 5.18 gives a selection of his variations, some of which are remarkably similar to the patterns

252 The Sonatas

found in the obbligato bass parts discussed above. As a practical demonstration of how such variations may serve as the basis of composition, Niedt includes in his final chapter a partita of eleven dances elaborated from a single bass line. Unfortunately, despite the clarity and abundance of his examples, Niedt provides no definition of variation. But Johann Mattheson, in his commentary to the 1721 edition of the treatise, defines variation as consisting of changing certain slow bass notes (while preserving the intervals or [harmonic] progression) into shorter notes in such a way that the passage maintains its basic character, yet is embellished, partitioned, and divided so that it receives more life, strength, gracefulness, and embellishment. What the French call the double (doubled or doubling), we call (although not very happily) a variation. The name is too general and does not express specifically what is meant by it. And yet the name has been adopted and will probably stay in use. This “doubling” or “varying” has, in a way, almost the same quality as figures have in rhetoric, or the so-called compliments in conversation.61

That the type of variation technique illustrated by Niedt and described by Mattheson was common—and perhaps commonly abused—among continuo players at the beginning of the eighteenth century is attested by two French commentators. In 1707 Monsieur de Saint Lambert sanctioned a tasteful embellishment of the bass line (one that does not interfere with the solo vocal line) but complained about accompanists whose excessive divisions and embellishments weaken the ensemble: Contrary to what we have just said, when basses contain few notes and drag on too much for the liking of the accompanist, he may add other notes to embellish them further, provided that he is certain that this will do no harm to the Air, nor above all to the solo vocal part. . . . There are those accompanists who have such a high opinion of themselves that, believing themselves to be worth more than the rest of the ensemble, they strive to outshine all of the players. They burden the thoroughbass with divisions, they embellish the accompaniments, and do a hundred other things that perhaps are very lovely in themselves but which are at the same time extremely detrimental to the ensemble, and just serve to show the vain conceit of the musician who produces them.62

Much the same complaint was registered in 1715 by Pierre Bourdelot, who faulted Italian continuo lines for being doubly embellished: first by the composer, and second by the performers. In the following scenario, players of a harpsichord, a viola da gamba, and a theorbo compete with each other to drown out the solo vocal line with brilliant ornamentation:

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 253 In general one hears in [Italian] music only a Basso continuo always ornamented, which is often a kind of batterie of chords and arpeggios casting dust in the eyes of those who are not connoisseurs, and which, reduced to its simplest form, is equivalent to ours. These B.C. are only good to show off the swiftness of hand of those who accompany on either the clavecin or the viol. Also, to outdo these basses already too much ornamented, they vary them again, and the one who ornaments the most wins. Thus one no longer hears the subject, which appears all too naked in the midst of this great brilliance and remains buried under a jolting of very fast and sparkling sounds, which, passing too lightly, cannot make any harmony against the subject. It would be better then, if one of the two instruments would play the simple bass line and the other an ornamented line. These B.C. would pass for viol pieces rather than for an accompaniment that ought to be subordinate to the subject and not stand out at all. The voice should dominate and attract the chief attention, but the contrary happens here: one hears only the B.C., which bubbles so loudly that the voice is smothered. There is also a disadvantage in having the basses in batteries and ornamenting ad lib., for it is difficult for a clavecin, a viol, and a theorbo to be able to play together accurately in the same style of ornamentation, just as it is for many string instruments or winds; one takes up one figure, another a different one, which causes an extraordinary cacophony, such that a composer no longer recognizes his work, which appears disfigured; and in the midst of it all, one contents one’s self with admiring the rapidity of the hand that is executing the passage. However, there you have the style of execution of the Italian music that is so much extolled today.63

Although part of the problem, as Bourdelot saw it, was surely the thick chords and rapid figuration heard above the bass line (for example, in the right hand of the harpsichord), the main culprit appears to have been the simultaneous and uncoordinated variation of the bass line itself. Bourdelot’s solution would result in a heterophonic texture familiar from obbligato bass quartets: the original, unadorned bass line juxtaposed with an ornamented version. And as the example of Couperin’s Les Nations suggests, it is only a small step from this kind of improvisatory practice to the notation (by composer or performer) of two separate bass parts. With Bourdelot’s comments about Italian continuo practice in mind, it should come as no surprise that Francesco Gasparini’s 1708 L’armonico pratico al cimbalo contains a chapter entitled “Diminution or Adornment of the Bass.”64 Gasparini displays a somewhat ambivalent attitude toward bass-line diminutions, stating his disapproval of them on the grounds that “it is very easy to miss or depart from the intention of the composer, from the proper spirit of the composition—and to offend the singer,” yet admitting their usefulness in ritornellos, in passages where the singer is silent, and for the expression of capricious sentiments (umor

254 The Sonatas example 5.19. Gasparini, L’armonico practico al cimbalo, 105–8                            

c

Diminution

Original bass



c 











                 6

                                           Diminution 1                      Diminution 2    (faster tempo)              Original bass                                           Diminution 1                     Diminution 2                 Original bass  3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

bizzarro).65 Gasparini evidently had no such reservations about bass-line diminutions when it came to his own compositions, for after providing a limited number of diminutions (Example 5.19), he quotes an embellished bass line from one of his Cantate da camera a voce sola (Rome, 1695). This collection consists of twelve cantatas, three of which (nos. 4, 8, and 11) include embellished accompaniments in treble or bass range that supplement a simpler continuo line. In his preface to the collection, Gasparini refers to these three cantatas as having “due bassi,” and advises that the embellished accompaniments may be played either by the keyboardist’s right hand or by archlute or violoncello.66 Thus in the case of the embellishments in bass range, the archlute or cello assumes the role of an obbligato bass voice, while the keyboardist’s left hand supplies the original continuo line. What Gasparini does not show in L’armonico pratico, however, is that his cantata embellishments directly contradict his prohibition on bass line divisions accompanying the singer. The Cantate da camera appear to have inspired at least one other cantata collection containing embellished accompaniments: Bernardo Gaffi’s Cantate da cammera [sic] a voce sola, op. 1 (Rome, 1700), which contains six arias with written-out accompaniments for violin or violone.67 The apparently widespread use (and abuse) of bass-line variation in Italy prompted Benedetto Marcello to

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 255

note in his satirical Il teatro alla moda (1720) that a cellist, when accompanying arias, “should alter the bass line as he pleases, playing a different variation every night, even though his variations have nothing at all to do with the vocal line or the violin part.”68 Closest in time and place to our repertory of German obbligato bass quartets are theoretical discussions of bass-line variation by Heinichen, Mattheson, Quantz, and Scheibe. Heinichen’s Der Generalbass in der Composition (1728) follows the treatises of Niedt and Gasparini in providing examples of variations.69 Although his diminutions are perhaps less imaginative than those of his predecessors, he is alone in showing how both of the keyboardist’s hands may play broken-chord figuration simultaneously. In a note following his examples, he observes that the best variations always begin with the fundamental bass note— a point also made, with some qualification, by Mattheson in his Große GeneralBaß-Schule (1731).70 Rebutting Gasparini’s position in the L’armonico pratico, Heinichen advises that not all composers are content with these bass variations. Nevertheless, if, for example, in a solo, a cantata a voce sola, or in the empty ritornello of an aria without instruments, such things are introduced à propos and with discernment, they embellish the accompaniment and are certainly admissible. Only one must not irritate the singer with these things and [must] not make a prelude out of the accompaniment.71

This is indeed a more tolerant approach to variation than that of Gasparini, even though the directions for its proper use are essentially those of the Italian. Where Heinichen departs most sharply from Gasparini and earlier writers is in his approval of bass-line diminutions in the sonata for melody instrument and continuo (“solo”). Scheibe’s unpublished Compendium Musices Theoretico-Practicum (1728–36) deals briefly with the subject of bass-line variation from the perspective of dissonance resolution, illustrating four ways that dissonances in a chain of suspensions may be embellished through broken-chord figuration before resolving to the following consonance.72 More interesting is Mattheson’s illustration of the kind of simplification or “negative variation” practiced by Telemann and Zelenka. First he presents a florid bass line containing various types of arpeggiation, or Brechung and shows how it may be reduced to its simplest form, the anschlagende Haupt-Gänge (Example 5.20).73 Quantz’s discussion of bass-line variation in the Versuch is found in a chapter addressing the “duties of those who accompany or execute the accompanying or ripieno parts associated with a concertante part.” He warns that a cellist

256 The Sonatas example 5.20. Mattheson, Grosse General-Baß-Schule, 331  3                   

4   Anschlagende   43 Haupt-Gänge                      4

#

6





Veränderungen





                         5       6



 6



6

   6



#

                                                  6 6 ´ 6 7 # #  7

5

must take care not to garnish the bass with graces, as some great violoncellists were formerly in the habit of doing. . . . If, without understanding composition, the violoncellist introduces extempore graces into the bass, in a ripieno part he will do even more harm than a violinist, especially if he has a bass part before him above which the principal part is constantly embellishing the plain air with other additions. . . . By robbing the bass of its serious movement, the necessary embellishments of the upper part are obstructed or obscured. . . . Only in a solo is a skilful addition of embellishments permissible. Even there, whenever it is essential that the principal part add something to the plain notes, the notes of the bass must be executed entirely without extempore ornaments. . . . If the principal part has rests or held notes, [the violoncellist] may likewise vary the bass in an agreeable manner, provided that his principal notes are not obscured, and that the variations are so made that they express no other passion than that which the piece demands. . . . In a large ensemble, however, the violoncellist must abstain entirely from extempore additions, not only because the fundamental part must be played seriously and distinctly, but also because considerable confusion and obscurity would be caused if all the other bass players were to take similar liberties.74

This passage may document a change in performing sensibilities between the early decades of the eighteenth century, when “great violoncellists” (perhaps including Califano, Quantz’s former Dresden colleague) were in the habit of garnishing basses, and midcentury, when cellists exercised more restraint (or ought to have, according to Quantz). Whether or not such a shift actually took place, it is worth noting that in 1746 the Greiz collegium musicum permitted cellists and bassists to ornament their parts in a small ensemble but not in an orchestra, where

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 257

they were forbidden to “improvise arpeggios between the notes.”75 Like Heinichen, Quantz permits tasteful bass-line embellishment in solos, and his concern over simultaneous variations by multiple bass players echoes Bourdelot. To sum up, a hard-and-fast generic distinction between trio and obbligato bass quartet is difficult to maintain, given the frequent occurrence of trio texture in quartets, the emphasis on continuo-line doubling and diminution in obbligato bass parts, and composers’ revisions of three-part sonatas as four-part sonatas. We have seen that the last two phenomena are grounded in an improvisatory technique of bass-line variation described in some of the most important continuo treatises of the early eighteenth century and commonly applied in performance by cellists, gambists, bassoonists, harpsichordists, and theorbists. It may be only slightly overstating the close relationship between the two genres to speak of the obbligato bass quartet as a “variation” of the trio. Indeed, this relationship is perhaps one reason why so few early eighteenth-century writers felt obliged to discuss the quartet. In the performance of such works, a continuo realization was not always regarded as essential: Telemann’s Six quatuors ou trios are performable in SSB or SSBB scorings; Lotti’s F-major quartet omits the continuo part in the second movement, leaving the bassoon to provide the only bass accompaniment; and manuscripts of Zelenka’s second, fourth, and fifth sonatas contain no “Continuo” or “Cembalo” parts, but do include parts labeled “Violone ò Basso Contin[uo]” (unfigured) or “Violone ò Tiorba” (figured). These examples encourage us to take at face value the scoring of two oboes and two bassoons indicated on manuscript title pages to works by Califano, Fasch, and Lotti.76 A surprisingly liberal attitude toward improvised bass-line variation emerges from the revisions of Couperin, Graupner, and Zelenka, as well as from theoretical writings of the time. Although current tastes seem not to encourage members of a continuo group to embellish the bass line in any significant way, performers of early eighteenth-century trios may nevertheless feel justified in following Couperin and Graupner by embellishing relatively simple bass parts with elaborate divisions, or in following Mattheson, Telemann, and Zelenka by deriving a new, simplified bass part from an elaborate one. The sensitive application of such variation techniques might, as Mattheson believed, lend the bass line “more life, strength, gracefulness, and embellishment.”

Sonatas in Five to Seven Parts In the passage from Telemann’s 1718 autobiography quoted earlier, the composer mentions having composed “a large quantity” of sonatas “in two and three to eight and nine parts” while at Eisenach. As we have seen, a number of solos, trios,

258 The Sonatas

and quartets may be placed into this group. Also with a strong claim to membership are eleven works in five to seven parts (44:5, 11, 32–35, 41–43; 50:4; 53:g1); no Telemann sonatas in eight or nine parts have come down to us.78 Once common during the seventeenth century, such fully scored sonatas became increasingly rare during the early eighteenth century as composers focused almost exclusively on the solo and trio; even quartets were now somewhat unusual, Telemann’s special interest in them notwithstanding. Publications such as Johann Christian Schickardt’s concertos for two violins, two oboes or violins, and continuo, op. 13 (Amsterdam, ca. 1710–12); his concertos for four recorders and continuo, op. 19 (Amsterdam, ca. 1713–15); and Johann Christoph Pepusch’s concertos for two recorders, two flutes (or oboes or violins), and continuo, op. 8 (Amsterdam, 1718), seem to represent the last gasp of the five-part sonata. When Scheibe wrote the following description of such works—the only one in the theoretical literature of the time—he was likely taking a retrospective view: I must still remark upon another type of sonata. Namely, there are five-part pieces that in most respects correspond to four-part sonatas. The best instruments for these are two flutes, two oboes, and accompanying bass. Their arrangement is similar to that of the trio, but their composition requires still more diligence than quartets, for if they are to be really beautiful, one must actually blend five melodies with each other. All four upper voices must display a different melody. The bass must not be poor and empty, but at certain times should also receive its own [melody]. Achieving this becomes easier if, now and then, the second flute and second oboe are tastefully employed as simple fillers, though this should very seldom occur. But one will by no means be successful with these five-part sonatas if no use is made of double and quadruple counterpoint and canons. These [devices] provide the best opportunity to combine skillfully and comfortably as many melodies as there are instruments, and to make them pleasant and flowing through adroit embellishment and several melodic figures, such as the metaphora.77

Despite Scheibe’s recommendation of four winds for the upper voices, Telemann’s five-part sonatas are all scored for strings or a combination of strings and winds. The A-major sonata for two violins, two violas, and continuo, 44:35, recently discovered in a composite manuscript belonging to the archive of the SingAkademie zu Berlin, joins five other works with this scoring (44:5, 11, 32–34).79 Although four of these quintets (44:32–35) have obbligato cello parts that occasionally detach from the continuo line to introduce a sixth contrapuntal voice (or more accurately, a variation of this line in the manner of the obbligato bass quartets discussed above), they are fundamentally in five parts throughout. Both the scoring with two viola parts and presence of rigorously contrapuntal five-

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 259

voice fugues suggest the origin of all six works at Eisenach. This seems confirmed by the Darmstadt sources for 44:5 and 44:32, both of which were copied in Saxony by the teenaged Endler about 1713–14. The strongest and most intensely expressive of Telemann’s quintets are those in minor keys (44:5, 32, 33), and among the more impressive movements are two triple fugues (44:5/ii and 32/ii). Example 5.21 shows a passage in which the principal, long-note subject is heard first in the bass (as a false entry), then in the first violin (mm. 16–18). Below this, the second subject is treated in trio-like imitation between the second violin and alto viola (with harmonization provided by the tenor viola); the third subject, providing a welcome melodic and rhythmic antithesis to the other two, is played by the cello and cembalo. As we move into a brief episode at measure 19, the cello imitates the violins’ imitative figure, momentarily providing a sixth contrapuntal voice. Later in the movement, the fugue’s progress is oddly interrupted by a dramatic passage of dotted rhythms in the violins over a dominant pedal in the bass, music that returns as a codetta. Not all of the fast movements in the quintets are so densely contrapuntal: one minimizes the amount of thematic material by presenting each point of imitation in stretto (44:34/iv), and another renders the violas nonthematic following the exposition (44:11/ii). The concluding fugues generally strive for a lighter effect through pithy subjects and regular alternations of subject entries and episodes. Uniquely among the fugal movements, 44:35/ii has a continuo accompaniment for the exposition, episodes in true trio scoring (without the violas), and a conclusion that runs into the following slow movement. Five of the opening slow movements (44:5, 32–35) and two of the interior slow movements (44:5, 11) are in an expanded trio scoring in which the violas function as harmonic fillers. The most common types are the sarabanda (44:5/iii, 11/i, 32/iii) and what might be described as the dotted-style Adagio (44:5/i, 33/i, 34/i). Two more interior slow movements (44:33, 34) invoke the recitative or arioso in their unsettled harmonic progressions and angular melodic contours. Most interesting of all is the stile antico opening to 44:32. Here the stepwise subject, close imitation, and suspensions are all suggestive of the sacred vocal repertory in which the stile antico normally resided. One finds other archaisms in these quintets as well, though the tierces de picardie that end two movements in the minor mode (44:32/iii, 33/ii) are not so much deliberate references to the musical past as signs of the works’ close proximity to seventeenth-century repertories. A few of these works appear to have been known to the Bach family. In the 1789 auction catalog of C. P. E. Bach’s estate (the so-called Bachsche Auction), lots 330–32 are manuscript scores of Telemann sextets (“Telemann, Ein Sestett, in Partitur”).80 As vague as this description is, only the string quintets with par-

260 The Sonatas example 5.21. Sonata in F minor for two violins, two violas, and continuo, 44:32/ii, mm. 15–21

     c        Violin 2    c                               Alto Viola    c    Tenor Viola    c                 Violoncello   c      c       Continuo 15

Violin 1



                                                                   17



                    20



            

                             

             

                                                         

                                               

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 261

tially obbligato cello, 44:32–35, could reasonably be considered sextets (as they are in the TWV). Although the manuscripts have yet to be positively identified, it may be more than coincidental that the Berlin Sing-Akademie composite manuscript mentioned earlier transmits 44:32, 34, and 35 in scores, for this choral society was bequeathed a large portion of Bach’s musical estate. His likely ownership of these works, and perhaps even the Berlin scores in particular, raises the question of where he obtained them. Because they are among the oldest instrumental works in the auction catalog, it may be that Bach inherited them from his father, who could have performed the music at Weimar, Köthen, or Leipzig. Certainly the composite manuscript’s origin in Saxony (to judge from its paper) does nothing to weaken such a hypothesis. Similar in many respects to the string quintets are the five-movement sonatas in E minor and G minor for two oboes, two violins, two violas, and continuo (including bassoon), 50:4 and 53:g1, misleadingly categorized as a sinfonia and a concerto in the TWV. These works combine the German contrapuntal idiom with elements of sonatas da chiesa and da camera, the dance elements strongly influenced by French music (Endler’s copy of the G-minor sonata bears the title “Concert François”). In this respect, they closely resemble the six sonatas/concertos of Georg Muffat’s Armonico tributo (Salzburg, 1682), later revised and supplemented by six additional works in the Auserlesene Instrumental-Music (Passau, 1701). As is common in the Armonico tributo, the E-minor sonata opens with a solemn chordal movement (“Gravement”). Canonic imitation and suspensions over long continuo pedal tones lend the first twenty measures a monumental effect seldom matched among Telemann’s instrumental works (Example 5.22). The “Alla breve” fugue that follows is comparable in contrapuntal density to the fugues of the string quintets but differs in the particulars of its design. The stile antico subject is first presented in stretto pairs over continuo accompaniment. Following the initial exposition, a second places a new countersubject against the subject, now without continuo support. A third exposition, excerpted in Example 5.23, introduces two more countersubjects (the second derived from the first), producing quadruple counterpoint. The two following movements shift to the French style: a binary rigaudon (“Air”) in trio scoring, with winds and strings alternating; and a chaconne-like movement (“Tendrement”), complete with written-out agréments, in ternary form. Another fugue (“Gay”) concludes the sonata, and as with the closing fugues of the string quintets, this one is far less academic than the first. The G-minor sonata follows a similar mixed-taste trajectory: a sarabande (“Grave e detaché”) with petite reprise; a five-voice fugue featuring three countersubjects and episodes for wind trio; a pair of alternativement loures, the second of which again highlights the winds; a solemn Grave; and finally a dance-like fugue.

262 The Sonatas example 5.22. Sonata in E minor for 2 oboes, two violins, two violas, and continuo, 50:4/i, mm. 1–12 Violin 1, Oboe 1

Violin 2, Oboe 2

Viola 1

Viola 2

Continuo

Gravement  c     c          c           c        





 c





                                        7



5

#

                                              

        





          





                        

 

[

]

    

   

    

5

3

Three seven-part works in F major, A minor, and B-flat major, 44:41–43, are all identified as “concertos” in their manuscript sources (44:42 is also called “Parthie”). They are concertos in the broad sense of a work in which parts compete and cooperate with each other.81 Indeed, they exemplify the late seventeenthcentury concertato principle, whereby instrumental groups (pairs of recorders, oboes, and violins in 44:41–42; trios of oboes and violins in 44:43) are treated as antiphonal blocks of sound. Each work takes full advantage of its colorful scoring, but the B-flat major concerto exhibits the most consistently high level of invention. All three seem to have originated no later than the Eisenach period, for 44:42 was copied at Dresden around 1710–11 (it is on the same paper as the double violin concerto 52:e2). Slow movements include types familiar from Telemann’s string quintets and ripieno concertos: dotted-style and chordal adagios (44:41/i and 43/ii), a sarabanda (44:42/iii), an invocation of the stile antico (44:42/i), and a brief harmonic transition laden with suspensions (44:41/iii; run on from the preceding fast

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 263 example 5.23. Sonata in E minor for 2 oboes, two violins, two violas, and continuo, 50:4/ii, mm. 65–74

 c   c    c     c   c     65

Violin 1, Oboe 1

Violin 2, Oboe 2

Viola 1

Viola 2

Continuo



                      70



                        

                        

                                               

          

movement). Particularly effective are the opening movement of 44:42, where the Renaissance-style imitation involves all seven parts (Example 5.24), and the middle movement of 44:43, which recalls 50:4/i by commencing with six-part canonic imitation over pedal tones (producing hypnotizing I–vii9–I alternations). Fast movements rely heavily on antiphonal contrast as a structural principle. In 44:41/ii, for example, the recorders and oboes trade off a principal theme and an array of motives, while the violins counter with a running-eighth figure that becomes increasingly interwoven with the winds’ material. Alternating between three-, five-, and seven-voice textures, the movement ends with a long tutti passage. The finale of the same sonata and the second movement of 44:42 are constructed as fugues in which each subject entry is stated by instrument pairs in thirds. This simulated four-part scoring allows for greater transparency of texture and facilitates rapid alternations between the three antiphonal groups. Illustrated in Example 5.25 is the close antiphonal exchange functioning as a kind of refrain throughout the opening movement of 44:43 (note the modally inflected A-flat in mm. 2 and 4 and the motoric continuo eighths). Following a modulation to the

264 The Sonatas example 5.24. Concerto in A minor for two recorders, two oboes, two violins, and continuo, 44:42/i, mm. 1–6 Adagio   Recorder 1

Recorder 2

Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Violin 1

Violin 2

Continuo

4



 c c  c c c  c c

                                                

     

     

            

 

                                         

                                                             

dominant, the second musical paragraph leads from a transposed version of the opening to new imitative figures and a close in the mediant. A brief caesura then returns us to a modified version of the opening paragraph in the tonic. Both the use of a refrain-like idea and modified da capo form are redolent of Telemann’s early solo concertos, so ritornello form may have been one inspiration for the movement. The work’s finale, like that of 44:42, is a binary dance. This giga refers to both of the preceding movements: it is in the modified da capo form of the opening Allegro (the A⬘ section also functions as the binary form’s rounded portion) and includes six-part canonic imitation harking back to the Largo.

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 265 example 5.25. Concerto in B-flat for three oboes, three violins, and continuo, 44:43/i, mm. 1–7 Allegro  Oboe 1

Oboe 2

Oboe 3

Violin 1

Violin 2

Violin 3

Continuo

  c      c        c      c        c       c      c    

                                                            4





                   



                                        

                                       

                                        

                                        



                            

Two Parisian Piracies To conclude his 1740 autobiography, Telemann listed the collections of his music that had appeared in print since the beginning of his publishing activities in 1715, among them a collection identified as “6 trios for two transverse flutes and continuo, engraved in Paris from a stolen manuscript.”82 This was undoubtedly the Six sonates en trio dans le goust italien (42:A2, d2, D4, e1, G12, c1) for flute, violin or flute, and continuo, published without attribution by François Boivin between 1731 and 1733.83 That Boivin appears to have sold the anonymous col-

266 The Sonatas

lection largely by the appeal of its title is surely a reflection of France’s preoccupation with the goût italien, though a later reprint (for flutes, violins, or oboes) did name the composer. Alone among the Parisian editions of Telemann’s music issued through the 1730s, the Six sonates had not previously been published by the composer. Boivin’s source for the music is unknown, but it seems that the trios had been circulating in manuscript sets for some time. Scribal copies at Darmstadt (for two violins) and Stockholm (for two flutes) replace 42:G12 with 42:G3, a sonata that is in fact stylistically more of a piece with the other five works. These copies may therefore better represent Telemann’s conception of the collection than the Six sonates. At Dresden, however, copies by Pisendel and others (for two violins or flute and violin) show that the six trios as published by Boivin were transmitted together, and it is probably here that Quantz first encountered them (see Table 5.1). Although the trios have a flute-like range (d⬘–e⵮), they are very much in the Italian idiom of the violin trios discussed above. We may therefore tentatively place them during the Eisenach or early Frankfurt years, and in any case before the Six trio of 1718. In the Darmstadt/Stockholm version of the set, all trios save for 42:d2 have fugues as their first fast movements. As with the early violin trios, most of these fugues have thematic bass lines and feature stretti. The C-minor and A-major fugues also include canonic passages, as do a number of non-fugal movements throughout the set; the C-minor trio’s binary finale is in fact strictly canonic at the unison. Several opening slow movements, including the A-major “Cantabile” and D-major “Soave,” are in the Affettuoso style. Among the most unusual interior slow movements is the A-major Lento, which resembles the “Largo e staccato” of the C-major concerto for four violins, 40:203, in having an arpeggiated accompaniment but no real melody in the upper parts. Some time between 1752 and 1760, the Parisian publisher Charles Nicolas Le Clerc issued a set of six Telemann quartets for flute, violin, viola, and continuo under the title Quatrième livre de quatuors (43:D4, F1, A4, C1, G5, d2).84 This was indeed the fourth collection of Telemann quartets to be published in Paris, and the first since the Nouveaux quatuors of 1738. The publication was almost certainly unauthorized, for it consists of rather clumsy arrangements of works originally scored for four-part strings. These string versions are transmitted in nine manuscripts at Darmstadt and Dresden copied between 1710 and 1735.85 Le Clerc’s flute part is filled with simple octave transpositions designed to avoid pitches below d⬘, the lowest note on the one-key transverse flute. Because the other parts are not adjusted accordingly, themes are often heard in two substantially different versions; such discrepancies are particularly noticeable in fugal movements. Le Clerc also standardized tempo indications (“Adagio” for slow movements, “Alle-

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 267 example 5.26. Quatrième livre de quatuors no. 1/i, mm. 1–2 Adagio 

   c                 Violin/Violin 2   c  Alto Viola   c                 (Quatrième Livre ) Viola   c         (Darmstadt)       Continuo  c  Flute/Violin 1

E

                        

gro” for fast movements), switched common or cut time to 2/4 in half a dozen movements, suppressed dynamic indications, and changed articulations and bass figures. There are also some alterations that suggest the hand of a skilled musician: more widely spaced harmonies at final cadences, effective rhythmic alterations or regularizations, octave transpositions not motivated by instrumental range, and filling-in of rests in the viola part (Quartet 6/i). The most substantial variant reading occurs in Quartet 1/i, a rhythmically embellished harmonic movement. Here the original viola line, functioning as a harmonic filler, is replaced by one that reinforces the undulating texture of the upper voices (Example 5.26). Stylistically, the Quatrième livre quartets reflect Telemann’s Italian idiom of 1708–15. Five of six fugues in the collection are in four voices, paralleling Telemann’s preference for thematic bass lines in the fugal movements of his early violin trios and the Six sonates en trio dans le goust italien. As in many of the trios, several quartet movements lack a distinct countersubject, presumably in the interest of highlighting subject entries and maintaining a transparent texture. However, Quartets 2/ii and 5/ii are more contrapuntally rigorous, exploring different contrapuntal combinations in near-continuous subject entries; the latter movement consistently joins the subject with two contrasting countersubjects. Most of the fugal movements have distinctive, tuneful subjects, while many episodes consist of display figuration typical of Telemann’s early concertos and trios. The episodes in Quartet 1/ii include pedal tones and tremolos, as well as the kind of “durchbrochene Arbeit” found in a number of other fast movements (Example 5.27). Formal and stylistic references to the concerto appear, as mentioned in chapters 3 and 6, in Quartets 4/iv and 6/ii. The only example of the mixed taste in the collection marks one of Telemann’s earliest and, it must be said, most awkward experiments in combining the Italian and French styles within a movement. In

268 The Sonatas example 5.27. Quatrième livre de quatuors no. 1/ii, mm. 58–66

   43          43        3     4     43        58

Flute

Violin

Viola

Continuo



7

                      

61





 





        

64



 

7

7

¿

7#

#

7

¿

   







E



                                                         



 













E

                                



            









    6 5

D

         6

6 5

#

Quartet 3/iv a trio-like imitative texture is interrupted briefly by a chaconne topic with a descending-tetrachord ostinato bass (Example 5.28). Heard only in the movement’s first half, this reference to the French style (or at least to the dance itself) comes across as strangely disruptive. Some of the most interesting movements in the Quatrième livre are in slow tempos. Quartet 2/i, for example, is an accompanied instrumental recitative for flute/ violin. Although this movement, reproduced in Example 5.29, remains remarkably close to its vocal models in consisting of short, unadorned phrases and stock rhythmic, melodic, and cadential formulas (note especially the descending fourth and delayed cadence in the last measure), the abundance of wide leaps suggests an instrumental, rather than vocal, idiom. Harmonically, it does not aim to shock in the

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 269 example 5.28. Quatrième livre de quatuors no. 3/iv, mm. 13–22

    43                 43        3     4   43    13

Flute

Violin

Viola Continuo



                                   17



6

7

6

  











6

              6

6 6 4 3 5

      

                                             

6 4

7

6

7

6

manner of the instrumental recitatives discussed in chapter 3. Strong allusions to arioso style appear in Quartets 1/iii and 4/iii; in the latter movement, the highest voice seems to shift its identity back and forth between “singer” (mm. 1–3, 6–7, 10–12) and “orchestral” first violin (mm. 4–5, 7–10). Other slow movements vary widely in expressive range and texture: several, in the Affettuoso style, are essentially trio movements with an accompanimental viola part (Quartets 2/iii, 3/iii, 6/i), and the first movement of Quartet 5 invokes the strict style or stile antico.

The Frankfurt Sonata Publications Telemann published five collections of music at his own expense in Frankfurt: the Italianate Six sonates à violon seul, dedicated on 14 March 1715 (the composer’s thirty-fourth birthday) to the teenaged Prince Johann Ernst of Sachsen-Weimar; Die kleine Cammer-Music, solo suites inscribed on 24 September 1716 to the oboists François La Riche, Johann Christian Richter, Peter Glösch, and Johann Michael Böhm; Johann Ernst’s Six concerts à violon concertant, dedicated on 1 February 1718 to the now deceased prince; the Six trio, bearing a June 1718 dedication to Duke Friedrich II of Sachsen-Gotha; and the Sei suonatine per violino e cembalo,

270 The Sonatas example 5.29. Quatrième livre de quatuors no. 2/i Adagio 

     c                             c                 c   c    

Flute

Violin

Viola

Continuo

6 4

6 4

___________________

8

À

À

                                

          

5



 



 

___________________

¿

6 4

5 #

6

D

D

             7

6§ 5

7 #

                                                            9



E

E

7

7 §

                                                   13



7

6 4

À

_____________________

E

D

6 4

7

           6

7

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 271

dedicated on 18 September 1718 to Count Heinrich XI Reuß zu Schleiz. Telemann’s role in the physical production of these editions was apparently no more than supervisory. He hired an anonymous engraver to produce the Six sonates à violon seul and the accomplished Frankfurt engraver Benjamin Kenckel for both the Sei suonatine and Six trio.86 Die kleine Cammer-Music, on the other hand, used the movable type of Johann Andreae, who printed most of the texts to Telemann’s vocal music at Frankfurt. (By 1727–28 the composer had apparently run out of copies of this collection and found the plates for the Six sonates à violon seul to be worn out or damaged, for he now issued engraved second editions of both.) In his dedicatory Avertissement to the Six concerts à violon concertant, following a title page with an elaborately engraved cartouche celebrating the late prince’s musical and military attainments, Telemann explains that Johann Ernst undertook to engrave the collection himself but died (in Frankfurt on 1 August 1715) without having the pleasure of seeing it completed, and before he could embark on a sequel collection. In the end, Telemann appears to have hired a professional engraver to execute the plates.87 Little is known about his marketing and distribution strategies at Frankfurt, but he did arrange for the booksellers Kloss in Leipzig and Sellius in Halle to sell the Six sonates à violon seul (as noted following the edition’s preface), for Andreae to sell the Sei suonatine, and for all five editions to be sold at the 1718 Leipzig trade fairs.88 The fact that three of four sonata collections were dedicated to aristocratic patrons seems to reflect the transitional nature of Telemann’s career during the 1710s. Although no longer dependent on such patronage for his livelihood, the composer had only recently left courtly life and was still actively sought after as a Kapellmeister. In fact, he continued to hold this post in absentia at the Eisenach court and would accumulate others after moving to Hamburg. Apart from the potential monetary benefits, offering printed collections to such powerful individuals was one way to maintain contact with a musical world that he might return to one day. And if Telemann employed the embarrassingly deferential language typical of composers’ dedications at the time, this was necessary to ensure that the dedicatee saw himself as the music’s “primordial inspiration and first author,” that is, as a composer in his own right.89 By contrast, most of the Hamburg publications—issued at a time when Telemann was much further removed from the yoke of absolutism—are dedicated to influential but less powerful citizens or, more frequently, to no one at all. In the case of Prince Johann Ernst of Sachsen-Weimar, Telemann was praising an amateur composer who had already written a number of concertos (see chapter 3). The Six sonates à violon seul (41:g1, D1, h1, G1, a1, A1) were simultaneously a reflection of the prince’s well-developed taste for Italian music and an

272 The Sonatas

homage to Corelli’s sonatas, the invocation of which in a composer’s first opus had by then become commonplace. Both the inclusion of sonatas da chiesa and da camera and the presence of florid passaggi in the collection’s opening movement (see Figure 7.4) suggest the influence of Corelli’s op. 5 and the published solos by Albinoni, Michele Mascitti, Vivaldi, and others that they inspired.90 As in his trios alla francese, Telemann imposes a standard slow–fast–slow–fast plan on each sonata (the da camera ones observe the traditional ordering of allemanda–corrente–sarabanda–giga). None of the sonatas makes many demands on the violinist’s technique, and in fact multiple-stopping is generally avoided; this is music accessible to most amateurs. The evident popularity of the Six sonates à violon seul motivated not only Telemann’s Hamburg reprint, but also John Walsh’s pirated London edition of 1722 (Solos for a Violin . . . compos’d by Georgio Melande).91 Stylistically, the solos are a mixture of conservative and progressive elements. Replacing the expected fugal movements in the da chiesa works are binary allegros, some having a lightly imitative texture and others displaying a galant rhythmic variety foreign to the Corellian tradition. One fast movement (Sonata 3/iv) imitates the Vivaldian concerto allegro (see chapter 6), while another (Sonata 4/iv) brings to mind the first movement of Corelli’s op. 5, no. 1, in its brokenchord figuration over a continuo pedal.92 Two interior slow movements (Sonatas 1/iii and 3/iii) recall the early Dresden trios in being built upon ostinato basses. Gestures toward the mixed taste are relatively few, but Swack rightly observes that the allemandas of the sonatas da camera look more to the French keyboard suite than to the Italian sonata.93 In a similar vein, the “sarabanda” of Sonata 6 is actually a French sarabande. Most interesting from a generic standpoint are a pair of movements (Sonatas 3/i and 4/iii) that evoke the motto aria by separating two statements of a head motive with a brief continuo solo. Example 5.30 shows the beginning of an instrumental aria di siciliana, where there is also an opening ritornello for the continuo. Underscoring the generic allusion is the stereotypical prolonged pitch for the “singer,” who, in an operatic context, might thrill the audience with a messa di voce. Eighteen years later, in the Musique de table, Telemann seems to have referenced this movement at the beginning of his solo for flute and continuo, 41:h4, where we again find the B-minor tonality, 6/4 meter, expression marking of “Cantabile,” opening continuo ritornello, and entrance of the “singer” with a prolonged F-sharp (Example 5.31). The Musique de table movement is, to be sure, a more sophisticated treatment of this material: the ritornello is richer melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically; and the flute begins its second entrance not with the motto, but with material drawn from the ritornello. Yet Telemann evidently found his earlier work an inspirational starting point.

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 273 example 5.30. Six sonates à violon seul no. 3/i, mm. 1–18 Cantabile

      46   46                     

Violin

+



Continuo

6

#

+

6

¿

+





6

#

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6

6

#

                                   

5



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7 6 4

6

#







5 3



5

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#

#

                          

10





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+

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

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#

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

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#

                  



+

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6

+

5

6



¿

 



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6

4 2

#

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16

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+

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6 4

  5 3

The four oboists to whom Telemann dedicated Die kleine Cammer-Music (41:B1, G2, c1, g2, e1, Es1) were all well-known to him. La Riche (1662–ca. 1733) had been a member of the Dresden Hofkapelle since 1699, and Telemann heard him and the Berlin musician Glösch during visits to the latter city between 1702 and 1706. Richter (1689–1744), a student of La Riche and the apparent dedicatee of Telemann’s E-minor oboe concerto, worked at Dresden from 1709. Böhm (ca. 1685–1755 or later) trained at Dresden, presumably under La Riche, then joined the Darmstadt Hofkapelle; he eventually became Telemann’s brother-in-law. In 1716 Glösch and Böhm performed under the composer in Frankfurt.94 Inspired by these players, Telemann designed Die kleine Cammer-Music to flatter the oboe while accommodating the musician of modest skill. As he noted in the collection’s preface:

274 The Sonatas example 5.31. Solo in B minor for flute and continuo, 41:h4/i (Musique de table, Production 1), mm. 1–9 Cantabile Flute

Continuo



 6 4

 6 4









    



  

 



6

6

¿

6

6

¿

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#

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

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#

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#

4 

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        

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7 

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6

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To this end I have kept the ambitus as narrow as possible, and avoided both excessively wide leaps and notes that are covered and uncomfortable, but have sought often to include the brilliant notes that nature has placed in various locations on this delicate instrument. Apart from this, I have cultivated brevity in the arias, partly to husband the player’s energy and partly to avoid tiring the listener’s ear through length. Regarding the harmony, I must confess that there is little or nothing chromatic, but only natural and ordinary progressions. This, however, was designed to please those—making up the majority—who have not yet come very far in the study of music. Enfin, I have endeavored to present something for everyone’s taste.95

The mixed taste of the collection is reflected in the Italian movement titles and tempo indications of its French partitas. Each suite follows an Italianate “Preludio” (a title omitted in the Hamburg second edition) with six “Arias,” mostly dances and airs in binary or rondeau form that are equally reflective of the Italian and French styles. Prelude 1 imitates the motto aria (the double-motto opening is heard twice), whereas the second and third preludes are through-composed dances: a siciliana and sarabanda, the latter similar to those in the early Dresden solos and trios and the Six sonates à violon seul. Preludes 4 and 5 are in the learned style: the former references the stile antico, with a chromatic subject stated almost continuously and presented occasionally in stretto, and the latter is a more modern fugue. Finally, Prelude 6 is a sonata-like Affettuoso. The outward similarity of the prelude-suite scheme to that of the overturesuite probably inspired the partitas’ arrangement for four-part strings, oboes, and

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 275 example 5.32. Kleine Cammer-Music no. 3/vii, mm. 1–12 Oboe

Continuo

Aria 6. Presto     c                           c     6§

6§

6

6

§

                                        

4

§

6

6

6§

6

6

b

                              

9



b

¿

¿

6

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#

bassoon in a series of Darmstadt manuscript copies (55:B2, G11, c3, g3, e6, Es5). Swack has shown that two of these manuscripts originated in Leipzig with Johann Samuel Endler during the period 1717–22, indicating that the arrangements were undertaken soon after the publication of Die kleine Cammer-Music.96 Telemann himself appears to have been the arranger, for each partita is preceded by an overture that is found in no other source.97 To expand the scoring from two to four parts, he added unobtrusive second violin and viola lines that mainly fill out the harmony. Yet these parts occasionally provide some fine touches of orchestration, such as the lively second violin line in the B-flat prelude. In the Cminor and G-minor overtures, Telemann seems to have endeavored to reflect the preludes’ old-fashioned styles and somber affects; both second sections feature alternations of close imitation and homophony that recall his earliest overtures. In all but the C-minor and B-flat major arrangements, winds double strings throughout and play solos during overtures. Exceptional is the G-minor partita, where Telemann provides independent wind writing in nearly every movement. To return to the original versions of the partitas, the arias are well-crafted miniatures displaying melodic grace, rhythmic vitality, and not a little wit. Aria 6 of the third partita, a binary bourrée, epitomizes this last quality (Example 5.32). The first four-measure phrase is almost comically fast out of the gate, with a galloping rhythm. But in measures 5–8 Telemann gives a few tugs on the reins, momentarily slowing the movement’s progress through quarter-rest pauses before the headlong rush continues toward the dominant cadence in measure 12. Even the briefest of movements may contain more art than necessary to please the Liebhaber. A case in point is Aria 5 of the fourth partita, one of the collection’s catchiest tunes (Example 5.33, bottom two staves). The movement begins with two sequential

276 The Sonatas example 5.33. Kleine Cammer-Music no. 4/vi Violin (55:g3)

Oboe

Continuo

Aria 5. A tempo giusto      c                  c              c        



6 5

5 4

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6

3

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5 4

6 5

6

3

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

4 2

6

                                                                     5



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6

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b

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        ¿

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 277

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

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measures built on a repeated-note figure in which B-flat and C are first reiterated then circled about. Contrast in measures 3–4 takes the form of more disjunct melodic motion, wider range, and legato articulation; note, however, the accompanimental E-flats echoing the reiterated pitches of measures 1–2. This much is repeated in the movement’s second half. But the dominant cadence in measure 8 elides with a final phrase that commences in the continuo and features close, twopart imitation. The imitative figure is derived from the second halves of measures 3 and 7, and through its frequent changes of melodic direction initiates chromatic ascents in four implied contrapuntal voices (in the melody instrument: A–B –B–C–C
–D and E–F–F
–G; in the continuo, with octave displacement: F–F
–G–A –A–B  and D–E –E–F). As the two parts join for the approach to the final cadence in measure 11, the continuo makes two further chromatic ascents. Telemann must have thought highly of this little dance, for it is the only one in the collection honored with a double in the overture-suite arrangements (Example 5.33, top staff). The dedication of the Six trio (42:B1, a1, G1, D1, g1, F1) to Friedrich II, Duke of Sachsen-Gotha (1676–1732), may have been intended to smooth over a delicate situation. Telemann had visited Gotha and been offered the vacant post of Kapellmeister by the duke in 1716 but decided to return to Frankfurt instead. When the offer was renewed in September or October 1717, Telemann used it as an opportunity to request additional church singers and an increase in salary from the Frankfurt town council.98 Friedrich II never did get his man—Telemann permanently turned his back on courtly life after moving to Frankfurt—but the Six trio may have helped ease his disappointment. The composer’s dedication praises the duke for expressing “so delicately the choicest sentiments on the harpsichord” and writing them “so fluently on paper.” He further mentioned the duke’s compositions in an undated poem published in 1719 and recalled in his 1740 autobiography that Friedrich II “knew almost as much about music as I did.”99

278 The Sonatas

The music of the Six trio, though predominantly Italianate in style, is marked by the same kind of eclecticism as the later Essercizii musici (Hamburg, ca. 1725). Each trio calls for a different combination of melody instruments (violin paired with oboe, recorder, flute, second violin, viola da gamba, and bassoon or cello), an encyclopedic approach to scoring that must have seemed novel in 1718. Indeed, the third trio is apparently the first music for transverse flute published in Germany, and the sixth makes use of bass instruments that were seldom given an obbligato role in trios. Although certain movements recall types in the Dresden manuscript trios and Six sonates en trio dans le goust italien, others are more strongly informed by the galant style. The presence of only three fugues in the collection is symptomatic of its emphasis on homophony. The third movement of Trio 6, a bourrée or rigaudon, includes what may be the earliest instance in Telemann’s instrumental music of the so-called Lombard (reverse-dotted) rhythm, first used liberally by him in Pimpinone (1725) and an integral part of his musical language by the early 1730s.100 That the Lombardic taste would have been regarded as progressive in 1718 is confirmed by Quantz, who credits Vivaldi with introducing it in Italy around 1722.101 Also pointing ahead to Telemann’s Hamburg sonatas is the second movement of Trio 6, a pastoral rondeau in which the refrains are not all confined to the tonic. Movements alluding to the concerto and aria are especially prominent in the Six trio. As discussed in chapter 6, Trios 1/i and 3/ii make clear references to the Vivaldian concerto allegro. In the first movement of Trio 2, the link between Affettuoso style and the operatic aria is made explicit when the recorder, assuming the role of soprano, enters with a breathless double motto to the accompaniment of the violin’s rhythmically unsettled ostinato (Example 5.34). The scoring here for “flute,” string ostinato, and continuo support bears comparison with the first movement of 43:d3 (Example 5.10). Opening Trio 5 is a more conventional duet with basso ostinato: the violin and viola da gamba engage in a quasi-canonic dialogue over repeated-note figures in the continuo. Twice in the movement’s course, intermediate cadences are approached by an expressive vii42–V–I progression; at the third iteration, which functions as a codetta, Telemann allows the root and seventh of the vii42 sonority to clash in the melody instruments as an (at first unharmonized) augmented second. But not all of the collection’s music is so bold or stylistically up-to-date. The third movement of Trio 5, for example, is a Corellian Adagio with “leapfrogging” suspension chains over a walking bass. The nature of Telemann’s relationship to Count Heinrich XI Reuß zu Schleiz (1669–1726), the dedicatee of the Sei suonatine, remains obscure. But we learn from the dedication that the composer had previously enjoyed the count’s patronage. Musically, the collection (41:A2, B2, D2, G3, E1, F1) is the least distinguished

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 279 example 5.34. Six trio no. 2/i, mm. 1–8 Affettuoso    Recorder

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among Telemann’s Frankfurt publications. Little attempt is made to provide “something for everyone’s taste”: the extremely brief sonatas (hence the diminutive “sonatina”) mostly avoid the kind of stylistic and generic mixture characteristic of the Six sonates à violon seul, Die kleine Cammer-Music, and the Six trio. This is superficially charming music in an Italianate style that would probably have appealed mainly to Liebhaber: the minor mode is avoided except in a few interior slow movements, textures are predominantly homophonic, and most movements have simple binary forms (the few rondeaus include only a single couplet). Instead of a more or less rigid distinction between da chiesa and da camera works, as in the

280 The Sonatas

Six sonates à violon seul, the sonatinas freely mix “abstract” and dance movements, the latter including examples of the bourrée, corrente, gavotta, giga, menuet, sarabanda, and sarabande (this last being one of the collection’s few nods to the mixed taste). The only unconventional movement is the third of Sonatina 5, a brief arioso that recalls those in the Quatrième livre de quatuors. Tapping into the large, European-wide market for such uncomplicated music were the reprint editions of Le Cène in Amsterdam (1724 or 1725) and Le Clerc in Paris (1737). The pastoral frontispiece of the Sei suonatine, designed by “Gioseppe de Angeli” and engraved by Kenckel, merits some attention here for its rich, emblematic narrative, which may be decoded with the aid of Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (Figure 5.4).102 To the right of center in the engraving is the androgynous figure of praise or fame, the trumpet proclaiming, in Ripa’s words, the “Reputation of those who deserve Praise,” and the wings perhaps indicating the speed at which praise redounds to Telemann.103 She or he holds a banner on which is written the collection’s title, composer, and date. The viewer’s gaze is drawn from this outstretched arm to the upper right-hand corner of the engraving, where perched on a hill is a figure playing a lyre—music personified. At left of center, the altar with a flame kindled upon it represents divine inspiration, the flames themselves Telemann’s constant activity, and the heart that is not consumed by the flames (with the initials “G. F. T.” for Giorgio Filippo Telemann) the enduring value of his music. Above, two putti sprinkle flower petals onto the heart. Four naked children at left likely symbolize genius, that is, the “Inclination to something, for the Pleasure it affords.”104 The open books they study are an emblem of learning, and the pages show—as in the frontispieces to Biber’s Sonatæ a Violino Solo, Corelli’s op. 5, and Mascitti’s op. 1—the opening measures of the collection’s first sonatina. But beyond this common visual conceit, Telemann provides a sign of his erudition: the sonatina’s theme is presented with a countersubject (a variant of the bass accompaniment) shown to be invertible at the twelfth, then is melodically inverted against the countersubject, and finally is played against itself in retrograde. This is heady stuff for an unassuming galant theme, and as one writer has suggested, Telemann may have intended this token of his contrapuntal prowess to demonstrate the compatibility of the natural and learned styles, and that complexity ought not to be eschewed by those who favor the simple and agreeable.105 (In 1728Telemann reprinted this ingenious demonstration in his music journal Der getreue Music-Meister as “contrapuntal variations on the first measure of the Telemann sonatina.”) The Roman wine pitcher in the foreground, separating the theme-countersubject and its inversion, underscores the symmetry and elegance of Telemann’s contrapuntal play, and indeed both pages and pitcher are placed directly at the center of the engraving’s horizontal plane. If the Sei suonatine are among Telemann’s least significant works, the Frankfurt

Five “Something for Everyone’s Taste” 281

figure 5.4. Frontispiece to Telemann’s Sei suonatine per violino e cembalo (Frankfurt, 1718)

sonatas as a whole reveal his mixed taste and galant style beginning to crystallize. The same process is seen in the quartets of the later 1710s and 1720s. Sonatas from the previous decade, on the other hand, tend to focus more narrowly on the Italian style (the Dresden solos and trios, Six sonates en trio dans le goust italien, and Quatrième livre de quatuors), the French style (the trios alla francese), or an Italo-German stylistic mixture (the sonatas and “concertos” in five and seven parts) that occasionally involves French elements à la Muffat (50:4 and 53:g1). Lest these observations be taken to imply that Telemann’s Frankfurt and early Hamburg sonatas are inherently more effective works than their predecessors, we should recall that some of the most striking music discussed in this chapter was composed during the Eisenach years or earlier. Quantz’s midcentury advocacy of the trios alla francese and the contemporaneous publication of the Quatrième livre de quatuors both speak to the lasting appeal of such stylistically “pure” works from decades past. As a postscript to our survey of Telemann’s sonatas, it is worth noting that approximately fifty trios and a dozen solos preserved in scribal copies appear to fall into the decade or so after the Frankfurt sonata publications. Although Telemann must have written many of these works for professional court musicians or collegia musica, the relatively uncomplicated style of others suggests their function for amateur music making. And because none displays the most progressive stylistic features of the Hamburg publications, we may surmise that from the late 1720s onward Telemann was publishing most of his newly written sonatas. More than a little of this music might be singled out for discussion here, but we may form a general impression of the repertory through seventeen trios with viola da gamba preserved at Darmstadt.

282 The Sonatas

Like the string quintets and the works later published as the Six sonates en trio dans le goust italien and Quatrième livre de quatuors, many of these trios fall into sets according to scoring, style, and manuscript transmission. Nine works for either recorder or oboe, treble viol (“dessus de viole”), and continuo were copied by several Darmstadt scribes during the 1720s (42:C2, c3, d7, e5, F6, G8, g6, g9, A10). Their style, reminiscent of the Six trio and Essercizii musici, suggests that they were composed around 1718–25. As the inclusion of a solo for treble viol (41:G6) in Der getreue Music-Meister suggests, the instrument was cultivated by amateur musicians in northern Germany during this period, even as it was rapidly falling into disuse in France.106 Yet it is unclear whether Telemann actually intended the trios for treble viol: the range of the parts is narrow enough to allow for performance on most treble instruments, and there are no instances of multiple stops (as there are in 41:G6). These are brief and attractive works in the galant style, the most noteworthy among them being 42:C2, where the recorder and treble viol are strictly canonic throughout all four movements. Especially interesting as an example of the mixed taste is the finale of 42:d7, a gavotte en rondeau in which the refrain places French dance rhythms above an Italianate running bass, and the couplets represent the French, Italian, and Polish styles; we shall return to this movement in chapter 9. Six more trios, for violin, bass viola da gamba, and continuo, were copied together by Endler during the late 1730s or 1740s (42:E6, E7, F10, G10, g10, g11); two companion works have similar scorings of flute and viola da gamba (42:a7) and violin and viola (42:h6). Although more substantial than the trios with treble viol, these eight works may be roughly contemporary with them. Fast movements are predominantly fugal, with the subjects usually confined to the obbligato voices; slow movements are often in the Affettuoso mode. Particularly attractive is the A-minor trio, where vigorous, three-voice fugues are balanced by beautifully expressive slow movements featuring the heightened rhythmic variety and drum basses associated with the galant style. The standout from a generic standpoint is 42:E6, which surrounds a slow movement cast as an operatic duet with two fast movements in concerto style. This unusual scheme furnishes yet another example of the generic cross-fertilization we have observed throughout this chapter. It is to such amalgamations of sonata, concerto, and aria that we turn next in chapter 6.

Chapter 6 Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart

Perhaps no musical works fascinate us more than those speaking in multiple tongues, for music that refers to more than one style or genre not only poses a conceptual challenge to the listener, but also invites a number of intriguing historical and aesthetic questions. Were these multiple levels of meaning intended by the composer and perceived by early audiences? If so, how might they have subverted the so-called generic contract set up between composer and listener, whereby the two tacitly agree on which gestures and patterns signify a particular genre?1 To what extent did a given work redefine its type? What concerns prompted the composer’s mixing of styles or genres? Nowhere do such questions resonate more deeply than in the case of the Sonate auf Concertenart, a “bilingual” genre in which the scoring and imitative textures of the sonata are crossed with gestures and structures evocative of the concerto. Popular for a brief time, mainly during the 1720s and 1730s, the Sonate auf Concertenart is described only once in the eighteenth-century theoretical literature—by Johann Adolph Scheibe, who coined the term in a 1740 issue of his Hamburg journal, Der critische Musikus. Because Scheibe tells us considerably less about the genre than we might wish to know, and because his description is unsupported by even a single title page identifying a concerto-style sonata as such, evidence for how these works were understood at the time of their composition is rather thin on the ground. Indeed, if one views genre as dependent on composer and audience agreeing upon and using a particular term to describe a certain set of musical characteristics, then the generic status of the Sonate auf Concertenart is marginal at best. Yet to the degree that genre is conceived as a flexible construct, as a constantly evolving social phenomenon in which meaning may be conveyed between composer and audience without the mediation of labels, the sonata in concerto style lays a stronger claim to being a distinct type. There is, as we shall see, documentary and musical evidence to suggest that a kind of generic contract allowed early eighteenth-century composers to play on listeners’ expectations of what 283

284 The Sonatas

constituted a sonata versus a concerto. And if the meanings generated by such play are difficult to reconstruct almost three centuries later, it is not only because they were rarely verbalized: the contract’s terms undoubtedly crystallized in varying forms and at varying rates from one locale to the next. Most composers, performers, and listeners seem to have recognized the concerto as intrinsically different from the sonata by the 1710s, but that difference could be expressed or heard in a number of ways. Scheibe’s description of the Sonate auf Concertenart might have remained obscure were it not for the fact that a handful of works by J. S. Bach can be mapped onto it, albeit with differing degrees of success. During the 1980s Michael Marissen and Laurence Dreyfus identified the sonata in A major for flute and obbligato harpsichord, BWV 1032, and the sonata in G minor for viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord, BWV 1029, as especially sophisticated examples of the Sonate auf Concertenart.2 Jeanne Swack subsequently showed that Bach’s works (also including the E-major violin sonata, BWV 1016, and the flute sonatas in B minor, E-flat major, and E minor, BWV 1030–31 and 1034) belong to a modest repertory of sonatas in concerto style composed by his north German colleagues over a period of several decades.3 Bach, therefore, did not so much invent the genre as rigorously explore certain of its characteristics. More recently, David Schulenberg has sought to problematize the study of this repertory by arguing that modern commentators have read too much into Scheibe’s discussion—that, in fact, by recognizing the Sonate auf Concertenart as a distinct genre, we are imposing postmodernist values onto works that during the eighteenth century would not have been recognized as purposeful amalgamations of sonata and concerto.4 Postmodern or not, recognition of the Sonate auf Concertenart as a compositional type has given rise to some unconventional interpretations of Bach’s music. Klaus Hofmann hypothesizes that the Second Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1047, was originally conceived as a “concerto da camera” alla Vivaldi for recorder, oboe, violin, trumpet, and continuo, the ripieno string parts having been added at some point prior to Bach’s copying of the dedicatory score for the Margrave of Brandenburg.5 For Gregory Butler, the first movement of the Fourth Brandenburg Concerto, BWV 1049, is packed with generic allusions to the solo concerto (Albinoni and Vivaldi), the concerto grosso (Corelli and Muffat), the “chamber concerto” (Vivaldi again), and the trio sonata (Bach himself). The influence of the last two genres inspires him to turn Scheibe’s terminology on its head and describe the work as a concerto “nach Sonatenart.”6 Finally, the sonata in C minor for flute, violin, and continuo from Das musicalische Opfer, BWV 1079, is interpreted by Michael Marissen as a Sonate auf Concertenart

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 285

because the second movement’s fugal subject can be parsed as a Vivaldian ritornello.7 Without denying that each of these readings illuminates fascinating aspects of Bachian style, I would propose that some of the premises underlying their conceptions of the Sonate auf Concertenart are open to question. Perhaps the most deeply rooted of these premises is that the so-called chamber concertos of Vivaldi exerted a powerful influence on Bach and his German colleagues, and that the Sonate auf Concertenart came into being as a direct reaction to these works and Vivaldi’s solo concertos. A related one is that sonatas in concerto style were almost exclusively the province of German composers active in Thuringia or Saxony—especially those with connections to the Dresden court, an important center for Vivaldi reception. Another is that the generic tensions constructed within these works puzzled eighteenth-century musicians to such a degree that they often vacillated over whether to label the music “sonata” or “concerto.” My intent in reexamining each of these premises in this chapter is to fashion an alternative historical narrative of the Sonate auf Concertenart, one that portrays the genre as a rather more multifaceted phenomenon than previously recognized. I shall argue that Vivaldi’s chamber concertos are unlikely to have furnished models for the earliest Sonaten auf Concertenart; that the genre may have arisen in Germany before any of Vivaldi’s concertos—chamber or otherwise—became known there; that sonatas in concerto style were in fact cultivated rather widely, in France as well as in various parts of Germany; that contradictory rubrics of “sonata” and “concerto” on title pages probably did not result from scribal critiques of the music’s mixed generic status; and that, far from being an invention of postmodern criticism, the Sonate auf Concertenart may be situated within an eighteenth-century aesthetic favoring mixed genres. This aesthetic seems to have spanned the whole of the century, and its expression was by no means limited to music. Though the following discussion implicates many composers and compositions, its focal point is the Sonaten auf Concertenart of Telemann. These works, substantial in number, broad in chronological span, and uncommonly resourceful in their resistance of convention, offer a virtual history of the genre in microcosm. By considering them in some detail, I hope to provide something of a counterbalance to studies of Bach’s and Vivaldi’s sonatas in concerto style.

Defining the Sonate auf Concertenart That Scheibe is the only critic of his time to discuss the Sonate auf Concertenart is perhaps symptomatic not only of his zeal for classification—he was the first eigh-

286 The Sonatas

teenth-century writer to provide detailed descriptions of many musical genres, including the sonata, concerto, and symphony—but of his special interest in hybrid types, including two others for which he is also the sole theoretical witness: the Concertouverture (see chapter 1) and the concerto “for one instrument alone” or einstimmiges Concert, exemplified by the Italian Concerto, BWV 971.8 We must also keep sight of the fact that Scheibe was writing at the end of a decade that witnessed a peak of interest in concerto-style sonatas, a peak that had long since subsided when Johann Joachim Quantz published similarly detailed descriptions of musical genres in his Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen of 1752. Then, too, his discussion of mixed genres must have been colored by his contact in Leipzig with the Bach circle and in Hamburg with Telemann. Both composers wrote important examples of the Sonate auf Concertenart, Concertouverture, and einstimmiges Concert, and Telemann published a number of such works in Hamburg in the years immediately preceding and following Scheibe’s arrival there in 1736.9 All in all, the thirty-one-year-old writer was extremely well positioned, both geographically and chronologically, to describe these mixed types of music. Scheibe’s brief observations concerning the Sonate auf Concertenart are scattered throughout his discussion of the instrumental trio: I will first discuss three- and four-part sonatas, of which the former are usually called “trios,” the latter “quartets”; then I will comment upon the others. Both types of sonatas that I will discuss first are properly arranged in one of two ways, namely as proper sonatas or as sonatas in concerto style. . . . The proper essence of [trios] is above all the presence of a regular melody in all parts, especially the upper voices, and a fugal working out. If they are not arranged in concerto style, one may introduce few convoluted and varied passages; rather, there must be a concise, flowing, and natural melody throughout. . . . The ordering that one usually observes in these sonatas is the following. First a slow movement appears, then a fast or lively one; this is followed by a slow movement, and finally a fast and cheerful movement concludes. But now and then one may omit the first, slow movement, and begin immediately with the lively one. One does this particularly if composing sonatas in concerto style. . . . The fast or lively movement that follows [the first, slow movement] is usually worked out in fugal style, if it is not in fact a regular fugue. . . . Should the trio be concerto-like, one [upper] part can be worked out more fully than the other, and thus a number of convoluted, running, and varied passages may be heard. In this case the lowest part can be composed less concisely than in another, regular sonata.10

Thus a sonata in concerto style may have three, rather than the usual four movements (presumably in imitation of concertos); one upper voice that is

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 287

“worked out more fully than the other,” that is, an instrument assuming the role of soloist and accordingly playing contrasting and perhaps virtuosic figurations (“convoluted, running, and varied passages”); and a bass line that is less concise than those in “regular” sonatas. All of this is vague enough that one can hardly resist the temptation to flesh it out interpretatively, though this carries with it the risk of inadvertently narrowing or broadening the terms of such a flexible “definition.” Scheibe is anything but prescriptive, mentioning what one “can” or “may” do in a Sonate auf Concertenart, as if to suggest that a sonata might be concerto-like in other ways as well. Only in the discussion of the trio’s first fast movement does he offer any substantive points of style, and this, combined with his subsequent description of the finale as more pleasant, flowing, charming, and flattering with a concise (bündig) melody, leaves one with the impression that slow and concluding movements are seldom auf Concertenart. This is in fact the case; important exceptions such as BWV 1016/iv and several works by Telemann will be discussed later. Likewise, Scheibe’s failure to mention concerto-style solos for one instrument and continuo is in keeping with the relative scarcity of such pieces. We learn nothing concrete about the structure of auf Concertenart movements, though ritornello form, discussed earlier in Der critische Musikus in connection with the concerto and the einstimmiges Concert, would seem especially well suited to one instrument’s being “worked out more fully than the other.” Because this texture is described within the context of a fugal movement, one wonders if Scheibe envisioned what is now frequently called a concertante fugue, in which solo episodes alternate with tonally closed ritornellos cast as fugal expositions.11 On the other hand, his failure to mention ritornello form could mean that it is primarily a texture emphasizing one upper part—perhaps generating a tutti-solo contrast but not a particular structural pattern—that marks a trio as concerto-like. Why the bass part should be “composed less concisely” in a Sonate auf Concertenart is hard to imagine, unless it is called upon to play “convoluted” solo material (as often happens in einstimmige Concerten). Since Scheibe does not explicitly draw a connection between his two types of “virtual” concertos (the einstimmiges Concert and the Sonate auf Concertenart), the question arises as to how closely related they may have been in the minds of his contemporaries. Swack reasonably speculates that the arrangement of concertos for keyboard, as practiced at Weimar by Bach and Johann Gottfried Walther, may have provided Telemann the impetus to write sonata movements in concerto style.12 In this context, Scheibe’s own participation in the tradition of keyboard arrangements is not without significance, for not only did he make a copy of

288 The Sonatas

Bach’s concerto arrangement BWV 972, but he also transcribed Vivaldi’s concerto op. 3, no. 5 (RV 519). More important, he composed a “Concerto per il Cembalo” that signifies the concerto through motivic gesture, virtuosic figuration, and harmonic scheme even as it shuns ritornello form.13 But equally plausible as a link between the concerto and Sonate auf Concertenart are ensemble arrangements of concertos, such as one made of the eighth violin concerto from Giuseppe Matteo Alberti’s Concerti per chiesa, e per camera, op. 1 (Bologna, 1713). This arrangement, scored for two violins and cembalo, was undertaken around 1715 at the Wiesentheid court of Count Rudolf Franz von Schönborn.14 The parallels between the einstimmiges Concert and the Sonate auf Concertenart seem more immediate when one recognizes that the former was not invariably for solo keyboard. Before Scheibe sings the praises of the Italian Concerto, he notes that “one also writes concertos for one instrument alone, without the accompaniment of others. Keyboard and lute concertos in particular are composed in such a way.”15 Now, a repertory of unaccompanied lute concertos has yet to be identified. But rather than puzzle over the apparent loss of such works, we might consider the possibility that Scheibe was alluding to a practice of extemporaneous transcription. Writing about Sylvius Leopold Weiss in 1727, the lutenist Ernst Gottlieb Baron observed that “he is a great improviser, for he can play extemporaneously the most beautiful themes, or even violin concertos directly from their notation.” Baron also cautions that lute transcriptions, including those of concertos and trios, be fashioned only in the player’s head: “But today, since it has a completely different reputation, transcription should take place only in thought, when someone has heard something pretty, and for this considerable practice is required. The lute is so rich in tone that we need nothing else, and we have many beautiful concertos, trios, and other music that sounds much less forced.”16 Blueprints for writing concertos for unaccompanied melody instrument are furnished by two ritornello-form movements among Telemann’s violin fantasies, published the year before Scheibe arrived in Hamburg.17 And it is Telemann who, in his earlier collection of keyboard fantasies, further underscores the close relationship between the einstimmiges Concert and the Sonate auf Concertenart with two ritornelloform movements that are modeled upon (or provide models for) his own quartets in concerto style.18 Two of Telemann’s einstimmige Concerten provide an appropriate prelude to our consideration of the Sonate auf Concertenart, for they exhibit some of the same compositional strategies commonly employed by their more fully scored relatives. Example 6.1 excerpts one of Telemann’s most elaborate ritornello-form movements for keyboard, published in the VI Ouverturen nebst zween Folgesätzen.19 Here the com-

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 289 example 6.1. Suite in A major for keyboard, 32:6/iii (VI Ouverturen nebst zween Folgesätzen no. 2), mm. 1–23

          cPresto                      c                                                                           

Clavier

6

               

10

             

                                                  

           

15

Solo 1 



p

                             

20

f

poser underscores his generic reference to the concerto allegro by contrasting such stereotypical orchestral gestures as opening hammerstrokes and an all’unisono texture in the ritornellos with lighter “scoring” in the solo episodes. Though it may seem counterintuitive that the ritornello is more virtuosic than the episodes, this reversal of identities invests the former with the gravity or brilliance it would otherwise take on through sheer weight of sound in a conventionally scored concerto.20 In Example 6.2, the beginning of an einstimmiges Concert for solo violin, the ritornello also aspires to a brilliant, orchestral effect through its feigned fugal texture (m. 2), soloistic Fortspinnung, and multiple stops. The first episode is effectively set off from the ritornello by its “running” passages and sparser texture. We immediately sense that the soloist has entered.21

290 The Sonatas example 6.2. Fantasia in B-flat for unaccompanied violin, 40:14/ii (Fantasie per il violino senza basso no. 1), mm. 1–15 Allegro      c                                                                                                                                                                                     

Violin 4

7

10

12

                            

14

Titles as Signifiers of Genre As much as the musical texts of Sonaten auf Concertenart inform us about the nexus between sonata and concerto during the early eighteenth century, their accompanying verbal texts are also potentially valuable guides to how these genres were understood by composers, performers, and audiences. That some composers of Sonaten auf Concertenart found it necessary to alert listeners to the unconventionality of their music is clear from the use of “solo” and “tutti” rubrics and from pointed juxtapositions of “concertos” with “sonatas” or “suites.” This appears to have been the case primarily for published collections, whose broad audience may have needed the music’s generic status spelled out rather clearly. If composers perceived less of a need for verbal signifiers in their unpublished works, it may have been because such bilingual music spoke for itself among a courtly audience well acquainted with the generic conventions of sonatas and concertos. In any event, it seems that neither composers nor the musical Kenner and Liebhaber of the early eighteenth century felt a need, like Scheibe, to coin a hybrid term to describe this hybrid music.

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 291

Or did they? As we observed in chapter 1, at least a few musicians prior to 1740 attempted to describe works crossing the concerto and suite in terms remarkably similar to Scheibe’s Concertouverture. Thus Johann Philipp Eisel called attention to the “Concert-Ouverturen of the famous Kapellmeister Telemann,” a scribe described the overture-suite 55:E3 as a “Concert en Ouverture,” lost works by Johann Christian Hertel were entitled “Ouverture alla Concerto” or “Ouverture alla Concertino,” and title pages to two works by Johann Melchior Molter coined the term “Concerto en Suite.” These are, to be sure, exceptional cases, redolent of Beethoven’s “Sonata quasi una fantasia” (op. 27) and Chopin’s “Polonaise-Fantaisie” (op. 61). But they suggest that formulations similar to Scheibe’s “Sonate auf Concertenart” may not have been unknown. What, then, can we learn from the titles that we do have? Swack sees evidence of copyists’ indecision in several Telemann quartets auf Concertenart identified as both “Sonata” and “Concerto” in manuscript copies (see Tables 6.2 and 6.3 below). Thus one work is transmitted in three manuscript sources, twice as a concerto and once as a sonata (43:G6); two others have sources in which the title of “Concerto” has been carefully altered by a second scribe to read “Sonata” (43:F2/52:F5 and 43:g2); and another, like a trio by Johann David Heinichen, has had its designation of “Concerto” superseded by “Sonata,” sheepishly added in small letters by another hand (43:Es1).22 To these we might add a number of Molter’s four-part works discussed below (called “Sonata,” “Concerto,” or “Concertino”), as well as three Telemann trios with dual genre labels: 42:A9, in which the original designation of “Concerto” is superseded by “Trio”; 42:E6, bearing conflicting titles (“Sonata” on the title page/wrapper, “Concerto” on two of three parts); and 42:G1, published by Telemann as a “Trio” but designated a “Concerto” in a manuscript apparently copied from the print.23 One might be inclined to agree that such conflicting genre labels as these are “symptomatic of the confusion engendered by the hybrid nature of [Sonaten auf Concertenart].”24 But just how confused were the copyists in question? And did their confusion actually stem from critiques of the works’ generic status, from a realization that the music had transgressed the boundaries of its type? It is remarkable, first of all, that nearly every altered title involves the replacement of “Concerto” by “Sonata” or “Trio,” for if the generic ambiguity of Sonaten auf Concertenart was really the source of much head scratching in scribal circles, one would expect to find the reverse just as often. Yet aside from the manuscript copy of 42:G1, copyists of sonatas were evidently not moved to replace “Sonata” or “Trio” with “Concerto,” no matter how clear the ritornello structure or how sharp the distinction between solo and tutti instrumental roles. This suggests that

292 The Sonatas

other motivations lie behind the conflicting titles, a notion that we may put to the test by examining the modest repertory of conventional (that is, non-concertolike) sonatas designated “Concerto.” Consider two further Telemann “concertos”—neither making any obvious references to the concerto through style or structure—that had their names changed after the fact of copying. The trio in A major for two scordatura violins and continuo, Anh. 42:A1, bears the title “CONCERTO / à 3 / 2 Violini Discortati / e / 1 Violone / del Sigr: / MELANTE.” Beneath the “TO” in “CONCERTO,” a second hand has added the word “Sonat” in small letters.25 Because the manuscript was copied by Telemann’s Frankfurt colleague Johann Balthasar König around 1712–15, it is probable that the original title stemmed from the composer; the secondary designation must have been added by a musician at the Darmstadt court. Similarly, at the top of a score to Telemann’s sonata in E minor for two oboes, two violins, two violas, and continuo, 50:4, Christoph Graupner crossed out his original designation of “Concerto” and wrote “Sonata” to the left. Only “Sonata” appears on the score’s title page/wrapper and on Graupner’s accompanying set of parts.26 Conventional trios and quartets with contradictory genre labels like those of 42:E6 are found in manuscript collections at Dresden, Herdringen, Karlsruhe, Rostock, and Wiesentheid. These include two quartets by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel and one by Heinichen, all of which are styled “Sonata” and “Concerto” within single manuscripts; five trios by Molter labeled variously “Sonata,” “Concerto,” or “Sinfonia”; a trio by Ernst Christian (?) Hesse called “Concerto à 3” and “Sonata” by the same copyist; and an anonymous trio that is referred to as both a “Trio” and a “Concerto à 3.”27 Nor, on the other hand, is it difficult to locate sonatas in three to five parts that are unambiguously designated “Concerto” but lack ritornello forms, a single dominant upper part, “orchestral” gestures, and, in many cases, even soloistic figuration that might be associated with concertos. Among such works known to me are two five-part sonatas, nine quartets, and three trios by Telemann; two quartets apiece by “Büchler” (Pichler?) and Johann Friedrich Fasch; one quartet each by Johann Adolf Hasse, Heinichen, and Mathias Nikolaus Stulyck; and one quartet and three trios by anonymous composers.28 Two conclusions may be drawn from this “concerto” repertory. First, to the extent that German musicians considered these works concertos, they were surely using the word not in its narrow, eighteenth-century sense of a work pitting one or more soloists against a larger group, but in its broader, seventeenth-century sense of a piece for instrumental ensemble in which the individual parts work together or “consort” (as in the Italian concertare and the Latin conserere). This older

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 293

sense of “concerto” is reflected in such works as the three-voice “Concerti da camera” of Giovanni Bononcini (op. 2, Bologna, 1685), Giuseppe Torelli (op. 2, Bologna, 1686), and Pirro Albergati (op. 8, Modena, 1702) and survives at least until the 1740s, as witnessed by Rameau’s Pieces de clavecin en concerts (Paris, 1741). Second, it is clear that quartets, whether auf Concertenart or not, were much more likely than trios to be named “Concerto.” (The large number of four-part scorings among the works cited above is all the more striking when one considers how rarified a genre the quartet was during the early eighteenth century.) Apparently many German musicians active during the 1720s and 1730s assumed that a piece for three or more instruments and continuo was a concerto on the basis of the number of parts. Vivaldi, too, reserved the term “concerto” for such works (RV 87–108); his trios with ritornello-form movements are all designated “Sonata” in the autograph sources. For some musicians, sonatas in four or more parts may have been “concertos” because they approximated the scoring, if not the style, of solo and ripieno concertos, most of which were performable with only four to six musicians.29 Why were titles sometimes changed from “Concerto” to “Sonata?” Probably because by the 1720s, the consort meaning of “concerto” was rapidly falling into disuse, as the term became increasingly associated with works featuring tutti-solo opposition, ritornello structures, ripieno string doublings, and so on. Thus, when composers published their three- and four-part “concertos” during the 1730s, they could likely count on their audience to associate them with the solo concerto. A similar terminological shift may be observed in the case of the word “sinfonia,” which by the 1720s was seldom applied to concertos and sonatas. This is presumably why, on a title page to a quartet for two oboes, bassoon, and cembalo by “Werner,” the designation of “Sinfonia” has been crossed out and replaced by “Sonata” in another hand.30 Nowadays it is common to refer to concerto-like works for small ensemble by the terms “chamber concerto” and “Kammerkonzert,” which have gained wide currency in the critical literature on Vivaldi’s twenty or so works in concerto style for two to six instruments and continuo; more descriptive terms such as “Concerti senza orchestra,” “Concerti für Kammerensemble,” and “Concerti senza Ripieno” have failed to catch on.31 The first two terms have also been applied to German works as diverse as the Second, Third, and Sixth Brandenburg Concertos; the concerto in C major for two harpsichords, BWV 1061a; and the Sonaten auf Concertenart 43:D1 and G1.32 Swack remarks that “the line between the Sonate auf Concertenart and the chamber concerto is fine indeed” and uses these terms and “concerto à 3” synonymously. In speculating why Scheibe’s discussion of the

294 The Sonatas

Sonate auf Concertenart is sui generis, she reasons that “most theorists probably considered such works to be chamber concertos.”33 Yet what eighteenth-century theorists such as Quantz, Kirnberger, Türk, and Koch actually understood by “concerto da camera” and “Kammerkonzert” was a concerto for one soloist and accompanying strings, as opposed to a concerto with multiple soloists (a “concerto grosso”).34 Consider the discussion by Quantz, who is alone in stipulating that “Kammerconcerte” may have accompaniments that are large (stark) or small (schwach), that is, with or without extensive ripieno doublings: Concertos with one concertante instrument, or so-called chamber concertos, are also of two classes. Some demand a large accompanying body, like the concerto grosso, others demand a small one. And if this distinction is not made, neither type produces the desired effect. The class to which a concerto belongs may be perceived from the first ritornello. One that is composed seriously, majestically, and more harmonically than melodically, in which many unison passages are interspersed, and in which the harmony does not change by eighth notes or quarter notes but by half and whole bars, must have a large accompanying body. A ritornello that consists of fleeting, jocular, gay, or singing melodies, and has quick changes of harmony, produces a better effect with a small accompanying body. . . . Anybody who knows how to write a concerto of this kind [a serious concerto for a single solo instrument with a large accompanying body] will find it easy to fashion a jocular and playful little chamber concerto. Thus it would be superfluous to deal with it separately here.35

Quantz’s discussion of orchestral size brings to mind Johann Abraham Schmierer’s observation that, if need be, the suites of his Zodiaci musici (1698) were playable “one on a part, as they say, alla camera.”36 On the few occasions when early eighteenth-century musicians called a specific work “concerto da camera” or the like, it was usually to describe a solo concerto with accompanying strings in three, rather than the usual four, parts. This is true of two concertos by Johann Georg Pisendel, who balances a solo violin with “Violini Unisoni” (two performing parts), viola (two performing parts), and continuo.37 Similarly, a cello concerto by Antonio Caldara with a ripieno of two violins and continuo is transmitted at Wiesentheid as a “Concerto per Camera,” and an anonymous concerto for flute, two violins, and continuo (misattributed to Vivaldi and cataloged as RV 89) is called “Concerto di Camera à 4” in a Stockholm manuscript.38 The sole “Concerto di Camera” by Telemann, 43:g3, is scored for recorder, two violins that play mostly in unison, and continuo.39 Stylistically, none of these works makes any nod toward the sonata. Rather, they belong to a not inconsiderable repertory of German and Italian solo concertos with

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“reduced” string accompaniment, one including the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto (ripieno of violin, viola, and continuo); seven Quantz flute concertos (QV 4: 1–7) and a Fasch oboe concerto (FWV L:G3), all lacking viola parts; several works by Molter (see below); and over a dozen other works by Telemann (ripieno of divided violins, or [unison] violin[s] and viola, or two violas with continuo: 51:D5–7, F2, f2, G1, G9, Anh. G1, A5; 52:D4, a1; 53:D3, F1).40 Such works appear to echo a tendency in the Roman and Neapolitan concerto repertories to omit viola parts.41 In both eighteenth-century theory and practice, then, a “concerto da camera” was a solo concerto, especially one with a small number of players or parts in the accompanying body. Even more sonata-like in their scoring are concertos with a two-part ripieno, or “Concerti à 3.” Besides 43:g3, there are three Telemann concertos for one or two soloists, violins in unison, and continuo: the concerto/sonata for two chalumeaux 43:F2/52:F5, referred to earlier, and the violin concertos 51:F3 and G6/G6a.42 Not surprisingly, modern critics are divided over what to call these works. Siegfried Kross omitted all four from his thematic catalog of Telemann’s concertos, implying that they are sonatas.43 The TWV, on the other hand, categorizes the recorder work as a quartet, the double-chalumeau work as both a quartet and a concerto (mirroring the conflicting genre designations in the manuscript source), and the solo violin works as concertos. Swack considers 43:F2/52:F5 and 51:G6/G6a to be Sonaten auf Concertenart, while Wolfgang Hirschmann views them and 51:F3 as concertos; neither addresses the status of 43:g3.44 Despite their outward appearance as trio sonatas, these works inhabit the stylistic world of the concerto, where multiple players commonly converge on a single melodic line (“violini all’unisoni”), tutti-solo oppositions persist throughout each movement, and imitative dialogue between solo and tutti is minimized. Texturally, they register as instrumental analogs to the operatic aria for voice, unison strings, and continuo.

Reimagining the Sonata (Concerto) Let us turn now to the music itself, first with a brief survey of concerto-style sonatas composed in Germany from the 1710s to the 1740s. This survey will not only supplement that provided by Swack, but will also introduce us to several composers who have yet to figure in the story of the Sonate auf Concertenart. Their widely differing responses to the concerto seem to validate the broad language of Scheibe’s description; a number of works, for example, make their generic point with little or no reference to ritornello form. Although the music is decidedly uneven in quality, one is struck by its diverse instrumentation and geographical

296 The Sonatas

breadth, from which it appears that the sonata in concerto style was well-known in south German musical circles. We begin with several works by Johann Christian Schickhardt (ca. 1682– 1762) which, if they do not impress us as full-fledged Sonaten auf Concertenart in Scheibe’s terms, speak to the impact that Italian concertos had on the sonata during the 1710s. Schickhardt, active before 1720 in the Netherlands and Hamburg, published twenty-six opera of instrumental chamber music (sonatas in two to four parts, airs, dances, and instrument methods) in Amsterdam between 1709 and 1727. Not surprisingly, the “concertos” opp. 13 (ca. 1710–12) and 19 (ca. 1713–15) are the most fully scored.45 Of particular interest is the op. 19 set for four recorders and continuo, works that seemingly go out of their way to refer to the concerto. Although all six concertos are in four movements, they begin with a fast movement alluding to the concerto through a distinctive opening ritornello that may (nos. 1 and 6) or may not (nos. 2 and 3) return later in the movement, or through a relatively clear-cut alternation of solo and tutti textures featuring violinistic figuration in the “soli” (nos. 4 and 5). However, no movement corresponds to “textbook” ritornello form, Vivaldian or otherwise; Schickhardt seems uninterested in pursuing the implications of his initial structural patterns. Further signifying the concerto are such stereotypical devices as the unison ritornello (no. 2) and opening hammerstrokes (no. 3), as well as other gestures evocative of a massed string sound. Such formal, textural, and gestural features are, of course, not altogether absent in more conventional sonatas. But presented in combination, under the banner of “Concerto,” and within the context of a five-part scoring, they convey a generic message that could not have been wholly lost on Schickhardt’s audience—especially in Amsterdam, where Italian concertos were regularly issued by his publisher, Estienne Roger. Indeed, if there was any place in the 1710s where composers and audiences could establish generic contracts relating to the sonata and concerto, it was surely Amsterdam.46 Returning to the lute repertory, five Sonaten auf Concertenart survive by Baron, who held various positions in Thuringia and Saxony before spending the latter portion of his career in the service of Frederick the Great. Both a D-minor “concerto” for lute and violin and a C-minor “concerto” for lute, oboe, and cello open with ritornello-form movements. Lute and melody instrument are highlighted as soloists in turn, and the D-minor movement also features an all’unisono ritornello. The outer movements in the G-major “concerto” for lute, flute, and cello are also ritornello based, and the virtuosic writing for the flute suggests that this piece may have been intended for Quantz at Berlin. All of this music is attractive but formally conventional, with three or four ritornellos surrounding two or three

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 297

solo episodes; little is offered by way of textural interest. Most interesting for our purposes are the first movements of the G-major “duetto” for lute and flute— featuring effective sonata-like dialoguing in both ritornellos and episodes—and the C-major “concerto” for lute, violin, and bass. In both cases the first episode is marked “solo,” by which Baron (or at least the copyist of the manuscript) signals an important change in the performer’s role, which of course implies something about the movement’s generic status. None of Baron’s sonatas can be dated accurately, but it is worth noting that the G-major “duetto” apparently circulated in Leipzig while Bach was living there.47 Baron’s colleague, the lutenist Adam Falckenhagen (1697–1754), also experimented with blending elements of the sonata and concerto. Employed at Weissenfels, Jena, Weimar, and Bayreuth, Falckenhagen published two collections of concertos for lute, treble instrument (flute, oboe, or violin), and cello between 1741 and 1743.48 The twelve works take the form of four-movement trios in which the quick second movement crosses rounded binary and ritornello forms. In these hybrid structures, the lute begins with a lengthy unaccompanied solo, after which the treble instrument and cello repeat the opening material. This and subsequent alternations in texture between solo lute and the full ensemble are indicated in the lute part by markings of “solo” and “tutti.” In the second half of the form, the opening material is presented in the dominant and tonic, with intervening episodes sometimes placing the treble instrument in the role of soloist. Two “Concertos” for flute or violin and obbligato cembalo by the Nuremberg organist Johann Mattias Leffloth (1705–31) underscore the intimate connection between the obbligato keyboard trio and the Sonate auf Concertenart observed by Swack in roughly contemporary works by Bach, Sebastian Bodinus, Christoph Förster, Johann Gottlieb Graun, Quantz, and Telemann.49 Around 1730 Leffloth published a D-major Concerto per il Cembalo oblig: con Flauto Traversa ò Violino, and about 1734 there followed a posthumous publication of his F-major Concerto per il Cembalo concertando con Violino.50 Both concertos are laid out as four-movement works in the mixed taste: two imitative slow movements in the Italian style, a fast second movement alluding to the concerto, and a concluding French dance. The fast movements, in fact, are idiosyncratic concertante fugues in which the second episode takes the form of a harpsichord “solo,” during which the flute or violin falls silent. These solos are substantial and virtuosic, with fashionable hand crossings and triplet figures emerging at their midpoints. Not only the F-major solo, but virtually all the material in the movement—including the subject’s hammerstrokes and sequential Fortspinnung, as well as the figuration dominating both the exposition and episodes—is strongly informed by the solo concerto. Whether or

298 The Sonatas

not Leffloth’s concertos had much of an impact on his contemporaries is hard to gauge. But it is worth noting that both Bach and Scheibe could have encountered them at Leipzig, where they were sold at the book fair in 1731 and 1738.51 Also largely overlooked as composers of Sonaten auf Concertenart are the Saxons Stölzel and Fasch, both of whom wrote sonatas that strongly allude to the concerto. The first movement of Stölzel’s “Quadro” in G major for two violins, cello, and cembalo features a structure that at least in its broad outlines resembles ritornello form: a tonally closed period filled with contrasting ideas returns later in the movement, abbreviated and at different pitch levels, in alternation with brief episodes featuring the cello as soloist.52 However, because the movement is dominated by the “ritornello,” itself featuring soloistic passagework in the cello part, one is left with only a weak sense of the movement as a solo concerto. As for Fasch, it is mildly surprising, given his interest in the concerto and close contact with the Dresden court, that none of his sonata movements is in anything approximating ritornello form. Yet Sandra Mangsen argues persuasively that the four-movement “sonata” in G major for flute, two violette or recorders, and continuo, FWV N:G1, is in concerto style insofar as it establishes the flute as soloist and the other instruments as accompanists.53 This opposition remains in effect throughout the first, second, and fourth movements, despite passages in which the flute temporarily assumes membership in the tutti. One of the most important German composers to work largely outside the Thuringia-Saxony region during the early eighteenth century was Molter (1696– 1765), violinist and eventually Kapellmeister at the Karlsruhe court of Margrave Karl-Wilhelm of Baden-Durlach from 1717 to 1733 and again from 1743 until his death.54 During his first period at Karlsruhe, he composed thirteen works entitled “Sonata à 4dro” for “conc[ertato]” flute, oboe, violin, or treble viol with an accompaniment of violin, viola, and continuo (MWV IX/1–9, 16, 19–21). Each is laid out in three brief movements, the first and third of which are usually in ritornello form with sharply defined solo and tutti roles. At times, however, the line separating these roles unexpectedly goes out of focus. Example 6.3 gives the beginning of the “Sonata à 4dro” in E minor for oboe, violin, viola, and continuo, MWV IX/19, as transmitted in Molter’s composing score. Following the opening ritornello, the solo oboe enters to the accompaniment of the bass and written-out continuo chords in the strings. But beginning in measure 22, the oboe and violin trade off figuration in a manner suggestive of the trio sonata. After this passage, the violin steps back into its role as ripienist, and the movement proceeds as a “normal” concerto allegro. As revealing as this example is of Molter’s interest in breaking down the distinction between concerto and sonata (or at least between solo and tutti), it is actually one of only a few such textures in his quartets,

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 299 example 6.3. Johann Melchior Molter, “Sonata à 4dro” in E minor for oboe, violin, viola, and continuo, MWV IX/19/i, mm. 1–29 [Allegro]  Oboe

Violin

[Viola]

[Continuo]

   43    43       43         43     

      

5

            

                                    

                                                                                                                                                      



Solo 1

9

                          14





                

                                       (continued)

300 The Sonatas example 6.3.—Continued

 

20







        

   

                                                  

                                                                        24



                                                    27



                 











most of which are stylistically indistinguishable from his solo concertos in the standard five voices.55 He may have considered these works sonatas primarily because of their relatively modest scoring and dimensions. Yet copyists producing sets of parts to them some years later interpreted their generic status differently, relabeling them “Concerto” or “Concertino.”56 It is tempting to think that Molter’s quartets/concertos inspired, or were inspired by, the published Sonaten auf Concertenart of his Karlsruhe colleague Bodinus.57 Whatever the case, Bodinus’s interest in the genre could have been sparked during his service at the Württemberg-Stuttgart court (1723–28), where at least one sonata in concerto style was performed by the Hofkapelle. Among the anonyma at the Universitätsbibliothek in Rostock is an untitled trio in F major for

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 301

flute, violin, and cello concluding with an auf Concertenart movement inexplicably labeled “Allegro Angloise.” The manuscript parts, belonging originally to the music collection assembled by Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Württemberg-Stuttgart between 1716 and 1731, are in the hand of an unidentified scribe whose copying job appears to have been done in some haste.58 In the third movement, the violin takes the role of soloist in each of the three episodes, playing scalar and brokenchord figurations to the accompaniment of the flute and cello. Considerable textural interest attaches to the first and third episodes, where the flute momentarily shakes off its accompanimental role to engage the violin in trio-like imitation or to play with it in thirds and sixths. On the whole, the work reveals the hand of a competent, if somewhat unimaginative, composer. But more interesting than the trio itself is what the manuscript almost contained. Crossed out on the top two staves of the cello part are the first one and a half measures of a keyboard work, notated by a different copyist in soprano and bass clefs (Figure 6.1). This turns out to be

figure 6.1. First page of the cello part to an anonymous trio for flute, violin, and cello (D-Rou, Mus. saec. XVII.18.5167.)

302 The Sonatas

the beginning of an otherwise unknown transcription of Vivaldi’s concerto in E major for violin and strings, RV 265 (op. 3, no. 12), also transcribed by Bach at Weimar (BWV 976). The fragment departs significantly from Bach’s version, and from a lost, anonymous transcription of the same concerto formerly at Darmstadt.59 To its right is a partially erased attribution (relating to the arrangement or to the trio?), aborted after “Del” and the beginning of what may have been the first letter of the composer’s name. If nothing else, the Vivaldi fragment vividly underscores the familial relationship between keyboard arrangements of concertos and sonatas in concerto style, for here an einstimmiges Concert and a Sonate auf Concertenart share the same page.

The Vivaldi Cult at Dresden and the Origins of the Sonate auf Concertenart Although composers in many parts of Germany wrote sonatas in concerto style, the Thuringia-Saxony region is especially well represented by such works. Indeed, Swack reveals the Dresden Electoral court to have been an important locus for the genre from the mid-1710s through the 1730s.60 Not only trios and quartets in concerto style by resident composers such as Heinichen, Quantz, and Jan Dismas Zelenka, but also similar works by composers with connections to the court, including Carl Heinrich Graun, Telemann, and Vivaldi, were performed by the Hofkapelle.61 Swack traces this local fascination with integrating concerto and sonata to the dual influences of Vivaldi’s chamber concertos and his concertos in more conventional scorings. Representative of this repertory and perhaps especially influential, in her view, are two of the former works with Dresden sources: the “concerto” in G minor for flute, oboe, violin, bassoon, and continuo, RV 107; and the “suonata” in C major for oboe, violin, and obbligato organ, RV 779. The dating of the autograph score of RV 779 to between 1706 and 14 December 1709 means that it could easily have been brought to Dresden from Venice by the violinist Pisendel following his studies with Vivaldi in 1716–17. Alternatively, it may have accompanied the sixteen-year-old Saxon Crown Prince Friedrich August II on his return to Dresden from a 1712 visit to Vivaldi’s Venetian workplace, the Pio Ospedale della Pietà.62 In either case, Vivaldi’s sonata would have been in the chronological position to spawn imitations by Dresden composers. But it would be well to sound a note of caution here, for in the absence of performing material copied in Dresden, we cannot confirm that RV 779 was actually heard at court. And if the score was indeed presented by Vivaldi to Friedrich August, it would almost certainly have remained in his personal collection, likely

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 303

inaccessible to court musicians. RV 107, on the other hand, is transmitted in a Dresden set of parts copied by the court scribe Johann Gottfried Grundig (also known as Dresden Copyist A) during the late 1720s or early 1730s.63 It would therefore have belonged to the music collection of the Hofkapelle and been performed by its musicians. Yet Paul Everett’s dating of the Turin autograph score of RV 107 to 1720 would seem to rule out the possibility of the work’s having arrived in Dresden much before the copying of the parts; it may well have been among those works sent by Vivaldi to the court during the 1720s and 1730s, that is, somewhat after the earliest Dresden Sonaten auf Concertenart were composed by Heinichen and Zelenka.64 The same may be true of two further Vivaldi sonatas in concerto style copied by Dresden Copyist D (Johann Gottlieb Morgenstern or Johann Georg Kremmler) and Grundig: the trio in D major for flute, violin, and continuo, RV 84; and the trio in D minor for flute, violin, partially obbligato bassoon, and continuo, RV 96.65 Striking though it may be that all four Vivaldi chamber works in three to five parts transmitted at Dresden are auf Concertenart, the nature of their relationship to similar works by German composers proves rather difficult to gauge. Michael Talbot, however, has hypothesized a direct relationship: the 1716–17 visit to Venice by Pisendel and several of his colleagues in the Dresden Kammermusik could have been the catalyst for the creation of Vivaldi’s chamber concertos. If so, it follows that lost source material for RV 84, 96, and 107 might have been brought back to Dresden in 1717, then remained in the private collection of Pisendel or another musician until court copyists were instructed to add the works to the Hofkapelle’s repertory a decade or more later. Talbot also suggests that the sonata in C major for flute, oboe, bassoon, and continuo, RV 801 (formerly RV Anh. 66), copied at Herdringen around the 1720s—the only nonDresden German source for a Vivaldi chamber concerto—could also have had some impact on the Sonate auf Concertenart.66 Despite a lack of supporting evidence, both of these scenarios are plausible. Yet unless we are willing to imagine earlier repertories of Vivaldi chamber concertos at Dresden and elsewhere in Germany—repertories that have vanished practically without a trace—it would appear that this music played a less than decisive role in the development of the Sonate auf Concertenart. Thus Vivaldi’s works and those of his German contemporaries may be seen as parallel, or at best indirectly related, responses to the solo concerto.67 This view is borne out by additional concerto-style sonatas at Dresden by Albinoni, Handel, and Telemann, none of which appears to have taken Vivaldi’s chamber concertos as models. Albinoni’s sonata in B-flat major for violin and continuo is transmitted in a composing score inscribed to Pisendel during the vi-

304 The Sonatas

olinist’s visit to Venice.68 The sonata’s fourth movement exhibits a three-ritornello plan in which the second and third ritornellos are abbreviated and somewhat altered but remain in the tonic key. Both solo episodes are lengthier than the surrounding ritornellos but employ similar figural patterns, which, along with the two-part scoring—the only German parallels for which are BWV 1034/ii, several solo movements by Telemann, and the first movement of Quantz’s flute sonata QV 1:273—means that the movement’s tutti-solo opposition is weakly articulated.69 Still, Albinoni’s movement could have served Dresden musicians as a paradigm for the sonata in concerto style. Handel’s only Sonate auf Concertenart, the trio in B-flat for two violins and continuo, HWV 388, is transmitted in two Dresden manuscript scores.70 Its fourth movement provides an especially straightforward example of ritornello form, and is unmistakably indebted to Vivaldi’s concertos. Handel divides his homophonic ritornello into brief, detachable modules that are sharply differentiated from one another through rhythm, harmony, and dynamic level; the momentary turn to the parallel minor with a dynamic echo effect in measures 9–10, just preceding the drive to the tonic cadence, seems a particularly Vivaldian gesture (Example 6.4).71 The movement follows a conventional tonal scheme (I–V–vi–ii–I), with interior ritornellos abbreviated and sometimes including interpolations of new material. Each solo episode consists primarily of display passages for the violins, with the first violin being (in the words of Scheibe) “worked out more fully” than the second. The second violin, curiously enough, takes the initiative in the two lengthiest episodes (mm. 13–25 and 46–55), only to be abruptly silenced by the first violin—hardly the kind of give-and-take one expects among the soloists in a double concerto. Only in the final episode (mm. 59–67) is it allowed to utter as much as a second phrase, and it is reduced to the role of ripienist in what may be heard as either the second solo episode or a solo interpolation within the second ritornello (mm. 32–36). Such an unequal workload among the soloists could be interpreted as a strategy for achieving formal clarity through textural contrast: the ritornellos are always in three parts, while the solo episodes are substantially in two. But it may also be viewed as an ironic commentary on the double life led by the obbligato instruments in a Sonate auf Concertenart: whereas the first violin seems perfectly comfortable with switching identities from ripienist to soloist, the second violin, try as it might, cannot quite ease into—or is actively prevented from fully assuming—the role of soloist; it seems to find its voice only as a member of the ripieno. That Handel might have been deliberately exploring such a social dynamic is suggested by the absence of comparable identity crises (or the snubbing of one soloist by another) in other Sonaten auf Concertenart. Formal and generic ambiguity in similarly scored “double concertos” is, as we shall observe, usually gen-

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 305 example 6.4. George Frideric Handel, Trio in B-flat for two violins and continuo, HWV 388/iv, mm. 1–26 Violin 1

Violin 2

Continuo

                    

Allegro

  c             c          c         

6

6 6

6 6

6 6

                 

6

                                                                                                                                                                                     5



6

5b 4b

8

p

pp

pp

p

6

5 4

p

f

pp

b

f

f

b

6

                                                                                              12

Solo 1

p

9

7

6 6

p

6 5

6

                                                16



6

7

6 6

6 6

6 6

            6

6

(continued)

306 The Sonatas example 6.4.—Continued

                                                                                19



6

6

6

6§

6

6

                                                          22

6

6

                               24



6

§

6

6

7

                          

6

               

Ritornello 2

f

6

6

§

f

6

6 6

erated by a ripienist’s elevating himself to the status of soloist, or by a soloist’s momentarily joining the ripieno, after the instrumental roles have been clearly established at the outset. Under what circumstances did Handel create this unusual piece? Current scholarly consensus assigns it to around 1717–18 based on Handel’s use of material from the first three movements in the sinfonia to Esther, HWV 50, written no later than March 1719. Comparing the two works, Terence Best has suggested that the trio was written first, though he also observes that there is no conclusive evidence one way or the other.72 If, however, we allow that the trio (or at least its fourth movement) is slightly later than the sinfonia, then its composition might be placed at Dresden in September 1719, when Handel attended the ceremonies surrounding the wedding of Crown Prince Friedrich August II to Maria Josepha, Archduchess of Austria. Two facts speak for this possibility: first, one of the Dresden scores is written on paper that was used at court only during the late 1710s and early 1720s, and that appears in the violin concerto Telemann wrote at Dresden for Pisendel in 1719 (51:B1);73 and second, the trio’s finale is more overtly Vivaldian than practically any other ritornello-form movement in Handel’s output.74

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 307

This last quality could arise from Handel’s having offered the work as an homage to the Vivaldian leanings of Pisendel and his colleagues. In an arranging process that parallels Vivaldi’s recycling of several chamber concertos as works for flute and strings (RV 90, 98, 101, and 104 as RV 428, 433, 437, and 439), Handel recast the trio’s finale in 1735 as the second movement of the organ concerto, HWV 290 (op. 4, no. 2). Perhaps to bring the movement in line with expectations of length and virtuosity in solo concertos, he expanded each of the episodes (tailoring the solo figuration to the keyboard) and added a concluding episode-ritornello complex. Except for the second ritornello, now divided between the organ and strings, the trio’s ritornellos were adopted with only minor alterations. Swack has already called attention to the two Dresden sources for Telemann’s quartet for recorder, violin, viola, and continuo, 43:g4, a work that most likely dates from the composer’s Eisenach period (see chapter 5). Telemann blurs the outlines of the fast movements’ ritornello forms by deriving nearly all of the solo recorder’s material from that of the ritornello, and by emphasizing trio-like imitation between soloist and accompanists. Although in the first movement one is hard-pressed to distinguish ritornellos from solo episodes after the first ten measures, the third movement has a clear ritornello–da capo form in which the threeritornello A section opens with a double Devise or “motto” entrance of the soloist (Example 6.5a), and the B section comprises a ritornello framed by two solo episodes, the second of which cadences in the relative major. There is nonetheless enough sonata-like dialoguing in episodes and interior ritornellos that at any given moment the listener may be unsure where he or she is in the form. In a clever role reversal, Telemann assigns the ritornello in the B section to the recorder, while the strings momentarily become the soloists (Example 6.5b). Though Swack assumes the “Vivaldian concerto as a point of departure” for the quartet, there is in fact nothing particularly Vivaldian about its style or structure. Neither ritornello, for example, displays the modular quality already common in Vivaldi’s op. 3. More likely models are to be found among earlier concertos of Torelli and Albinoni, and similar works written by Telemann at Eisenach. Four other Telemann sonatas preserved in Dresden sets of parts from the 1710s or early 1720s—the trios 42:C3, D14, and g12, and the quartet 43:d2—provide additional evidence that the early Sonate auf Concertenart looked to models other than Vivaldi’s concertos. The C-major and D-major trios, scored for two violins with continuo and likely dating from before 1712, both frame a sarabanda-like slow movement with fast movements having ritornello, or ritornello-like, structures. In the third movement of the C-major trio, the nearly unvarying ritornellos are organized as compact, tonally closed fugal expositions and follow a modulatory plan (I–V–vi–I) typical of early Italian concertos. The first movement, by contrast,

308 The Sonatas example 6.5. Quartet in G minor for recorder, violin, viola, and continuo, 43:g4/iii: (a) mm. 1–18; (b) mm. 63–71 (a) Recorder

Violin

Viola

Continuo

Allegro  c       c               c      c    



7

                       4



   7





 

7

7

7

7

         

6#

#



                                             

   

 

                       

6

6 5

 

#

 #

                                                                                                                                                                               8



7

7

7

7

7

#

12

6#

6

6 5

#

6#

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 309

                                                            16



 (b)

       63



6 5

7

7

7

7

                                    



       7



    

    

7

7

7



7

  



                                                                                                                                                           #

67

6#

6

69

6

6

#

310 The Sonatas

comprises two imitative periods (the first tonally open) surrounding a central episode with display passages for each of the violin “soloists.” In the D-major trio’s first movement, three episodes alternate with abbreviated versions of the opening ritornello in the dominant and tonic. Instead of concluding with a ritornello, however, the movement ends with a flashy coda that extends the tremolo figuration of the last two episodes to all three parts. The trio’s third movement employs double stops—seemingly to simulate a massed-string sound—only in the first and last of four ritornellos, while three episodes introduce contrasting material. Stylistically similar to the trios, the second movement of the quartet has a four-ritornello structure in which solo episodes for the two violins alternate with abbreviated and reordered statements of a modular ritornello; as in the first movement of the Dmajor trio, the final ritornello gives way to a soloistic coda. Most unusual formally is the opening movement of the G-minor trio, where the initial ritornello is immediately repeated in an abbreviated version that modulates to the dominant. It seems possible, given the tonally open effect at the start of 42:g12/i, the four-part string scoring of 43:d2, and the brevity of the episodes in all four works, that Telemann took his cue as much from the ripieno concerto as the solo concerto. Fast movements in the former genre, as we noted in chapter 3, tend to alternate soloistic episodes for one or more upper parts with tonally open or closed periods that return, sometimes abbreviated, at different pitch levels. And insofar as ripieno concertos call upon the same instruments to play ritornello and episodic material, they would seem natural models for early Sonaten auf Concertenart.75

Telemann’s Sonaten auf Concertenart One might expect the Sonate auf Concertenart, like other genres and subgenres, to have undergone a series of redefinitions during its brief history. Over time, the expectations it aroused and the meanings it conveyed presumably changed both for composers and their audiences. One way of tracing such a process would be to assemble a critical mass of securely datable works by a wide assortment of composers—something that presently lies beyond our reach. Our expanding count of Sonaten auf Concertenart notwithstanding, the repertory remains comparatively small; most composers, it appears, chose only to dabble in the genre (Bach, with half a dozen works, ranks as one of the most prolific). Alternatively, the genre’s peregrinations might be charted through the works of a single composer. And here we could do no better than to turn once more to Telemann, who produced a steady stream of concerto-style sonatas over several decades. The five

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 311

Dresden sonatas discussed above led to a considerable number of works in two to four parts—many of them published in widely disseminated collections—that imaginatively explore the Sonate auf Concertenart from nearly every conceivable angle. Tables 6.1–6.3 list forty-one Telemann solos, trios, and quartets auf Concertenart, each containing at least one fast movement in ritornello form.76 To these might be added five trios and quartets containing concertante fugues.77 It is evident from this tally that Telemann considered quartets the most fertile ground for mixed-genre experimentation, for no fewer than 38 percent of his four-part sonatas (15 of 40) contain at least one movement in concerto style. This compares with 13 percent of his trios (17 of 130) and only 10 percent of his solos (9 of 87).78 At least in his trios and quartets, Telemann validates Scheibe’s observations that Sonaten auf Concertenart often have a three-movement formal scheme (fast–slow–fast) and that the characteristic texture of soloist versus accompaniment tends to be concentrated in the initial fast movement. Telemann’s concertostyle trios are in fact twice as likely as his trios overall to be in three movements, while all four of his three-movement quartets are auf Concertenart. Where Telemann chose to publish his Sonaten auf Concertenart also reveals something of his attitude toward the genre. They are found principally in his first sonata collections (the Six sonate à violon seul and Six trio) and those that are the most ambitious in terms of scope or technical demands (the Quadri, Nouveaux quatuors, Musique de table, Essercizii musici, Six concerts et six suites, XII Solos, and Der getreue Music-Meister). Few Sonaten auf Concertenart were included in the less ambitious publications, many of which are overtly didactic or “popular” in conception (for example, the two sets of Sonate methodiche and the Kleine Cammer-Music, Sei suonatine, Nouvelles sonatines, III Trietti methodichi e III scherzi, Scherzi melodichi, Six quatuors ou trios,

Table 6.1 Telemann’s solos auf Concertenart TWV 41:

Scoring (+ bc)

Sources

e3/ii e4/iv e8/iv e11/ii g6/ii g7/iv A5/iv a3/iv h1/iv

Vn/fl Vn/fl Vn Fl Ob Vn/fl Vn/fl Ob Vn

Nouvelles sonatines (1730 or 1731) XII Solos, à violon ou traversière (1734) D-Bds, N Mus. ms. 10353 B-Bc, XY 15115 Musique de table (1733) XII Solos, à violon ou traversière (1734) XII Solos, à violon ou traversière (1734) Der getreue Music-Meister (1729) Six sonates à violon seul (1715)

312 The Sonatas Table 6.2 Telemann’s trios auf Concertenart TWV 42:

Scoring (+ bc)

Sources

Title

C3/i, iii c2/ii

2 vn Rec, ob

D6/ii D14/i, iii E6/i, iii e4/i e10/iv F14/i G1/ii

Fl, cemb/vn 2 vn Vn, vdg Vn, va Fl, vn Rec, hn Vl, vn Vn/fl, vn Fl, cemb/vn Ob, vln Fl, cemb/vn Fl, cemb

D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-1 Essercizii musici (1727 or 1728) D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/36 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-79 Six concerts et six suites (1734) D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-9 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/74 Scherzi melodichi D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/64 D-SWl, Mus. ms. 5400/1 Six trio D-SWl, Mus. ms. 5400/2 Six concerts et six suites (1734) D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-49 Six concerts et six suites (1734) Essercizii musici (1727 or 1728) D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/41 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1045/5 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/23 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-55 D-ROu, Mus. saec. XVII.18.4523 B-Bc Litt. V, No. 16.932 D-Bds, Mus. ms. 13216 Breitkopf (1766), p. 49 Six concerts et six suites (1734) Six trio (1718) Six concerts et six suites (1734)

Sonata Trio Sonata Trio Concerto Sonata Sonata Scherzo Sonata Concerto Trio Concerto Concerto Sonata Concerto Trio Sonata Trio Sonata Concerto Concerto/trio Trio Trio Trio Concerto Trio Concerto

g2/ii g12/i A3/ii A6/ii

A9/i

a2/iv B1/i h1/ii

Fl, vn Fl, ob d’am/vn Fl, ob d’am Fl, ob d’am Fl, ob d’am Fl, ob d’am Fl, cemb/vn Ob, vn Fl, cemb/vn

and Sonates corellisantes). Apparently, then, Telemann believed that the conceptual and technical challenges posed by the genre rendered it inappropriate for certain purposes or audiences. The absence of slow movements in Tables 6.1–6.3 will by now come as no surprise. Yet at least nine of Telemann’s slow sonata movements from the 1720s and 1730s can be heard as referring to the concerto. These have a central cantabile section framed by a brief ritornello, a movement type found, as mentioned in chapter 3, in a number of concertos by Telemann, Bach, and Vivaldi.79 That the allusion is to the concerto—and perhaps ultimately to the aria—is clear enough, not least because half of the movements in question abut one or more in ritornello form. In the third movement of 43:A1 (sandwiched between two concertante fugues), Telemann unexpectedly extends the “orchestral” texture into the

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 313 Table 6.3 Telemann’s quartets auf Concertenart TWV 43:

Scoring (+ bc)

Sources

Title

D1/i, iii D7/ii d1/ii d2/ii

G1/ii G2/ii G6/i

Fl, vn, vdg/vc 2 ob, tpt Rec, 2 fl Fl, vn, va 2 vn, va 2 vn, va Fl, vn, vdg/vc Fl, ob, vn Rec, ob, vn

G10/i G12/ii G13/ii g2/ii

Fl, 2 vdg Fl, 2 vdg/vn [Fl], vn, ob d’am Ob, vn, vdg

g4/i, iii

Rec, vn, va

a2/i a3/iv

Fl, vn, vdg/vc Rec, ob, vn

h2/i

Fl, vn, vdg/vc

Quadri (1730) D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-56 Musique de table (1733) Quatrième livre de quatuors (1752–60) D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/53 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-22 Quadri (1730) Musique de table (1733) D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/5 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/88 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-77 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/68 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/90 D-SWl, 5400/12 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/8 D-DS, Mus. ms. 1042/5 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-42 D-Dlb, Mus. 2392-Q-82 Nouveaux quatuors (1738) D-DS, Mus. ms. 1033/6 NL-DHgm, Hs ds II Nouveaux quatuors (1738)

Concerto Concerto Quatuor Sonata Concerto — Concerto Quatuor Concerto Sonata Concerto Sonata Sonata Concerto Concerto/Sonata Sonata — — Quatuor Concerto Sonata Quatuor

central section: each of the three solo periods is peppered with brief tutti interjections played by whichever instruments are not “singing” at the moment. An even more aria-like effect is created by the middle movement of 43:D1, a tender siciliana for flute and violin that casts the viola da gamba/cello in the orchestral role. The opening ritornello is played by an orchestra of “strings” (multiple stops in the gamba/cello) and “winds” (interjections from the flute and violin), after which the flute and violin enter as “vocal” soloists. The distinction between orchestra and soloists is maintained throughout the movement, though it is momentarily weakened when the gamba/cello “sings” in thirds and sixths with the soloists and the violin adopts several accompanimental figures (mm. 39–43 and 49–50). Although the opening ritornello does not appear again intact, the movement ends with the ritornello’s cadential phrase, now rescored to include the flute and violin. Another parallel with the aria—and with Telemann’s own concertos—is the occasional presence in fast movements of double-motto solo entrances, sometimes combined with da capo repeats.80 Telemann often resists convention by hav-

314 The Sonatas

ing more than one episode begin with a double motto (42:h1/ii; 43:G1/ii, G6/i, g2/ii), writing a double motto only in an interior episode (43:a3/iv), providing non-ritornello material for the “orchestral” interlude separating statements of the motto (42:F14/i, B1/i), or by assigning different instruments to play the two motto statements (43:G1/ii). Relatively conventional in terms of form, on the other hand, are several movements with three- or four-ritornello structures for their A sections and an extended episode, cadencing in the mediant or relative minor, for their B sections (41:A5/iv; 42:A6/ii, G1/ii; also the einstimmiges Concert movement 32:6/iii). As we have already observed, 43:g4/iii follows this pattern but includes a ritornello statement in the B section. Two sonata movements from the 1730s (43:G2/ii and h2/i) are large-scale da capo forms in which the tonally open B section is virtually a second movement, set apart from the A section through changes in meter, tempo, and key. Such structures have close parallels in the first two movements of 53:e2 and 54:F1 and in the sets of fantasies for unaccompanied violin and keyboard. The importance that Telemann attached to the Sonate auf Concertenart is demonstrated by the inclusion of three in his first published collections of solos and trios: the Six sonates à violon seul (1715) and Six trio (1718). These appear to be the earliest printed sonatas to include movements in ritornello form. The finale of the third solo (41:h1) leaves the listener with little doubt as to its generic pedigree, for each of the ritornellos begins with a hammerstroke motive, and the episodes are given over to extroverted figural patterns associated with solo concertos. As Swack notes, the movement also fuses binary and ritornello forms, so that each half frames a solo episode with two ritornellos.81 This is a structural experiment that Telemann repeated only once in his sonatas, in the finale of the trio 42:e10; such fusions also occur among his concertos.82 The first of the trios (42:B1) opens with a concerted movement in which much of the solo oboe’s material is derived from the violin’s ritornello, not unlike the process in the Dresden quartet 43:g4. Further obscuring the functional distinction between the instruments are passages in which they play off one another in trio-sonata fashion. Similar ambiguity informs the first movement of the third trio (42:G1), in which the flute plays solo to the violin’s tutti. The opening measures for violin and continuo divide harmonically and motivically into Vordersatz, Fortspinnung, and Epilog segments. Essentially a repetition of the ritornello, the first episode features a “reorchestrated” Fortspinnung (adapted to the flute) and an Epilog cadencing in the dominant. Already in the second ritornello, the solo-tutti distinction begins to dissolve: the Vordersatz is stated in unison by the flute and violin, while the flute provides a new counterpoint to the Fortspinnung and plays the Epilog alone. In the B section of this

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 315

ritornello–da capo form, the violin unexpectedly elevates itself to the status of soloist for a time. The shifting nature of the relationship between the two treble instruments here brings to mind Handel’s contemporaneous B-flat trio. Unusually for a Sonate auf Concertenart, Fortspinnung material from Telemann’s ritornello occasionally migrates to the bass line, which might therefore seem (to quote Scheibe once more) “composed less concisely” than the bass in a “regular” sonata. Probably written within a relatively short span of time during the 1720s or early 1730s, and never published by the composer, are four stylistically similar quartets auf Concertenart that take a different approach to the genre. The opening movements of 43:G6 (a double concerto for recorder and oboe) and 43:G10 (a triple concerto for flute and two violas da gamba) both have five-ritornello structures in which the fourth solo separates two virtually identical ritornellos in the tonic, a pattern not duplicated elsewhere among Telemann’s Sonaten auf Concertenart.83 In the former movement and the second of 43:g2 (a solo concerto for oboe), the tutti instruments achieve a prominence nearly equaling that of the soloists, so vigorously do they punctuate the episodes with ritornello material. The effect is heightened by ritornellos that are, if anything, more virtuosic than the episodes. The G-minor movement and the second of 43:G12 (another triple concerto for flute and two violas da gamba) are linked by the recapitulatory effect of their final episodes, which substantially quote the opening solo material; in the former case, the quotation even includes the oboe’s double-motto entrance. For all their formal and textural interest, however, none of these quartets places an emphasis on shifting instrumental roles. Even in the first movement of 43:G10, where the three upper parts do double duty as soloists and ripienists, the episodes are relatively free of formal ambiguity: the soloists patiently wait their turn to shine, then quickly slip back into their tutti roles as the spotlight falls elsewhere. Only toward the end of 43:G6/i, when the two soloists join in with the “orchestral” violin during the final two ritornellos, does Telemann slightly upset the textural applecart. But the standout among the Sonaten auf Concertenart Telemann left unpublished is the “concerto” in A minor for recorder, oboe, violin, and continuo 43:a3. Its fourth movement is remarkable not only for blurring the tutti-solo distinction, but also for ingeniously fusing ritornello form with the concertante rondeau, a movement type in which interior statements of the refrain often appear in keys other than the tonic and one or more couplets feature display passages in the manner of concerto episodes.84 Here Telemann has it both ways formally: the opening period is recognizable as a ritornello through its easily separable phrases, quasi-unison texture, and vigorous figuration but, like a rondeau refrain, is pre-

316 The Sonatas

sented almost exclusively in the tonic. The solo episodes—for the recorder, oboe, and violin in turn—feature unusually virtuosic and idiomatic writing, as if to emphasize the movement’s generic credentials as a concerto, yet conclude in a formally ambiguous manner. Table 6.4 outlines the movement’s structure. As shown in Example 6.6a, the ritornello is divided into three segments of roughly equal length: two statements of a sequential Vordersatz, functioning as an antecedentconsequent pair, and an Epilog. The first episode ends with a dominant statement of the Vordersatz consequent phrase, now soloistically rescored and supported by a bassetto bass played by the “orchestra” (oboe and violin). Although appearing at first to be the second ritornello, this statement of the consequent phrase is retrospectively perceived as solo material: Telemann signifies the beginning of the true second ritornello, and with it the full “orchestra,” by restoring the continuo to the bass line and returning to a slightly rescored version of the quasi-unison texture (Example 6.6b). Similarly, the second episode, divided by a brief ritornello fragment containing the Epilog phrase, ends with a rescored tonic version of the Vordersatz antecedent phrase, which is followed by an “orchestral” statement of the consequent phrase. (The principal melodic line of the antecendent phrase is given not to the oboe, as one would expect, but again to the recorder.) This episode further obscures the distinction between solo and tutti material by opening with a double motto in the oboe—another signifier of the concerto—that cleverly embellishes the Epilog phrase. Here we are treated to the rare spectacle of a soloist interrupting the beginning of his own episode to momentarily rejoin the ripieno. There is an attractive formal symmetry in this return of the Epilog phrase at the movement’s midpoint, framed as it is by the Vordersatz phrases of the episodes and interior ritornellos, themselves enclosed by two statements of the complete ritornello period. Perhaps it was to establish this symmetry that Telemann avoided any formal ambiguity in the third episode, which would be perfectly at home in one of his violin concertos. Interestingly, in the Hague parts to the work, only this episode is marked “Solo” in the violin, cello, and cembalo parts.85 Did Telemann (or the copyist) regard this passage as more concerto-like than the others?

Table 6.4 Structure of 43:a3/iv Measures 1–18 18–51 51–63 63–84 84–88 88–102 102–8 S2 R1–2 S3 (motto) R3 (frag.) S1 R2 Material R1–3 Key i –v i –III III –i i Soloist Recorder Oboe Oboe

108–50 150–67 S R1–3 i i Violin

Note: Superscript numbers in the material column (R = ritornello; S = solo episode) refer to segments of the ritornello, as identified in Example 6.6a.

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 317 example 6.6. Quartet in A minor for recorder, oboe, violin, and continuo, 43:a3/iv: (a) mm. 1–18; (b) mm. 37–52 (a) Recorder

Oboe

Violin

Continuo

 43         43           3  4     43      Vivace



              

                                                        

1 (Vordersatz, antecedent)

6

6

6

6

6

6

                                                                                                    5

2 (Vordersatz, consequent)



6

6 4

6

6

                                                       

6

6

6

6

6

                  6

6

                                                                                                       9



6

13

6#

6

6

4

6



6 4

6

#

3 (Epilog )

                                            



#

(continued)

318 The Sonatas example 6.6.—Continued

            

16



    

     

                                           6

#

 (b) 37





  

#

                                  3

3

3



3

3

3

                                                                                                                                                                                                     

3

3

3

6#

3

3

#

6

#

41

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

6

46

6

6

6 6

7

6 4

5 #

6 4

5 3

3

5 #

3

3

3

3

3

#

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 319

                                                  49



                  Ritornello 2

6

6

                6

6

By the 1730s Telemann seems to have associated the Sonate auf Concertenart most closely with a four-part texture: quartets in concerto style appear in three of his published collections from this decade (the Quadri, Musique de table, and Nouveaux quatuors), while trios and solos appear in only one or two collections apiece (the Nouvelles sonatines, Six concerts et six suites, and XII Solos). The earliest of these collections, the Quadri (1730), contains two Sonaten auf Concertenart entitled “Concerto” (43:D1 and G1; both triple concertos) and two “Sonatas” containing concertante fugues with especially soloistic episodes (43:g1 and A1). Perhaps unexpectedly, many of the most striking moments in these works occur in the concertos’ ritornellos. The second movement of the G-major concerto opens with what might be described as a telescoped fugal exposition: three distinct subjects are presented simultaneously by the flute, violin, and viola da gamba, and only during the two interior statements of the ritornello does Telemann present the subjects in imitation. Thus the movement walks a fine line between ritornello form and concertante fugue. Interestingly, all three episodes (one for each obbligato instrument) open with a double motto, the last two wryly beginning with the “wrong” instrument. In a bold departure from the usual concern in Sonaten auf Concertenart with introducing “orchestral” textures and gestures in at least the opening ritornello, both outer movements of the D-major concerto have ritornellos that are packed with motivic material and thoroughly imbued with sonata-like imitation. Because the ritornello of the first movement is never abbreviated when it returns (though it is transposed and its motivic material redistributed among the instruments), the formal structure seems especially transparent. But following the third and final episode, which ends with a canonic passage for the three soloists over a dominant pedal (a gesture more evocative of the sonata than the concerto), the ritornello fails to accompany the return to the tonic. Instead, Telemann unexpectedly intro-

320 The Sonatas example 6.7. Quartet in D major for flute, violin, viola da gamba/cello, and continuo, 43:D1/iii (Quadri, Concerto 2), “ideal” ritornello

            Flute Violin                    Viola da gamba   5 6 6 5 3 3 4 4   3       8 Continuo         3    8     38     38    Vivace

Vordersatz



3 __

6 4

6 4

__

7

                                                        7 6  6   6



6

5+

__

6

                       5  3   11



7

__

   



  





 





Fortspinnung 1

       6      6

________

                              46   

Fortspinnung 2

6 4

         

Epilog

 

 

                

 

6 4



             

15

7

5+

5



7#

      7

________

________

3  

6 4





6

                









  

8

7§

                  6 4

5 3

6 4

3

6 4

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 321

duces a new imitative figure accompanied by the ritornello’s octave motive, leaving us to wonder whether this concluding passage is a modified ritornello or an extension of the third episode. The idea of wedding a sonata-like ritornello with sonata-like episodes is taken up again in the concerto’s third movement. Example 6.7 gives what Dreyfus would call the movement’s “ideal” ritornello: a hypothetical, precompositional conception of the ritornello that does not actually occur in the piece.86 What Telemann actually provides at the outset is rather different: the polonaise-like Vordersatz phrase is softly echoed by the violin, a soloistic point of imitation is inserted between the Vordersatz and first Fortspinnung phrases, the second Fortspinnung phrase is repeated after the Epilog phrase, and an expanded second statement of the Epilog phrase concludes all’unisono, a gesture that strengthens the foregoing music’s credentials as a ritornello. More than any other ritornello in Telemann’s Sonaten auf Concertenart, this one threatens to overshadow the episodes through its contrapuntal activity, motivic density, and sheer length. Among Telemann’s last four published quartets auf Concertenart, all of which feature a single soloist, that from the second part of the Musique de table (43:d1) offers the most complex interplay between soloist (recorder) and tutti (two flutes). Depriving himself of the usual diversity of range and timbre seems to have stimulated Telemann to combine the instruments in unusual ways: the episodes in the second movement are frequently animated by material from the motivically rich ritornello, and two interior ritornellos include the soloist. An especially deft touch occurs at the opening of the first episode, where the second statement of the recorder’s motto is accompanied by the initial motive of the ritornello. This leads to a passage (mm. 38–41) in which the opening measures of the ritornello are rescored to include the soloist, leaving one unsure whether this is a tutti interjection or still solo material. Later, after the third and fifth ritornellos have also involved the recorder, a fermata on a V7 chord offers the soloist an opportunity to reassert its primacy through a cadenza. When placed alongside the works discussed so far, the five auf Concertenart movements in the Six concerts et six suites make an odd impression. One senses that in this collection Telemann wished to see how far he could go in adapting ritornello form to the imitative textures of the sonata—an experiment with only partly successful results. Breaking with his usual practice, he adopts a formal template for the opening of each movement, whereby the flute initially assumes the tutti role and the harpsichord/violin enters with episodic material largely derived from the ritornello. The close thematic connection between these opening periods is atypical for auf Concertenart movements, but of course entirely characteristic of “normal” trios. Moreover, the first episode, though it assigns the leading role to the harpsichord/violin, tends to contain more trio-like imitation than is usu-

322 The Sonatas

ally found in concerto-style sonatas. With the tutti-solo opposition thus established, Telemann lets the movements’ ritornello structures dissolve to varying degrees. In the first, second, and sixth concertos (42:D6/ii, g2/ii, and a2/iv), the dissolution process is already complete by the second ritornello. Subsequent cameo appearances of ritornello segments and all’unisono gestures in the D-major and G-minor movements seem like self-conscious, and largely ineffective, attempts to reestablish the concerto-like feel of the opening measures. Though the A-minor movement initially seems more concerto-like because the initial episode introduces new thematic material, it is even less concerned with keeping up appearances; instead, it soon busies itself with a trio-style exploration of the interesting chromatic motives presented in the opening measures. But ritornello structures in the third and fifth concertos (42:A3/ii and h1/ii) dissolve only partially. In the A-major movement, passages treating ritornello material canonically are easily heard as third and fourth ritornellos (starting in mm. 53 and 73). And though the harpsichord/violin has now become an equal participant in tuttis, its status as soloist during the episodes remains clear enough. The B-minor movement takes a more inventive approach to form, and not surprisingly it is the one selected by Swack and Dreyfus as a foil to Bach’s Sonaten auf Concertenart for melody instrument and obbligato harpsichord.87 Table 6.5 shows the movement’s ritornello structure. Through to measure 40, the form resembles that of the other auf Concertenart movements in the collection—with the exception that the first episode includes a double-motto entrance of the soloist (the two statements separated by the ritornello’s second Fortspinnung segment). The three periods that follow the second ritornello, where the Vordersatz makes its last appearance, are readily identifiable as episodes for the harpsichord/violin, flute, and both instruments together. As both Swack and Dreyfus note, what is here identified as the third episode simulates the ritornello by repeating the first episode’s opening measures, where the soloist enters with a phrase derived from the Vordersatz. To further remind us of the ritornello, Telemann reintroduces the Epilog segment at the episode’s conclusion. The fourth episode brings a change to a homo-

Table 6.5 Structure of 42:h1/ii Measures: 1–14 14–36 36–40 S1 R2 Ritornello/solo: R1 Key: i –III i Ritornello material: V, F1, F2, E Motto (F2) V

40–59 S2 –iv

59–83 S3 –v Motto (F2), E

83–98 S4 –i F2

98–112 R3 i F1, F2, E

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 323

phonic texture, which helps it stand in for the “missing” ritornello, and a variation of the second Fortspinnung segment. Having returned to the tonic in measure 98, we are now inclined to hear the following statement of the first Fortspinnung segment— absent since the start of the movement—as marking the beginning of the third and final ritornello; this is the tonal and thematic “double return” we have been expecting. Here the Fortspinnung phrase is stated imitatively by both instruments before they continue with variations of other ritornello segments. Despite the missing ritornello, Telemann’s manipulation of the movement’s opening material has brought about a structural clarity indebted in equal measure to ritornello form and sonata-like imitation. And though it must be counted among the composer’s most idiosyncratic fusions of sonata and concerto, this movement deserves a better reception than that given it by Dreyfus, who, proceeding from the questionable assumption that Telemann was primarily concerned here with “evoking more imposing works for a greater number of parts and for different instruments,” finds the thematic connection between the Vordersatz and opening solo phrase “too close for comfort,” the unorthodox handling of the ritornello as evidence of Telemann’s “disinclination to invest deeper thought in the movement,” and the variation of ritornello segments to be “unmotivated.” Finally, a striking counterexample to Telemann’s tendencies during the 1730s toward formal experimentation and textural integration of solo and tutti is furnished by the prelude to the second of the Nouveaux quatuors (43:a2). Here, as in the prelude to the fourth quartet of the collection (a concerto for viola da gamba/cello), Telemann precedes a suite of French dances with a concerto-style movement.88 What is unique about this “Allégrement,” however, is its close adherence to the solo concerto model and eschewing of sonata-like gestures. In the ritornellos Telemann simulates a massed-string sound by punctuating the Vordersatz phrase with multiple-stops in the strings, repeating the phrase in octaves, and by maintaining an unusually homophonic texture (Example 6.8a). Noteworthy is the assignment of the solo flute to the role of “orchestral” first violin during each ritornello, a practice otherwise unknown among Telemann’s Sonaten auf Concertenart with a single soloist. During the two solo episodes the strings provide an accompaniment typical of the solo concerto: written-out continuo chords (piano) alternating with short interjections in octaves (forte). Only toward the end of the movement (mm. 49–51), when the soloist and “orchestra” briefly state a figure from the first solo episode in imitation, is there any motivic integration of solo and tutti. Uniquely in his Sonaten auf Concertenart, Telemann provides a brief, written-out cadenza for the flute (mm. 52–53), further underscoring the movement’s generic status (Example 6.8b).

324 The Sonatas example 6.8. Quartet in A minor for flute, violin, viola da gamba/cello, and continuo, 43:a2/i (Nouveaux quatuors no. 2): (a) mm. 1–14; (b) mm. 49–54 (a)

Prelude. Allégrement

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Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 325

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326 The Sonatas

The “Sonate en concert” and French Vivaldisme It is probably no coincidence that Telemann wrote his most overtly concerto-like quartet movement for Paris, where the Italian concerto had recently come into vogue. The publication in 1727 of Joseph Bodin de Boismortier’s op. 15 concertos for five unaccompanied flutes opened a veritable floodgate of more conventionally scored works by Jacques Aubert, Boismortier, Michel Corrette, JeanMarie Leclair, Jacques-Christophe Naudot, and others—all taking Vivaldi’s concertos as their point of departure.89 Although Telemann’s sensitivity to this trend may explain why he took pains to underscore the genre of his prelude, it is also possible that he modeled the movement on specific works. Among the Parisian virtuosos who gave the first performances of the Nouveaux quatuors, and who presumably invited Telemann to Paris, was the flutist Michel Blavet. Judging from his one surviving flute concerto, also in A minor, Blavet favored brilliantly Vivaldian fast movements featuring some of the devices in Telemann’s prelude: all’unisono textures, abrupt dynamic contrasts, and written-out cadenzas for the soloist.90 To the extent, then, that Telemann’s prelude was intended as a compliment to Blavet’s talents as a performer and composer, it may be read as a German composer’s impression of a French composer’s imitation of a Vivaldi concerto.91 Such an unusual potpourri of genres and styles would surely not have gone unnoticed by the movement’s Parisian audience. Well before Telemann arrived in Paris in 1737, the idea of transferring the style and structure of fast concerto movements to sonatas had taken hold among several leading French composers, who in essence reinvented the Sonate auf Concertenart two decades after its first appearances in Italy and Germany. Like Telemann’s A-minor prelude, these early French examples are more concerned with reproducing the effect of pieces for larger scorings than with the subtle interplay of generic conventions. They appear to look directly to Italian solo concertos for their inspiration, though one cannot rule out the possible influence of Telemann’s Sonaten auf Concertenart and Vivaldi’s chamber concertos.92 Given the privileged position of binary form in French sonatas of the 1730s and 1740s, it is not surprising that ritornello forms are often superimposed on a two-part structure, in the manner of 41:h1. Following his op. 15, Boismortier continued to experiment with concertos in unusual scorings. His op. 21 Six concerto for two flutes, violins, or oboes and continuo (1728) are essentially Sonaten auf Concertenart that may be played en trio or with a ripieno part that doubles the first treble instrument. The three principal parts have “solo” markings during episodes and “tutti” markings during ritornellos (where the ripienist joins in). Considerably more sophisticated is the fivepart “concerto” Boismortier appended to his op. 37 V Sonates en trio (1732). Here

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 327

it would appear, given the scoring for flute, violin, oboe, bassoon, and continuo, that he was emulating Vivaldi chamber concertos such as RV 107. In both fast movements—the first in ritornello form, the third a concertante rondeau—each obbligato instrument receives its own solo episode. Jean-Marie Leclair may have been the second French composer to introduce ritornello form into the sonata. The fourth of his op. 3 Sonates à deux violons sans basse (1730) opens with a concerted movement in which the violins are soloists in two episodes and ripienists in three ritornellos. A few years later he included two concerto-like movements in his op. 4 Sonates en trio for two violins and continuo. In the binary finale of the third sonata (each half consisting of two ritornellos framing a solo episode), the modular ritornello’s Epilog segment ends with an all’unisono texture. Though considerably less clear formally, the finale of the sixth sonata evokes the solo concerto through its virtuosic figuration, the ritornellolike reappearances of opening material, and an all’unisono conclusion. Concerto-style movements also appeared in the newly popular genre of the trio for violin and obbligato keyboard. The sixth of Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville’s op. 3 Pièces de clavecin en sonates avec accompagnement de violon (1737–38) contains two ritornello-form movements. Its opening Allegro bears the title “Concerto,” just above and to the right of “SONATA / VI.” As if this—together with the ritornello’s hammerstrokes and all’unisono texture—were not enough to signal the genre of the work, Mondonville has supplied us with “solo” rubrics indicating the violin as soloist in the first and third episodes, and the harpsichord in the second. Neither performer is ever in doubt as to his role from moment to moment, for unlike the sonatas by Baron, Leffloth, and Telemann, with their sporadic “solo” and “tutti” rubrics, this work is engraved in score.93 Perhaps influenced by Mondonville, Michel Corrette concluded the fourth of his op. 25 Sonates pour le clavecin avec un accompagnement de violon (1742) with a movement that crosses ritornello and binary structures.94 The ritornello here also opens with a hammerstroke gesture and includes an all’unisono phrase that is the basis for all interior ritornellos. By ending the first half of the form with a brief solo passage, Corrette happily avoids the usual back-to-back ritornellos. And his placement of a soloistic coda at the end of the second half brings to mind the non-ritornello endings of several German auf Concertenart movements.95

The Aesthetic of Mixed Genres What was it about the Sonate auf Concertenart that intrigued so many composers of the early eighteenth century? Perhaps the novelty of concerto style offered an op-

328 The Sonatas

portunity to redraw the boundaries of what had, by the 1720s, become a relatively conservative genre.96 Jeffrey Kallberg reminds us that generic hybrids have always held a particular attraction to composers whose musical language is in flux,97 and certainly few German composers active in the 1710s and 1720s did not rethink their personal styles in reaction to the Italian concerto. Furthermore, as Dreyfus suggests, such syncretic works meshed well with contemporary notions of the mixed taste—though only so long as the constituent genres retained their identities.98 For some composers, blending the sonata with the concerto may also have satisfied a roguish impulse to disconfirm listeners’ generic expectations. More practically, such amalgamations—particularly in published Sonaten auf Concertenart—made the “public” (or courtly) music of concertos available to the growing “private” market for printed music. This domestication of orchestral style might be considered an early manifestation of what Leonard Ratner sees as “the role of the chamber style in classic music—to assimilate material from other genres and deliver it to the rapidly growing musical public of the late 18th century in neat and manageable packages.”99 Indeed, it is possible that the modest popularity of concerto-sonata hybrids in the first half of the century owed something to a broader and more long-lived fascination with mixing genres, one not limited to music. I wish therefore to consider, by way of concluding, what similarly “mixed” repertories might have to tell us about the allure of the Sonate auf Concertenart. Echoing Scheibe’s account at the distance of half a century, Augustus Friedrich Kollmann notes in his Essay on Practical Musical Composition (1799) that “Solos, Duets, Trios, Quartetts, Quintetts, etc. may be set in the style or character of a Symphony as well as a Sonata, if their author is able and disposed to distinguish the two Characters,” then recommends “some good Symphonies for a Keyed Instrument only” by C. P. E. Bach, Georg Benda, and Johann Schobert. Charles Burney also praises Schobert’s music for introducing “the symphonic or modern overture style upon the harpsichord, and by light and shade, alternate agitation and tranquility, imitating the effects of the orchestra.”100 Like Scheibe— who would no doubt have called works of this ilk “einstimmige Sinfonien” or “Sonaten auf Sinfonie-Art”—neither writer addresses the extent to which consumers of this music might be “able and disposed” to recognize its hybrid nature. For Burney and Kollmann there was presumably less to be gained by writing a sonata “set in the style or character” of a concerto, for the symphony had long since surpassed the concerto in terms of prestige. Yet Mozart produced three concerto-style sonatas during the early 1780s: the E-flat quintet for horn, violin, two violas, and cello, K. 407 (end of 1782), with a ritornello/binary-form Andante featuring a horn soloist who leads the ensemble into a cadenza-like passage toward the movement’s end; the B-flat piano sonata, K.

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 329

333 (Linz and Vienna, 1783–84), the last movement of which is a rondo for piano and “orchestra” culminating in a fully notated cadenza for the soloist—a model einstimmiges Concert; and the more subtly auf Concertenart E-flat quintet for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn, K. 452 (March 1784), in which all the instruments take turns as soloists and members of the tutti (again, the concluding rondo includes a cadenza). These hybridizations are, of course, consistent with Mozart’s fondness for mixing musical genres and topics. But it is noteworthy that he seems never to have made such explicit reference to the concerto in keyboard and chamber music before or after 1782–84, the start of his most intense period of concerto writing. Evidently Mozart, like composers of previous generations, was for a time fascinated by the potential of the new concerto style—this one of his own devising—to enrich other genres. In Haydn’s case, the primary recipient of such enrichment was the string quartet: a number of movements written between the 1750s and 1790s reveal, in Floyd K. Grave’s view, an “abiding preoccupation” with concerto-like (or aria-like) texture and formal syntax. Perhaps the strongest allusions to concerto style come in a number of through-composed slow movements with a “solo” first violin that may play an improvised cadenza. Several fast sonata-form movements from the 1780s and 1790s, though exhibiting a “structural ambivalence” engendered by concertante effects and ritornello-like returns of principal themes, allude to the concerto less transparently.101 Another generically mixed repertory returns us to the early eighteenth century. Consider Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), a work contemporary with the main repertory of Sonaten auf Concertenart. Nominally belonging to the genre of the travel book, it nonetheless alludes to a multitude of other literary genres common at the time. Many of Swift’s generic references are fleeting, however, and none is ultimately reliable as a guide to reading the book. As a result, Frederik N. Smith has argued, reading Gulliver’s Travels is a more complex activity than reading a travel book, a novel, an allegory, or a comedy. Swift’s text defamiliarizes itself, making it clear that no one genre is the key to its interpretation. . . . The reader’s experience has been (as with any well-written text) one long education in how to read the book he or she is reading, and Swift has taught us how to deal with increasing degrees of complexity, how to accept ambiguity, and how we need not always look at either literature or life through the restrictive eyes of any one genre.102

The multilayered generic meaning of Gulliver’s Travels seems not to have gone unnoticed among Swift’s contemporaries. As Smith observes, it is implicit in the famous 1752 discussion of the book by John Boyle, Earl of Orrery, for whom it

330 The Sonatas

was at once a satire, an allegory, a series of voyages, a “moral political romance,” a “philosophical romance,” and an “irregular essay.”103 Nor was Swift the only writer among his compatriots to be concerned with blurring boundaries of type. Margaret Anne Doody finds that Augustan poetry, like its Restoration antecedents, “exhibits extreme generic self-consciousness, and a constant search for new and mixed genres, as well as an extreme stylistic self-consciousness born out of seeing the possibilities of parody, burlesque or alienation in every poetic idiom or voice.”104 Much poetry by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and Lord Rochester in effect “creates its own kind” by repudiating established genres. And not only poems, but English hymns of the eighteenth century had a tendency to undergo generic alterations, so that “sometimes you may be brought up short by a verse making you utter sentiments not originally foreseen when you began the song.”105 The sensation of being brought up short by an unexpected turn of events is, of course, part and parcel of the Sonate auf Concertenart, where instrumental identities and alliances may shift from one moment to the next. And like Gulliver’s Travels, the cleverest works defamiliarize themselves enough to cause the listener difficulty in fixing their genre (sonata or concerto? solo concerto or double concerto?), not to mention the identity of the protagonists (ripienist or soloist?) and the setting of their interaction (ritornello or episode?). This is especially true of the arresting concerto-style movements in J. S. Bach’s A-major sonata, BWV 1032; Handel’s B-flat major trio, HWV 388; and Telemann’s A-minor quartet 43:a3, and it is therefore unsurprising that modern critics have offered sharply divergent interpretations of the first work.106 Clearly Bach’s movement is too much of “its own kind” for multiple listeners to parse it the same way. Such ambiguity is of course part of the work’s appeal, and so perhaps we should not regret the fact that Sonaten auf Concertenart—unlike much genre-conscious Augustan literature—come with no revealing subtitles or prefatory remarks addressed “To the Reader” that point out how the music relates to established styles and genres. Although the Augustan poets were apparently still unknown in Germany during the 1720s, a Hamburg translation of Gulliver’s Travels by Telemann’s close associate Christoph Gottlieb Wend appeared in 1727–28.107 Des Capitains Lemuel Gulliver Reisen became extremely popular with German readers, who seem to have regarded it primarily as an example of fantastic travel literature. Orrery’s Remarks was immediately translated as well, and native critics interpreted the book variously as a satire, a moralischer politische Roman, a politische Fabel, and an example of Reiseliteratur.108 Its success was such that Telemann felt moved to include the “Intrada, nebst burlesquer Suite,” 40:108, a programmatic violin duet inspired by episodes in the Reisen, in a 1729 issue of his music periodical Der getreue Music-Meister. One wonders, naturally, how much Telemann’s interest in Swift’s book owed to

Six Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart 331

his involvement with hybrid musical types, especially because the suite’s grotesqueries reflect the Augustan fondness both for generic amalgamation and burlesque. The “Lilliputsche Chaconne” is anything but stately as it flashes by (at least on the page) in a blur of sixty-fourth and one-hundred-twenty-eighth notes in 3/32 time, while the “Brobdingnagische Gigue”—no doubt inspired by the English jig Gulliver plays with great effort on a sixty-foot spinet—is danced in giant steps, trudging along in twenty-four whole notes to the measure. The “Reverie der Laputier, nebst ihren Aufweckern,” a humorous contrast movement that does not al2

lude to a dance type, teases the reader with a nonsensical time signature ( 3 ⁄ 2 ) 4 in an apparent allusion to the Laputans’ love for, and incompetence in, mathematics. And the suite’s final movement simultaneously mocks two disparate genres, the furie (“Furie der unartigen Yahoos”) and the loure (“Loure der gesitteten Houyhnhnms”), by presenting them together in the two violin parts. It may be seen to reflect not only the intertwined lives of the human Yahoos and equine Houyhnhnms (perhaps especially their antagonistic relations), but also the multivalent nature of Swift’s book. Beyond such literary allusions, it is a potent metaphor for the sometimes uneasy alliance between sonata and concerto embodied in the Sonate auf Concertenart.

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Part IV The Hamburg Publications

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Chapter 7 Telemann in the Marketplace The Composer as Self-Publisher

On 9 October 1772 the English music historian Charles Burney arrived in Hamburg, one of the last stops on his long tour of Germany. At once struck by the city’s “air of chearfulness, industry, plenty, and liberty,” he had come not only to soak in its rich musical history, shaped during the preceding three generations by Reinhard Keiser, Johann Mattheson, and Georg Philipp Telemann, but to see C. P. E. Bach, whose compositions Burney found so admirable that he “wanted no other musical temptation to visit this city.” It is not hard to imagine his consternation, then, when Bach greeted him by expressing embarrassment over the present state of music in Hamburg: “You are come here, said he, fifty years too late.” After hearing a wretched performance of Bach’s music before an inattentive audience in the Katharinenkirche, Burney could only agree that “this is not a bright period for music at Hamburg.”1 It was, in fact, nearly fifty-one years to the day since Telemann, Bach’s godfather and predecessor at Hamburg, had been installed as the city’s “Director musices” and Kantor of the Johanneum Latin school. Coming from less cosmopolitan Frankfurt am Main, he found his new surroundings ideally suited to his wide-ranging ambitions as a church musician, opera composer, impresario, man of letters, and entrepreneur. Less than two years into the post Telemann cheerfully reported to his Frankfurt friend Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach that “whereas music meanwhile goes downhill there, here it is on the rise; and I do not believe that any place can be found that encourages the spirit of one working in this science more than Hamburg.”2 Given a mandate to reshape the city’s musical life, Telemann responded by providing a succession of new cantata cycles and Passion oratorios for the city’s five main churches, supplying vocal works for numerous civic occasions, composing nearly twenty major stage works for the Gänsemarkt Opera (also serving as the Opera’s director from 1722 until its demise in 1738), founding a collegium musicum to give public concerts, and establishing his own music-publishing business. 335

336 The Hamburg Publications

This last aspect of Telemann’s creativity provides an important link between him and his godson, for at the time of Burney’s visit Bach had just launched his Selbstverlag, or self-publishing business. During the period 1772–87 he issued fifteen editions of music—placing newspaper advertisements, gathering subscribers through an extensive network of agents, and hiring Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf in Leipzig to do the printing. Bach’s success with self-publishing his works by subscription has been attributed not only to his music’s broad appeal, but also to his considerable administrative skills, a favorable publishing climate in Germany during the 1770s and 1780s, and the positive model of his father. As Peggy Daub puts it, “Much of what C. P. E. Bach did was done by his father before him . . . and also was being espoused by writers and intellectual leaders throughout Germany. He promoted his art extremely well, but he did not stand alone. . . . [Bach] unquestionably profited from the lessons learned in his father’s house about taking the reins of publication and later seized the further opportunities of his own day.”3 Yet for all that Bach undoubtedly learned from his father about the publishing world, he may have gleaned as much or more from the Selbstverlag of Telemann, whose editions were apparently well represented in the elder Bach’s musical household at Leipzig during the 1720s and 1730s.4 More successful in the marketplace for printed music than any of his German colleagues, Telemann brought out forty-two entirely new publications of his own works at Hamburg and Paris between 1725 and 1739; a further two were second editions of Frankfurt publications, one more was a second edition of an earlier Hamburg print, and ten more editions appeared under other publishers’ imprints in Germany and Paris between 1727 and 1765.5 The vastness of this enterprise may be gauged from Table 7.1, which lists the self- and authorized editions in rough chronological order.6 Such a publication list would be impressive in any period, but it is especially so for the early eighteenth century. Whereas Bach was operating in an increasingly internationalized music trade that allowed composers to publish and distribute their works more efficiently than ever before,7 Telemann worked at a time when the German music-publishing industry was at a low ebb and many celebrated composers saw little, if any, of their music into print. Bach was able to exploit the successful marketing system set up in 1773 by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock for his book Die deutsche Gelehrtenrepublik (attracting 3,609 subscribers who ordered 6,656 copies);8 Telemann had to assemble his own subscriber network from scratch. Instead of hiring a publishing firm to create the physical products, as Bach did, Telemann undertook much, if not all, of his own engraving; he exercised complete control over all aspects of production aside from the actual printing process. Nor was he content to limit his publications to a few popular musical genres and

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 337 Table 7.1 Telemann’s self- and authorized Publications, 1725–65 Title

Publication date

Comments

Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst Sonates sans basse Auszug derjenigen musicalischen . . . Arien Lustige Arien aus der Opera Adelheid Six sonates à violon seul Essercizii musici Pimpinone, oder Die ungleiche Heirat Sonate metodiche Sept fois sept et un menuet La petite musique de chambre Helden-Music, oder 12 neue musicalische Marches Der getreue Music-Meister Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musicalisches Lieder-Buch Zweytes sieben mal sieben und ein Menuet Ouvertüre und Suite Quadri Zwo geistliche Cantaten Nouvelles sonatines XX Kleine Fugen Sechs Cantaten III Trietti methodichi e III scherzi Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes 12 Fantaisies à travers. sans basse Fantaisies pour le clavessin Continuation des sonates méthodiques Musique de table Six quatuors ou trios Lustige Arien aus der Opera Adelheid Singe- Spiel- und General-Bass-Übungen XII Solos à violon ou traversière Scherzi melodichi Six concerts et six suites Lustiger Mischmasch oder scotländische Stücke Fugirende und veraendernde Choraele XII Fantasie per il violino senza basso Sonates corellisantes VI moralische Cantaten [I] Telemanns Canones à 2, 3, 4 Duos à travers. et violoncell 12 Fantaisies à basse viole

1725–26 November 1726 7 January 1727 1727 or early 1728 1727 or early 1728 1727 or 1728 January-April 1728 January-April 1728 21 April 1728 1728

Preface dated 19 Dec. 1725 Edition dated 1727 Hamburg: Kißner Lost Second edition

late 1728 1728–29

Lost

17 January 1730 6 February 1730 March-June (?) 1730 4 July 1730 19 December 1730 1730 or 1731 24 September 1731 1731 1731 1731–32 1732 1732–33 12 November 1732 1733 1733 1733 1733–34 1 March 1734 19 June 1734 1734 1734–35 1735 1735 1735 1735 1735 1735 August–November 1735

Second edition, 1751

Second edition

Lost

Extant copy incomplete

Preface dated 29 Dec. 1731 Title page lost

Second edition

Lost; some works by Telemann Only ms copy extant

Lost Lost

(continued)

338 The Hamburg Publications Table 7.1 Continued Title

Publication date

Comments

Six ouvertures à 4 ou 6 VI moralische Cantaten [II] Nouveaux quatuors XIIX Canons mélodieux Fugues légères et petit jeux 6 Symphonien Sonates en trio Vier und zwanzig theils ernsthafte, theils scherzende Oden Musicalisches Lob Gottes VI Ouverturen nebst zween Folgesätzen Music vom Leiden und Sterben des Welt Erlösers “Engel-Jahrgang” Second livre de duo De danske, norske og tydske undersaatters glaede Symphonie zur Serenata

1736 1736 1738 1738 1738 or 1739 1738 or 1739 1738–42

Only ms copies extant

19 June 1741 1744 1745

Hamburg: Herold Nuremberg: Schmid Nuremberg: Schmid

1746 or 1747 1748 1752

Nuremberg: Schmid Hermsdorf: Lau Paris: Blavet

1757 1765

Hamburg: Schönemann Hamburg: Bock

Published in Paris Published in Paris Lost Paris: Vater

Note: Publication dates including both day and month are those given in the edition’s preface.

styles, as were most of his contemporaries: the variety and quality of much of the music is no less remarkable than its quantity. Telemann’s self-publishing business has long been something of a blind spot for historians of music commerce. Surveys of music printing and publishing during the early eighteenth century often gloss over or fail to mention Telemann’s activities in Hamburg, even though his was arguably the most active music-publishing business in Germany during the late 1720s and 1730s.9 If Telemann’s editions have made any impact on histories of the music trade, this is due primarily to the lists of subscribers appended to the Musique de table and Nouveaux quatuors. Several decades ahead of their time, at least on the European continent, these lists bear witness to complex processes of marketing, production, distribution, and reception—processes that remain insufficiently understood, despite a wealth of surviving documentation.10 The account of Telemann’s Selbstverlag offered in this chapter outlines its practices in some detail, exploring the means by which he established and maintained a base of subscribers for his publications, how he set up a distribution network rivaling those of the leading music publishers in London and Amsterdam, how his practices as a music engraver bear on the publications’ appearance and chronology, and the reasons he stepped away from his self-publishing business in 1740.

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 339

Let us first consider the prospects for self-publishing composers during Telemann’s lifetime. Simply put, the bottom had dropped out of the German musicpublishing industry by the time he began to issue his own music in the 1710s. It may therefore have been by necessity, rather than choice, that Telemann began to self-publish. The underlying causes for this state of affairs are still imperfectly understood, but among them were changes in musical style, the limitations of printing technology, and the financial risk associated with music publishing. Stephen Rose notes that in Germany “music-printing was at unprecedented heights between 1604 and 1624,” then fell off dramatically in the late 1620s and 1630s as a result of the Thirty Years’War. Although the industry appears to have made at least a partial recovery around the middle of the seventeenth century, the market for printed vocal concertos contracted from the 1630s onward as increasing technical demands and sophistication rendered the music unsuitable for amateur music making.11 Such musical complexity also posed technical challenges for publishers, most of whom continued to use movable type well into the eighteenth century. As an heir of the Nuremberg bookseller Christoph Endter observed in the foreword to Johann Rosenmüller’s Sonate of 1682: “With the advancement of the art [of music], the deficiencies of the music printed to date have finally become so great that amateurs would rather copy their pieces with their own hands than submit to such irritation.”12 These words were written at the start of a steady decline in German music publishing that lasted through the early decades of the eighteenth century.13 The mere trickle of titles issued by the Endter family of booksellers between 1703 and 1731—after a fairly robust output from the 1640s through the 1690s—is one symptom of this shrinking trade in printed music.14 But even as the industry gathered considerable momentum after the 1720s, and engraving on copper plates banished the old movable type to examples in books, manuscript dissemination seems to have remained the rule. Writing in 1758, Jacob Adlung echoed Endter’s heir in noting that amateurs were reluctant to purchase printed editions: When a publisher has sunk his fortune into [engraved music], he sometimes sells only one copy in a large city. Thirty or more amateurs make manuscript copies from it, and the publisher is stuck with his copies. Who can consent to this? That is why publishers do not want to pay for music, and artists either work for nothing or not at all, to the detriment of the entire realm of Jubal.15

Adlung’s remarks also recall those of Johann Gottfried Walther over twenty years earlier: “The publishers fear that [the printing of music] would be to their detriment because for every amateur who spends money on it, ten or more copy

340 The Hamburg Publications

it out; and that’s the truth. . . . In such circumstances one doesn’t dare to selfpublish.”16 Low fees paid to composers by publishers also seem to have been common in London during the early to mid-eighteenth century. Payments made to Handel for several of his operas, and to Arne for his songbooks, are roughly equivalent to the 26 pounds earned by a scribe for copying Rinaldo.17 But composers could apparently count on receiving a certain number of salable prints: Johann Ulrich Haffner in Nuremberg advertised in 1759 that those German and Italian composers who sent him sonatas would be entitled to six free copies of any resulting edition.18 That same year, as we shall see below, Telemann offered works to the Breitkopf firm in exchange for “a number of copies” of the proposed publications. With composers receiving little or no remuneration from booksellers, it is understandable that some chose to act as their own publishers. Self-publication seems to have been least common during periods when the music-publishing industry was flourishing. For example, in early eighteenth-century England (where the trade in printed music was especially strong) just a dozen among 180 printed collections of opera arias and other songs were self-published between 1703 and 1726.19 Composers in early seventeenth-century Germany were largely successful in finding professional publishers willing to print their music. Yet some financed their own editions, perhaps for lack of commercial support, or in order to maintain tighter control over the printing process. Of these, Michael Praetorius and Hermann Schein were the most active, together accounting for at least thirty-two editions between 1605 and 1631. Both Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz received significant subsidies from their noble employers (Schein was employed by the municipality of Leipzig), so it may be that in their cases “self-publication was not so much an entrepreneurial venture as a subsidized operation to boost the court’s prestige.”20 Subsidies were also provided for the self-publications of later court musicians, such as Johann Joachim Quantz’s Sei sonate a flauto traversiere solo, op. 1 (Dresden, 1734), executed by the Dresden court engraver Moritz Bodenehr. We learn from Walther that “the author did not have to lay out so much [money], as the printing and paper were paid for.”21 In Germany following the Thirty Years’ War, self-publication appears to have reached its peak during the 1720s and 1730s. Andrew Talle’s statistical survey of German solo keyboard music printed between 1660 and 1750 reveals, first, relatively little publishing activity between the 1660s and 1710s (49 editions, 13 of which were self-published), then a significant increase during the next two decades (36 editions in the 1720s, 29 self-published; 76 editions in the 1730s, half self-published), and finally a flood of professionally published works in the

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 341

1740s and 1750s (217 editions, 7 self-published).22 Thus Telemann’s efforts during the period 1715–40, however extraordinary in scope, were in keeping with a trend toward self-publication. Yet by the time he dissolved his business, all but a few composers were entrusting their music to professional publishers. One further measure of the changing climate for published music in eighteenth-century Germany is provided by advertisements run in Nuremberg’s Friedens- und KriegsCurrier between 1715 and 1770.23 Although such notices—placed primarily by booksellers—can provide only a very rough idea of which editions were available to the journal’s readership, they help document broad publishing trends over much of the century. The first half of this period saw a modest jump in the number of advertised prints, from 11 in the 1710s and 1720s to 43 during the 1730s. But thanks in large measure to the advent of Nuremberg publishing concerns specializing in music (Balthasar Schmid from 1738 and Johann Ulrich Haffner from 1742), readers of the Currier were informed of some 500 musical publications between the 1740s and 1770s. Telemann was by no means the only composer to self-publish in early eighteenth-century Hamburg, where the city’s mercantile spirit may have encouraged this kind of musical entrepreneurship. As one German visitor remarked in 1707, “Even those foreigners who do not like to admire anything but their own fatherland write expressly that at the trade fairs in Frankfurt am Main a great number of people [gather] during times of peace and plenty; but in Hamburg practically every day is a trade fair.”24 Johann Mattheson, in addition to financing his numerous writings, also undertook the publication costs for two of his earliest musical editions, the Arie scelte dell’opera d’Henrico IV. Re di Castiglia (1711) and Sonate pour le clavecjn (1713); more than two decades later he self-published the fugues of his Die wol-klingende Finger-Sprache (1735 and 1737). Reinhard Keiser partnered with the widow of the Hamburg bookseller Benjamin Schiller to bring out four vocal collections during the 1710s.25 Two more of Telemann’s colleagues financed their own keyboard works: Vincent Lübeck, the seventy-four-year-old organist at the Nikolaikirche (Clavier Uebung, 1728); and Carl Christoph Hachmeister, organist at the Heiliger-Geist-Kirche (Clavirübung, by 1754). Other Hamburg self-publications include Conrad Hurlebusch’s Compositioni musicali per il cembalo (ca. 1735), Johann Christian Scholtz’s Une douzaine de tjerces musjcales à la flûte traversière et à la viole avec la basse (1736), and Joachim Erasmus von Moldenit’s Sei sonate da flauto traverso e basso continuo (1753). Among the chief obstacles facing early eighteenth-century composers who sought to publish their works—especially those financing editions themselves— was the cost of having their works typeset or engraved. Very little information

342 The Hamburg Publications

relating to publishing costs exists for the period, and practically none at all for Germany. But it may be that typesetting or engraving represented a publisher’s single biggest expense. In 1629–30 the Leipzig printer’s fee for Samuel Michael’s Ander Theil newer Paduanen was more than 50 percent higher than the cost for paper.26 Consider as well William Forster’s estimate in 1786–87 that engraving the plates for Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross would represent half the total cost of producing the edition. He further reckoned that plates and printing would each make up about a sixth of the cost, the paper about an eighth, and the engraved title and other lettering roughly a twentieth.27 Cost was one thing, but composers also had to locate engravers and printers who were experienced with music and had time for the job. In Leipzig during the 1720s and 1730s, J. S. Bach appears to have been frustrated by the high fees and unavailability of Johann Benjamin Brühl and Johann Gottfried Krügner Senior, the only two local professionals to whom he could turn for music engraving. He therefore hired past or present students, often in other cities, for most of his engraving work.28 Bach was not alone in his frustrations: in 1736 Walther complained that Krügner was unavailable to take on his variations on “Allein Gott in der Höh sei Herr” because the engraver was busy with music by Georg Friedrich Kauffmann.29 Even in a major publishing center such as London, Henry Carey had to inform subscribers to his cantatas in 1724 that publication was to be pushed back in part because of “unaccountable delays from the Copper Plate Printers.” A few years later, Peter Fraser spent “a considerable while” in search of the “proper hands” to engrave his Delightfull Musical Companion (1726). And Richard Meares’s edition of Handel’s Radamisto was advertised as “engraving on Copper plates” in July 1720 but was not completed until the following December.30 Of course, editions printed with movable type could also be held up by overcommitted artisans. The twelve solo sonatas of Johann Mattheson’s Der brauchbare Virtuoso languished in the print shop for three years, and his resulting displeasure at one of his publishers, the Hamburg bookseller Johann Christoph Kißner, is scarcely veiled in the edition’s preface: These works were finished and placed at the publisher’s disposal three years ago; however, he did not deem it advisable to publish them until now. Now, although I readily submit to all sensible opinions (and I cannot help but boast that I have [never] been associated with [such] a skilful, erudite, and active man as Herr Kißner), I feel that in practical music three years matter greatly and change many things, and that, were I for example to compose twelve such sonatas now, they would have to be somewhat more galant.31

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 343

Mattheson’s commentary on the rapid rate of stylistic change is striking in itself, and his apparent anxiety over being perceived as less than au courant recalls seventeenth-century composers’ fear of having their reputations damaged by misprints in typeset editions.32 It was no doubt to help preserve his good name that Mattheson included a list of errata, as did Telemann in his typeset cantata cycle Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst (also printed by Kißner). Given the difficulties associated with hiring professional engravers and letterpress printers—the expense, potential delays, and partial surrendering of control over the finished product’s accuracy and appearance—it is not surprising that composers occasionally undertook to engrave their own music. In 1679 the organist Benedikt Schultheiss engraved his Muth- und Geistermunternde Clavier-Lust for the Nuremberg booksellers Michael and Johann Friedrich Endter.33 Christoph Graupner seems to have both engraved and published at his own cost the Monatliche Clavir Früchte . . . meistenteils vor Anfänger (Darmstadt, 1722).34 Balthasar Schmid took up engraving in the mid-1720s and engraved and published as many as ten editions of his own music before becoming articled as a publisher in 1738.35 According to Walther, Bach’s former Weimar student Johann Gotthilf Ziegler studied engraving when he could not find a publisher for his Neu-erfundene musicalische Anfangs-Gründe and Neu-erfundene Unterricht vom General-Bass: “Since he has so far been unable to find a publisher [for these treatises], the author took instruction in copper engraving and etching this past summer (and has already executed various plates) in order to make both available to the public himself.”36 In 1731 Ziegler supervised C. P. E. Bach’s engraving of the “Menuet pour le clavessin par C. P. E. B.,” the teenaged composer’s first publication.37 Leopold Mozart also engraved his opus 1, the Sonate sei per chiesa e da camera (Salzburg, 1740), and later in the century Georg Simon Löhlein engraved his Six sonates pour le clavecin, op. 6 (Leipzig, 1776).38 Self-publishing composers also had to arrange for distribution of their printed products. In this respect, the activities of Schütz and Schein are remarkably similar to those of Telemann and the Bachs, as outlined below. Starting in the 1640s, Schütz’s editions were distributed by the composer, a network of church-musician agents, and at least one professional bookseller. Like Johann Theile, he also sent editions with merchants traveling to the Leipzig trade fair. Although Schein’s editions were sold primarily by booksellers, he complained of being ignored by them. Such neglect might have reflected his status as an industry outsider lacking the right professional contacts or guild memberships, or perhaps his desire for monetary payment from booksellers who were accustomed to bartering printed stock.39 The distribution channels of composer, musician agents, booksellers, and trade fairs remained those available at the turn of the eighteenth century. In-

344 The Hamburg Publications

structive as an example of a self-publishing composer in the decades immediately preceding Telemann’s activities is Johann Kuhnau in Leipzig. Kuhnau financed three of his published keyboard collections, each of which was periodically reissued with alterations over the following decades: the Neuer Clavier Übung erster Theil (1689); Neuer Clavier Übung andrer Theil (1692); and Musicalische Vorstellung einiger biblischer Historien (1700).40 To distribute his editions, Kuhnau worked with local booksellers: from 1695 to 1724 Johann Herbord Kloss distributed both parts of the Neuer Clavier Übung; and both Kloss and his colleague Friedrich Groschhuff offered the collections at the Frankfurt and Leipzig trade fairs. Perhaps to generate some advance sales, the Neuer Clavier Übung andrer Theil, like the Frische Clavier Früchte (1696), was advertised the year before it was published. Kuhnau was also something of a pioneer in having his music engraved rather than printed with movable type, for there was no tradition of engraving keyboard music from copper plates in the Leipzig area.41 Against this background, Telemann’s activities impress one as much for their boldness as for their breadth. In seeking to increase his productivity by employing pewter plates and hammer-driven punches, a method then apparently unknown in the German music-publishing industry; in soliciting subscribers to many of his publications and sometimes printing their names; in enlisting agents across northern Europe to help distribute his wares; and in advertising his stock through printed catalogs sent to customers in various cities, Telemann was acting more like a professional bookseller than a composer dabbling in music publishing. In the process he created a new paradigm for the composer as self-publisher.

Setting up Shop Prior to taking up his position at Hamburg, Telemann had published five collections of music at his own expense between March 1715 and September 1718 (including Prince Johann Ernst of Sachsen-Weimar’s Six concerts à violon concertant). Yet it would be seven more years before his reentry into the marketplace for printed music, a hiatus that one might attribute in part to the professional and personal upheavals of the early 1720s. Besides the strain of moving to Hamburg and acclimating himself to his new civic duties, founding and directing his collegium musicum, and taking up the reins of the Gänsemarkt Opera, Telemann wrote or revised eight operas for Hamburg and Bayreuth between July 1722 and September 1725, and he applied for and turned down the position of “Cantor zu St. Thomae et Director Musices” in Leipzig in 1722.

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 345

Shortly after his arrival in Hamburg, Telemann engaged the Hamburg bookseller Theodor Felginer to sell his four Frankfurt sonata publications.42 He also began to have printed and to sell the librettos to his yearly Passions with the blessing of the Hamburg city council, which was apparently ignorant of a seventeenthcentury privilege that granted the Ratsbuchdrucker (city printer) an exclusive right to print “books, calendars, histories, songs, and other things.”43 His predecessor at Hamburg, Joachim Gerstenbüttel, had clashed with the city printer Conrad Neumann over the issue of printing “music texts”; a 1699 council decree affirmed Neumann’s prerogative to print Passion librettos, and a 1708 newspaper item announced that henceforth the Lenten “sacred songs and Sing-Passion” would be available only from the Ratsbuchdrucker. When Neumann complained in January 1722 that Telemann had hired the Gennagel firm to print his Passion libretto, the council quickly ruled in the composer’s favor. Succeeding years saw a series of Pyrrhic victories for both sides in the dispute. The new Ratsbuchdrucker, Conrad König, paid the composer 150 Marks for the 1724 Passion libretto in the hope of securing his business over the long term (this was either in addition to or in lieu of the 300 printed copies that Telemann was entitled to receive gratis from the Ratsbuchdrucker). But after Telemann promised the 1725 libretto to the printer Rudolph Beneke, König petitioned the council and successfully reclaimed the right to print Passion librettos (perhaps wisely, he waited to make his move until the composer was out of town). The council did, however, affirm Telemann’s right to receive monetary remuneration. As a result of König’s 1739 complaint that libretto sales had declined, and with them his profits, this amount was reduced from 100 Marks to 80 Marks. In 1749 Telemann again requested that either he have the exclusive right to print and sell his Passion librettos or that his honorarium from the Ratsbuchdrucker be increased to 150 Marks. The council instead granted him an increase to 90 Marks. Telemann reasserted his rights once more in 1757, after König died owing him money and the new Ratsbuchdrucker, Jeremias Conrad Piscator, sought to alter the 1749 arrangement. As he now informed the council, the thirty-five-year-old controversy had left him feeling bitter. By 1723, with his position in Hamburg solidified as a result of the Leipzig offer, Telemann was ready to contemplate publishing music again. An advertisement in the Staats- und Belehrte Zeitung des hollsteinischen Correspondenten of 4 December stated that the composer had begun work on a new cantata cycle, to be published in four quarterly installments.44 Apparently in reference to this project, Telemann informed Uffenbach in October 1724 of a cycle that would be printed in two parts around Easter 1725 and the following Michaelmas (29 September). Meanwhile, in March 1725 he proposed that Uffenbach write and engrave the texts to

346 The Hamburg Publications

a half or full dozen “sacred-moral” cantatas suitable for performance in church or at private concerts, and he further suggested that Uffenbach engrave or etch Telemann’s musical settings as well.45 Although the sacred cantata cycle continued to be delayed and the project with Uffenbach never came to fruition, Telemann must already have been investigating production and distribution costs, establishing a network of agents both within and outside Hamburg, and gauging the nature and needs of his potential market. For as he well knew, there was no music press in Hamburg or elsewhere in Germany capable of helping him realize his publishing ambitions. Finally, on 26 October 1725 Telemann announced in the Staats- und Belehrte Zeitung des hollsteinischen Correspondenten that his 1725–26 cycle of post-sermon church cantatas would be published by subscription—a project that dwarfed his Frankfurt publications and whose financing depended in large measure on persuading buyers to pledge their money before the music was printed: At the beginning of the coming new year, Herr Georg Philipp Telemann intends to publish an annual cycle of music, specially designed for general use and for all Sundays and feast days. Each individual piece shall be issued four weeks before [the occasion to which it is appropriate], so as to allow time for it to reach out-of-town locations and be performed there. The edition is in score format in order that it may serve a single person who can both play and sing, two or three people making music together, or, especially, as something indispensable to someone who directs performances of such an annual cycle. It consists throughout of cantatas for a voice and instrument with continuo. . . . This annual cycle, the texts of which are by a practiced pen and pertain to the respective Epistles, will be published complete and as separate pieces. Since it will comprise 67 works altogether, those who wish to have it complete pay 20 Marks or 6 Reichstalers, 16 Groschen, so that each quarter they pay in advance 5 Marks or 1 Reichstaler, 16 Groschen, which is less than 5 Schillings or 21⁄2 Groschen [per cantata]. Individual works will be no less than 6 Schillings or 3 Groschen.46

In an apparent effort to reassure his subscribers that they had invested wisely, Telemann opened the preface to the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst with an explanation of why publication had been delayed and a promise that the cycle would continue as planned: It has already been more than two years since I decided to publish an annual cycle of music for all Sundays and Feast Days. . . . The work would have appeared in print long ago had the poet [Reverend Brandenburg from Lübeck] not found him-

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 347 self obliged, partly through indisposition, partly through overwhelming official duties, to leave a gap in the order of the annual cycle now and then. But as he has given us good reason to hope that all of the pieces that have been missing up to now will be forthcoming, and since I have sometimes been inspired to various uncommon ideas by his ingenious and profound work, lovers [Liebhaber] of edifying church services may have little doubt that we will both keep our promise.47

In the event, Brandenburg seems not to have filled in his gaps, for many of the cantata texts were supplied by the Hamburg poets Michael Richey and Matthäus Arnold Wilckens. That Telemann was able to publish the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst and at least fourteen other editions by subscription over the following two decades (Table 7.2) is remarkable, for gathering enough subscribers to cover production costs was a difficult task at a time when copying out works by hand was preferred to purchasing costly prints. Indeed, such ventures often met with disappointing results. Nothing appears to have come from Vivaldi’s attempt in late 1724 to find the 100 subscribers needed to finance a set of twenty-four concertos.48 In London, Francesco Geminiani took over two years to find 200 subscribers to his opus 4 violin sonatas (1739), and lack of subscriber interest in his treatise Guida Armonica (ca. 1752) delayed its publication for more than a decade.49 Conrad Hurlebusch in Hamburg had to abandon plans to print a collection of cantatas when he failed to attract the requisite number of subscribers in 1737.50 Also in Hamburg, a lukewarm response to C. P. E. Bach’s Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu, Wq. 240/H. 777 (1784) forced him to put off publication in 1781 and 1784.51 And the number of subscription copies ordered for any of the Cluer and Creake or Walsh editions of Handel’s operas, oratorios, and concertos never exceeded 192 (for Atalanta in 1736), and dipped as low as 80 (for Scipio in 1726).52 Yet publication by subscription remained attractive to composers and publishers because it promised to minimize the financial risk associated with printing music. Living in a city with close trade ties to England, Telemann was likely aware that the publication of books and music by subscription was steadily gaining in popularity in London and that there had been some notable successes with the method. Indeed, certain prints met with an enthusiastic response: Attilio Ariosti gathered no fewer than 765 subscribers for his cantatas of 1724, and in the same year Cluer and Creake found 465 subscribers for 992 copies of A Pocket Companion for Gentlemen and Ladies.53 By one count, some 334 editions of music were published by subscription in eighteenth-century Britain. This was the method of choice for operas, oratorios, and large collections of vocal music, all of which rep-

348 The Hamburg Publications

resented a substantial financial risk for the publisher, and for smaller publications unlikely to sell well because of their limited appeal or the relative obscurity of their composers.54 In May 1725, five months before Telemann called for subscribers to the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst, Handel published his first volume by subscription (Rodelinda). Given the long and apparently close friendship between the two composers, it would not be surprising if their correspondence from this time touched upon the ins and outs of publishing by subscription. But Telemann’s inspiration for his own subscription enterprise need not have come from London: he had already gained firsthand experience with the process in 1724 by lining up buyers for Mattheson’s Critica musica.55 During the previous year, he had solicited subscribers to the collegium musicum concerts he gave in his home.56 With the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst Telemann hedged his bet that he would find a sufficient number of subscribers by selling individual works as they became available (at least, this was the plan announced in October 1725 and in the edition’s preface), a practice he followed with several subsequent publications. If collecting subscriptions allowed him to estimate how many copies to print before the movable type was broken up for use in another job, publishing the cantatas serially rather than as a complete cycle meant he could avoid a large initial outlay of time and money. Moreover, it was possible that his subscriber base would grow after publication commenced. (Similar considerations may have played a role in J. S. Bach’s decision to issue the engraved partitas of ClavierÜbung I—his initial foray into the field of self-publication—in six installments between 1726 and 1730. Bach did not, however, collect subscriptions to this or any of his subsequent publications.) But not all details of Telemann’s plan were settled by the time of the October 1725 announcement, which gives the total number of cantatas as sixty-seven (seventy-two eventually appeared) and fails to indicate how long the subscription price of twenty Marks would be valid. He first announced the publication’s title in early 1726, and in April he set the nonsubscription price at thirty Marks. Sales may have been slow, for subscribers to the second quarter of the cycle were offered the first quarter at the same discounted rate, and a November notice announced that subscriptions would be accepted until the end of 1726, that is, until the publication was virtually complete.57 That Telemann overestimated the number of copies he would need and was consequently left at the beginning of 1727 with a considerable overstock is suggested by advertisements for the complete cycle between 1728 and 1734, in which the price is given at or below the subscription rate of 1725–26 (see Table 7.2).58 For two of Telemann’s subsequent collections the subscription period was carefully limited. In 1726 subscribers had from 7 December to the end of the

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 349

month to purchase the Auszug derjenigen musicalischen und auf die gewönlichen Evangelien gerichteten Arien —published not by Telemann, who may have been temporarily loath to issue another large collection at his own expense, but by the Hamburg printer Johann Christoph Kißner—and subscribers to the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes had the last seven weeks of 1731 to take advantage of a reduced price.59 As Table 7.2 shows, subscriber discounts ranged from 10 percent (VI moralische Cantaten II) to around 40 percent (Six concerts et six suites), averaging approximately 25 percent.60 The point of offering discounts was, of course, to increase the number of subscribers, and in a letter to Uffenbach of 23 February 1732 Telemann revealed that he had pursued an unusually aggressive pricing strategy in order to encourage more subscriptions to the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes at the rate of eight Reichstalers: From this one can judge how large the work will end up being. This is why I have announced in the newspapers that after its completion it will be sold, in the same manner as with my other works, for 16 to 18 Reichstalers. Although I know very well that you won’t think much of such a sum, I would prefer the number of Pränumerirenden to increase in this way because, like a merchant, I prefer a modest certain advantage over a larger hoped-for one.61

The advertisements Telemann mentions have not been identified. As an added incentive to subscribers, he announced in 1731 that if their numbers were sufficient, he would include “an appendix containing a number of polyphonic settings of [biblical] quotations appropriate to all the gospels.”62 Telemann’s remark in the edition’s preface (dated 29 December) that he would follow “the advice of many” and print the cantatas on both sides of high-quality paper—an about-face from his advertisement of 15 December, in which he proposed to print on only one side—may have come in response to subscribers’ complaints about low-quality paper, if the switch was not simply a cost-cutting measure.63 Although Telemann’s typical profit margin must have been relatively high, given that he was not paying a professional for music engraving, it seems unlikely that he would have embarked on a major publishing venture without some assurance of its profitability. (As we shall see, most of Telemann’s subscribers sent in their money prior to publication. Thus, according to eighteenth-century terminology, they were Pränumeranten rather than Subscribenten, who paid for their reserved copies after publication.) Indeed, the fifteen publications listed in Table 7.2 may represent only a cross-section of a more extensive subscription enterprise.64 The fact that Telemann sought subscribers to the serially published 12 Fantaisies à basse de viole —one of his slightest collections—suggests that other rel-

350 Table 7.2 Telemann’s subscription publications, 1725–48 Publication

Subscription proposal

Subscription prices [equiv. in Ggr.]

Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst

26 October 1725

6 Rtlr., 16 Ggr.; 5 Ml. quarterly [160]

Auszug derjenigen musicalischen . . . Arien Der getreue Music-Meister Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes

7 December 1726 ? 9 November 1731

2 Rtlr. [48] ? 8 Rtlr.; 2 Rtlr. quarterly [192]

Musique de table

26 November 1732

8 Rtlr.; 2 Rtlr. quarterly [192]

[48] Singe- Spiel- und General-Bass-Übungen

3 November 1733 1733–34 1734

12 Ggr. per dozen [48] 14 Ggr. per dozen [56] 8 fl., 7 Ggr. [135]

Six concerts et six suites

Nonsubscription prices [equiv. in Ggr.] (price’s first appearance) 30 Ml. [240] (10 April 1726) 6 Rtlr. [144] (late 1728) 18 Ml. [144] (1730) 10 fl. [160] (1733–34) ? ? 10 Rtlr. [240] (9 November 1731) 16–18 Rtlr. [384–432] (?early 1732) 12 Rtlr. [288] (28 February 1733) 12 Rtlr. [288] (late 1732) 20 fl. [320] (1733–34) 4 fl. [64] (3 November 1733) 4 fl., 8 Ggr. [72] (17 January 1735) 13 fl., 8 Ggr. [216] (17 January 1735) 10 fl. [160] (4 January 1736)

12 Fantaisies à basse de viole

mid-1735

14 Ggr.

VI moralische Cantaten [I]

mid-1735

1 fl., 11 Ggr. [27]

Six ouvertures à 4 ou 6 VI moralische Cantaten [II] Nouveaux quatuors Musicalisches Lob Gottes Music vom Leiden und Sterben des Welt Erlösers “Engel-Jahrgang”

26 September 1735 26 September 1735 ?early 1738 20 December 1742 26 April 1746 ?late 1747/early 1748

2 1⁄ 2 Rtlr. [60] 2 fl., 4 Ggr. [36] 6 fl. [96] 4 Rtlr., 8 Ggr. [104] 2 Rtlr. [48] 8 fl., 40 Kreutzer [139]

1 fl., 2 Ggr. [18] (mid-1735) 1 fl., 4 Ggr. [20] (4 January 1736) 2 fl., 4 Ggr. [36] (mid-1735) 1 Rtlr., 8 Ggr. [32] (26 September 1735) 2 fl., 2 Ggr. [34] (6 March 1736) 2 fl. [32] (1 September 1736) 3 Rtlr. [72] (26 September 1735) 2 fl., 8 Ggr. [40] (26 September 1735) ? ? 3 Rtlr. [72] (26 April 1746) ?

Note: Approximate values are 1 Reichstaler Courant (Rtlr.) = 3 Mark lübisch Courant (Ml.) = 24 Gute Groschen (Ggr.); 1 rheinisch-kaiserliche Gulden (fl.) = 2 Ml. = 16 Ggr. = 60 Kreutzer. Sources: TB, 184–85 and 234; TWV 1, 198–99 and 231–38; Brusniak, “Zur Pflege”; Fleischhauer, introduction to Telemann, Singe-, Spiel-, und Generalbaß-Übungen; Heussner, “Der Musikdrucker Balthasar Schmid in Nürnberg”; Hirschmann, introduction to Telemann, Johannespassion 1745; Hobohm, “Neues aus dem Telemannischen Verlag” and preface to Telemann, Drucke aus dem Verlag Balthasar Schmid; Clostermann, “Der Handel,” 264; Kremer, “Telemanns Beziehungen zum Plöner Hof ”; and Menke, Das Vokalwerk, Anhang A.

351

352 The Hamburg Publications

atively modest projects known to have been issued serially were also financed through subscribers (for example, the Fantaisies pour le clavessin and Fugirende und veraendernde Choraele). On the other hand, some publications inscribed to individuals could have been financed through dedicatees’ gifts rather than payments from Pränumeranten. Along with the advantages of publishing by installment came the drawback, as Martin Ruhnke has noted, that Telemann the composer was sometimes constrained by Telemann the publisher.65 Each issue of the groundbreaking music journal Der getreue Music-Meister, for example, had to fit on one bifolium, and groups of seven menuets in the Sept fois sept et un menuet on two. Limited to a single page were individual numbers of the 12 Fantaisies à travers. sans basse (another serial publication?), Fantaisies pour le clavessin, Singe- Spiel- und General-Bass-Übungen, XX Kleine Fugen, Fugirende und veraendernde Choraele (each chorale setting in a pair), and 12 Fantaisies à basse de viole. Although these works consequently represent Telemann at his most epigrammatic, it is also true that some are crammed into the small space allotted them. In this respect, the brief songs of the Singe- Spiel- und GeneralBass-Übungen, like the many contemporaneous single-sheet songs published in England, perfectly suited the serial medium. With Der getreue Music-Meister, Telemann shrewdly broke up multimovement works between issues, allowing himself the flexibility to include longer pieces while creating a powerful incentive for the journal’s readership to purchase the entire run rather than individual numbers. Telemann also established regular times when Hamburg subscribers could pick up the latest installments of music from one of the local bookshops. Thursday was the day for Der getreue Music-Meister (every other week) and the Sept fois sept et un menuet, Singe- Spiel- und General-Bass-Übungen, Fugirende und veraendernde Choraele, VI moralische Cantaten II, 12 Fantaisies à basse de viole, and VI moralische Cantaten I (the last two publications overlapping, so that two fantasias and one cantata appeared on alternate Thursdays). But cantatas of the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes were scheduled to be issued in batches every other Friday, and groups of seven menuets from the Zweytes sieben mal sieben und ein Menuet on each Monday.66 Subscribers apparently received a title page with the first installment of a publication and an index, if necessary, with the last (as, for example, with Der getreue Music-Meister, the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes, and the Singe- Spiel- und General-Bass-Übungen). Completed editions tended to see their prices fluctuate over the years, presumably in response to changing market conditions and production costs. Like the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst, the Six concerts et six suites sold well below the original nonsubscriber price, perhaps because this sum had been disproportionately high in comparison with the subscriber price. But several other collections, including the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes, Musique de table, Singe- Spiel- und Generalbass-

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 353

Übungen, and 12 Fantaisies à basse de viole became more expensive over the years. It is hard to know whether these increases reflected higher printing costs—for paper, ink, and the labor of repulling the already engraved plates through the presses— or a growing demand for Telemann’s publications. The prices of various types of paper in Frankfurt and Leipzig are known to have been somewhat variable during the 1720s and 1730s,67 and it is possible that similar fluctuations in Hamburg were behind the rising subscription price of each dozen Singe- Spiel- und Generalbass-Übungen during 1733–34, and the slight dip and rise in price of the VI moralische Cantaten I in 1735–36. The price of at least one Hamburg edition, the Fugues légères & petits jeux, appears to have remained steady, for its title page proclaims “PRIX / IV. LIVRES, OU I. ECU D’ALLEMAGNE” in large lettering. Telemann had never before included the price on a Frankfurt or Hamburg edition, and he may have done so here in imitation of the Nouveaux quatuors, XIIX Canons mélodieux, and other Parisian publications. In Hamburg, Telemann accepted subscriptions at his home, at the music stall in the stock exchange (“Music-Bude an der Börse”), or at the shops of the booksellers Heuss, Kißner, and Grund, who also distributed installments of serial publications; thus his “shop” had no single, fixed location. The most efficient method of collecting subscribers was undoubtedly placing newspaper advertisements and printing handbills that could be left with booksellers or posted around the city. A handbill of 26 September 1735 advertising four forthcoming publications advises that “those who wish to subscribe here will be so kind as to sign their names below.”68 In order to extend his market beyond Hamburg, Telemann relied especially on personal correspondence and a network of agents, middlemen whose reliability in collecting and submitting subscribers’ names and selling nonsubscription copies would have varied to some degree. It was trouble with agents, in fact, that prevented his Frankfurt edition of Prince Johann Ernst’s Six concerts à violon concertant from reaching a wide audience. In 1735 Johann Gottfried Walther informed the Wolfenbüttel Kantor Heinrich Bokemeyer that owing to the disloyalty of the agents, this work had the misfortune of selling very few copies. And the most Serene Mama [Duchess Charlotta Dorothea] would be very pleased if, for the aforesaid price [1 taler], it could become better known, even if the price were to come down somewhat. There are probably two to three hundred copies here.69

Besides alerting Telemann to the pitfalls of distributing printed music, this episode may have helped convince him to take matters into his own hands once at Hamburg.

354 The Hamburg Publications

By the late 1720s one could obtain Telemann’s works at a number of the most important publishing centers in Europe. A 1728 printed catalog of his editions lists agents in London, Amsterdam, Leipzig, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Nuremberg, Jena, and Hamburg from whom thirteen publications might be purchased or ordered—a broader distribution network than that set up by J. S. Bach in 1727 for Clavier-Übung I, which was available from agents in Dresden, Halle, Lüneburg, Brunswick, Nuremberg, and Augsburg. Whereas Bach’s agents were musicians, all but one of Telemann’s were booksellers, allowing him to disseminate his editions via the international book trade.70 Telemann also had excellent prospects for expanding into other markets: as corresponding agent to the Eisenach court (1725–30), he maintained contacts in Hanover, The Hague, Copenhagen, Paris, and London (corresponding with the last two, he claimed, in their native tongues), and had further contacts that gave him access to news from Sweden, Moscow, Denmark, Berlin, Poland, and Vienna. Moreover, as he informed the court, he had ties to Hamburg’s well-connected ambassadors and merchants.71 In March 1732 the Gleditsch bookshop in Leipzig advertised ten of his publications in the Neue Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen, and at the Leipzig trade fairs between 1726 and 1728 one could obtain the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst and Auszug derjenigen musicalischen . . . Arien from Kißner.72 An extensive “Catalogue des œuvres en musique de Mr. Telemann” printed in Amsterdam in 1733 lists twenty-eight publications plus an additional fifteen described as forthcoming; a German version of the catalog appeared the following year in Hamburg.73 Dutch booksellers, in fact, may have been well supplied with Telemann’s music (apart from the Le Cène editions of the Sei suonatine and Sonates sans basse that appeared in the 1720s). At his death in 1759, Nicholas Selhof in The Hague owned twenty-six or twenty-seven of Telemann’s editions, in addition to a copy of the VI Ouverturen nebst zween Folgesätzen and half a dozen foreign reprint editions.74 Though Selhof ’s Telemanniana may have been purchased from a third party for resale (he had connections with Roger and Le Cène in Amsterdam), it is entirely possible that he was Telemann’s agent in The Hague. In any event, he obtained his copy of the Nouveaux quatuors by subscription. Selhof also owned manuscripts of Telemann’s music, copies of which might have been sold to his customers in the manner of the Breitkopf firm.75 In gathering out-of-town purchasers and subscribers, Telemann often mailed his potential customers printed catalogs of published editions or handbills announcing forthcoming titles. (Only once, in the Sonates sans basse, did he include a list of publications in an edition.) He sent catalogs to the Aurich and Waldeck courts in 1728 and 1730, also presenting the latter in 1729 with a sample issue of Der getreue Music-Meister and inquiring whether the court wished to acquire fu-

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 355

ture issues.76 The strategy proved successful: both courts ended up purchasing publications from Telemann. In 1732 a handbill advertising the Musique de table made its way to the Rudolstadt Hofkapelle, which subscribed to the collection through its Konzertmeister Johann Graf (composer of six violin sonatas published by Telemann in 1737). Telemann acknowledged Graf ’s order in a letter of 30 October 1732, and sent him a receipt for his payment of eight Reichstalers on 31 December. The text of the handbill identifies the collection as an instrumental pendant to the identically priced Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes, and points out that each of the three “performances” (“Productions” in the print) may be given complete, from the overture-suite through to the “symphony” (not “conclusion,” as the print describes it): Just as Kapellmeister Telemann is this year publishing by subscription a large musical work for voices consisting of sacred cantatas on the Gospels for all usual feast days and Sundays, he intends to bring out one for instruments in the near future. It will bear the title “Tafel-Music” and contain 3 Ouvertures with Suites, in 7 parts; 3 Quartets; 3 Concertos in 7 parts; 3 Trios; 3 Solos; and 3 Concluding Symphonies in 7 parts. It is divided into three performances [Aufführungen], so that each time one can play 1 ouverture, 1 quartet, etc. through to the concluding symphony. Both the ouvertures and concertos contain 2, 3, or 4 concertante instruments of various kinds. The instrumentation of the quartets, trios, and solos will continually vary; the concluding symphonies will be full and fugal, yet also intermixed with concertante elements. Subscribers will pay the author 2 Reichstalers quarterly in Hamburg currency, with the first payment due at New Year 1733; one may also pay 8 Reichstalers all at once against an appropriate receipt. The music will appear at Ascension Day, Michaelmas, and Christmas of the same year, each time complete. The best French paper will be used, and the music, engraved on metal plates, will look spacious and clear. When the work is completed, it will cost up to 12 Reichstalers. Hamburg [blank space for day and month] 173277

The fact that only the Musique de table is advertised on this handbill indicates its special status as an instrumental collection of unprecedented length and unusual

356 The Hamburg Publications

difficulty, both technical and conceptual. It is, to a greater extent than any Telemann opus besides the hodgepodge Der getreue Music-Meister, an encyclopedic survey of genres, national styles, and scorings—music best appreciated (and afforded) by well-to-do connoisseurs and well-outfitted Hofkapellen. Certainly the diversity of the print’s contents and the novel arrangement of pieces for performance would have been strong selling points. On the other hand, Telemann must also have realized that the collection’s high price and the lifting of customary restraints on length and difficulty would require some special pleading when it came to attracting customers. It is odd, in this respect, that the handbill does not indicate a plan to print subscribers’ names, which for many prospective purchasers might have been an additional enticement. A contemporary dictionary article on the printing of books by subscription suggests that the promise of a subscriber list could increase sales: In many cases the list of subscribers for such books is printed in advance, which has dual purposes that are both to the publisher’s advantage. For there are many vain people who will gladly pay two, three, and more talers just to see their names in print, and the number of Subscribenten or Pränumeranten will increase from this conceit. Afterwards, many who lack the sense to recognize and judge a book’s quality, and simply allow themselves be dazzled by the reputation of great men, are lured by such a list to purchase the work, if they see there a considerable number of the greatest men; for then they immediately conclude: this book must be an excellent work because all of these people felt a desire to own it.78

Whether Telemann had not yet contemplated printing a list of subscribers or had simply miscalculated in failing to mention it, he assured his Pränumeranten that their names would indeed appear in print through a newspaper advertisement run on 26 November and 9 December 1732: In the next year, lovers of music may expect from Telemann’s pen a large instrumental composition called Tafel-Music. It consists of 9 orchestral [starcken] works with 7 instruments and as many chamber [schwächern] works with 1, 2, 3, or 4 instruments. One may subscribe with 2 Reichstalers quarterly, the first time at New Year’s [1733]. Distribution will occur on three occasions: at Ascension Day, Michaelmas, and Christmas. The names of the Pränumerirenden will be printed with the work.79

The Musique de table handbill seems also to have made its way to Telemann’s young merchant friend in Riga, Johann Reinhold Hollander, who purchased this and a number of other Hamburg publications. In a letter of 28 February 1733,

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 357

written entirely in verse, Telemann corrected Hollander’s mistaken impression that the first part of the collection had already been completed by pointing out that “it will be ready by Ascension day. You will see that this is indicated on the announcement leaflet.”80 In 1739 we again find Telemann acting as bookkeeper, sending a receipt to the Plön Hofkapelle acknowledging payment for the Nouveaux quatuors, subscribed to by Duke Friedrich Carl through his organist Johann Görtz (though only Görtz’s name appears in the published list of subscribers).81 But most of Telemann’s correspondence regarding subscribers concerns the recruiting of friends and colleagues to act as agents. In an undated letter to Hollander, probably written in November or December 1732, Telemann mentions that the Tallinn merchant Carl Nicolaus Hetling had already paid the full subscription price for the Musique de table (“though he initially had some doubts”), then asks Hollander “to put in a good word for my musical works wherever you go, especially for my Tafel-Music.”82 In the same February 1733 letter to Hollander, Telemann writes in verse that “Herr [Heinrich] Scheiber appears to be a man of German loyalty. He gathers subscriptions for me from among his acquaintances there, and already has three of them. I’d like to receive such a cheerful report from him more often,” then completes his rhyme by prodding Hollander: “And don’t you neglect to do the same for me.”83 On 14 March 1733 Christoph Förster in Merseburg reported to Telemann that he had secured a subscription to the Musique de table from the Duke of Sachsen-Weißenfels and enclosed eight Reichstalers for his own copy (both men appear in the subscriber list).84 A letter of 7 December 1739 from Carl Heinrich Graun in Berlin followed up an earlier one (now lost) in which he had asked Telemann for “certain musical works” published by subscription. He now reported that he was trying to assemble “a quantity of Berlin customers” for Telemann’s music. The following 15 June, however, he reported having lined up only a few, citing his isolation in Rheinsberg and Ruppin and the “pauvreté” of musical amateurs in Berlin. Three years later, Graun assured Telemann that he was collecting as many subscribers as he could, apparently for the Musicalisches Lob Gottes, and that some had already given their names to the publisher, Schmid in Nuremberg.85 It is unknown whether Graun, Schreiber, Hollander, and Förster were paid for their services; like some of C. P. E. Bach’s agents, they may have been gathering subscriptions as a favor.86 Such work could be fraught with complications. Writing to Uffenbach in February 1732 on the subject of the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes, a somewhat deflated Telemann offered that “your pleasant letter has brightened me up, as until now I have been not a little distressed that of the five people in Frankfurt I invited to [subscribe to] my annual cycle, not a single one has honored me with an answer.”87 In 1736–37 Telemann corresponded with Johann Richey, son of

358 The Hamburg Publications

the Hamburg poet Michael Richey and the city’s ambassador to the Viennese imperial court, about the possibility of finding a market for his publications in Vienna. Richey appears to have enticed Gottlieb Muffat to purchase the XX Kleine Fugen, but it is unclear how much success he had otherwise (there was, in any case, one Viennese subscriber to the Nouveaux quatuors). Telemann was aware that Vienna was a tough market to crack, especially for Lutheran sacred works and Frenchstyle music (he knew enough not to send the Six ouvertures à 4 ou 6), but informed Richey that he had made contact with a merchant there.88 Because he assumed postage costs for out-of-town subscriptions, Telemann quite naturally sought to economize on the delivery of his publications. Writing to the Aurich court on 3 December 1728, he mentioned that “the second lesson of the Music-Meister will appear in the following days. I would very much like it if a number of amateurs out there would sign up [for the journal], so that every two weeks I could send enough copies to make the postage fees worthwhile.”89 Telemann appears to have saved money by sending the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes to Hollander by ship and explained to Uffenbach that during the Frankfurt trade fair he could inexpensively pack copies of the print into carriages making almost weekly trips between Hamburg and Frankfurt or send them with friends for nothing. He also arranged to send his publications to Vienna free of charge with the goods of a Hamburg merchant.90 As with the Musique de table, Telemann seems to have been particularly concerned that the Six ouvertures à 4 ou 6 attract an adequate number of subscribers.91 Overture-suites, with their relatively opulent scorings and prices to match, cannot have been as appealing to purchasers of printed music as works for smaller, more easily assembled forces (one wonders how well the lost Ouverture und Suite sold in 1730). This may be why Telemann’s advertisement in the Hamburger Berichte von neuen gelehrten Sachen of 6 March 1736 has a sense of urgency lacking in most of his subscription calls: Herr Kapellmeister Telemann is presently working on 6 Ouverturen with their ample suites. Three of them require 2 violins or oboes, viola, and continuo. The other three additionally require 2 horns that may, however, be omitted. Publication will occur around Ascension Day of 1736, and will bear witness, both through clarity of notes and quality of paper, that [these Ouverturen] far surpass all previous works. Even though [the collection’s] scope extends to 100 plates, no more than 2 1⁄2 Reichstalers will be required in advance, received against a receipt by the author, who heartily recommends this music—of a type in which his pen is especially practiced—to amateurs, and who hopes for the considerable number of signatures that he expects.92

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Such flexibility of scoring is typical of Telemann’s publications, and in this case renders the Six ouvertures performable with fewer players than the more challenging Musique de table suites. In fact, none of his contemporaries seems to have provided the consumer of printed music with such a variety of optional scorings. Typical of the period are sonatas that are advertised as performable on violin or flute, and pieces that may be played with treble instrument and continuo or on unaccompanied keyboard.93 While there are many instances of such formulations in Telemann’s editions,94 there are also options apparently without parallel in the literature. Consider the two-voice Helden-Music, oder 12 neue musicalische Marches, which was advertised in 1728 as “scored for two oboes or violins, etc., of which 6 [marches] may be accompanied with a trumpet, and 3 with 2 horns; all, however, may be played on keyboard alone.”95 Several works in Der getreue MusicMeister are preceded by a forest of clefs and key signatures that facilitate their performance on a variety of instruments. Thus the duet TWV 40:111 may be played in B-flat major with recorder and violin; in G major with flute or violin and violin or viola pomposa; or in A major with two violas da gamba. And the canonic sonata TWV 41:B3 for viola or viola da gamba and continuo may also be performed as a duet for viola or viola da gamba and violin, recorder, or flute (in A major when the flute participates). Invertible counterpoint in the quartet TWV 43:d1 from the Musique de table allows the recorder part to be played two octaves lower on bassoon or cello. In the Quadri and Nouveaux quatuors, one is not merely given the nominal option of performing the obbligato bass line on either viola da gamba or cello, but is presented with alternative partbooks (the cello is accommodated by modifying certain multiple stops, articulations, and high-range passages more suited to the viola da gamba). The title page to the Six concerts et six suites gives no fewer than five possible scorings: harpsichord and flute; harpsichord, flute, and cello; violin, flute, and cello; violin, flute, and continuo; and harpsichord, violin, flute, and cello.96 Finally, the Six quatuors ou trios, as noted in chapter 5, are “for 2 Transverse Flutes or 2 Violins, and for 2 Cellos or 2 Bassoons, the second of which can be left out entirely or played on the Harpsichord.”

Telemann’s Subscribers In two of his most ambitious instrumental publications, the Musique de table and Nouveaux quatuors, Telemann printed the names of subscribers at the beginning of the first partbook. These lists are not only among the earliest of their kind—and impressively large for the early eighteenth century—but demonstrate in a most

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immediate way the broad appeal of Telemann’s music throughout much of Europe. The 185 subscribers to the Musique de table (who ordered 206 copies) came from England, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and the Baltic lands.97 Hamburg, naturally, is the best-represented city on the list, with fifty-one subscribers. But the second-highest number of orders—eighteen—came from Paris, confirming that it had a substantial audience for Telemann’s music even before unauthorized editions of his chamber music began to appear under the imprint of Charles Nicolas Le Clerc during the mid1730s.98 Telemann found the third- and fourth-highest numbers of subscribers in Berlin (eleven) and Frankfurt (five), but in other cities he collected only one to four names. One Parisian subscriber, the flutist and composer Michel Blavet, reserved no fewer than twelve copies of the edition. If, as seems likely, he was functioning as Telemann’s agent, the copies would have been earmarked for other subscribers who wished to remain anonymous, or possibly received as payment for drumming up business.99 Likewise, the Dresden violinist Johann Georg Pisendel may have received his six copies of the Musique de table for acting as Telemann’s Dresden agent. As for the Nouveaux quatuors, it is usually stated that 237 copies were ordered by 232 subscribers, with France (principally Paris) providing 138 names. But these figures fail to take into account exemplars of the collection at Washington and Brussels, where the list is augmented by a “Supplément de souscrivants” recording an additional fifty-five subscribers and fifty-seven copies (Figure 7.1 and Table 7.3).100 Roughly a third of the supplementary subscribers are French (most, apparently, from Paris), with the others representing the same countries as subscribers in the main list.101 Surveying the roster of subscribers to the Nouveaux quatuors as a whole, one is struck by how few orders came from Hamburg (thirteen) and Berlin (one). By contrast, there are healthy numbers of subscribers from places scarcely or not at all represented in the Musique de table list.102 This disparity suggests that Telemann played a limited role in collecting subscribers to his quartets, perhaps entrusting the job to his publishing partners Vater, Boivin, and Le Clerc, whose Parisian, French, and Belgian connections were presumably stronger than their German ones. Telemann’s printing of the “Supplément de souscrivants” reveals that he initially went to press before a fifth of the subscription orders had come in, while the somewhat haphazard arrangement of names indicates that they were engraved as they arrived in batches from agents (such as those in Antwerp and Cádiz) or singly from individual subscribers themselves. Logistical problems such as this were not uncommon at the time—especially in the literary world, where publica-

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figure 7.1. Second page of the “Noms des souscrivants” list from the Nouveaux quatuors, showing the “Supplément de souscrivants” (Library of Congress, Washington)

Table 7.3 The “Supplément de souscrivants” for the Nouveaux quatuors 1. S. A. E. M.gr LE CARDIN.L D’AUVERGNE. 1. M.lle Colabo. 1. M.r Coüet. 1. M.r de Neufchastel. 1. M.r Naudot. 1. M.r Tousard. 1. M.r l’Envoyé Wich. 1. M.r Bensen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gluckstadt. 1. M.r Charls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Londres. 1. M.r Fabritius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Loit. 1. M.r le Comte de Frankenberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sondershausen. 1. M.r Geelfuss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Utrecht. 1. M.r Gleditsch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leipzig. 1. M.r Hofmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Berlenbourg. 1. M.r Ondratscheck. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maynce. 1. M.r Piantanida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hambourg. 1. M.r le Riche . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tournay. 1. M.r Sauermann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bremen. 1. M.r Sechehaye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Francf. sur le Mein. 1. Mad.e Casamajor. 1. Mad.e Dupré de S.r Maur. 1. M.r Durant. 1. M.r Boula de Charny. 1. M.r Dentzler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Menin. 1. M.r Ferrand. 1. M.r ter Hoeven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rotterdam. 1. M.r Rahtlau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leuwarde. 1. M.r Selle l’Aine. 1. M.r Cater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cadix. 1. M.r Colesse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cadix. 1. M.r Fromaget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cadix. 1. M.r J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cadix. 1. M.r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cadix. 3. M.r Pommer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Venise. 1. M.r Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cadix. 1. M.r le Marq.s Deleceau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roüen. 1. Mad.e Formant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roüen. 1. M.r Massieu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Caën. 1. M.r Magniat. 1. M.r Douxchamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Namur. 1. M.r Gross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Menin. 1. M.r Koller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zuric. 1. M.r Martfeldt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Menin. 1. M.r Mertens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Namur. 1. M.r Meyss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zuric. 1. M.r Ott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zuric.

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1. M.r Pasquier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Namur. 1. M.r Pinet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brusselles. 1. M.r le Conseil.r Le Witt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brusselles. 1. M.r de Blanger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anvers. 1. M.r Castano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anvers. 1. M.r Hendrickx . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anvers. 1. M.r Sloyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anvers. 1. M.r Vecquemans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anvers. 1. M.r Campion Corrigenda.

tions financed through subscribers were often plagued by delays on the parts of agents. To take one example, in February 1714 Alexander Pope asked an agent collecting subscriptions to his translation of Homer’s Iliad for a list of every person who actually paid you his subscription, or whom you can engage for, on his promise to pay you; for I must print a catalogue of all who have already subscribed in a very short time, and it would be of equal ill consequence either to omit any that have paid, or add any that have not. I wait only for these names to send the catalogue to the press.103

C. P. E. Bach, too, complained about the tardiness of his agents in submitting their lists of subscribers, and how this delayed publication of his works.104 Telemann apparently anticipated such difficulties, for the Nouveaux quatuors list was clearly designed to allow addenda.105 The format of the Musique de table list, on the other hand, would have made the addition of late subscribers’ names impossible without the engraving of an additional plate. One therefore wonders whether the collection attracted more subscribers than presently meet the eye.106 Neither list, in the end, can be assumed to give an entirely accurate impression of subscriber response, for agents may have failed altogether to send in the names of subscribers (as was often the case with books published by subscription), those whose names were printed could have defaulted during the interval between solicitation and publication, and some subscribers may have preferred that their names not be printed.107 Determining the social position of Telemann’s subscribers is complicated by the lists’ inconsistency in giving occupations; the Nouveaux quatuors list is particularly unhelpful in this respect. More royal and noble subscribers are identified as such in the Musique de table than in the Nouveaux quatuors (thirty-eight vs. twentyeight), and the same goes for court and government officials, ambassadors, mili-

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tary officers, and members of the clergy (twenty-four vs. eleven). Although these disparities might be attributed to Telemann’s withdrawal from the subscription process at Paris, or more simply to the economical format of the Nouveaux quatuors list, it is also possible that they reflect a shift in the patronage of his music during the 1730s. Women, as might be expected, make up a small percentage of the subscribers: eighteen for the Musique de table (including five unmarried) and twelve for the Nouveaux quatuors (all from France, including four unmarried). Subscribers occupying lower positions in the social hierarchy, including musicians, are not identified by their profession in either list. But among the musicians are leading figures in many of Europe’s most important musical centers.108 Whereas Handel and Pope seem to have struggled to build a reliable base of subscriber support, Telemann was able, on the evidence of these two lists, to attract a comparatively loyal following for his publications.109 Even with the anemic subscriber response to the Nouveaux quatuors in Hamburg and Berlin, 50 of the 185 subscribers to the Musique de table, or 27 percent, also signed up for the Nouveaux quatuors five years later. Although this may not seem like an impressive number of repeat customers, consider that of the approximately 850 different people who appear in the six subscription lists of C. P. E. Bach’s Clavier-Sonaten . . . für Kenner und Liebhaber (1779–87), over 750 are confined to one or two lists, and only 14 appear in every list.110 The relative stability of Telemann’s “readership” may also be inferred from the preface to the Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musicalisches LiederBuch, where errata are given for Der getreue Music-Meister.111 One might ask why, if Telemann’s subscription enterprise was so successful, we are left with only two lists of subscribers. Perhaps subscribers’ desire to see their names in print was outweighed by financial and logistical concerns, or perhaps no other collections attracted enough subscribers to merit publishing a list.112 But it may be that Telemann did print additional lists that simply have not survived. In considering this possibility, it is important to realize that we possess only one or a few copies of most of his publications, and none whatsoever of eight.113 Many eighteenth-century books published by subscription contained lists only in copies intended for subscribers,114 and it is possible that most of the surviving exemplars of Telemann’s publications besides the Musique de table and Nouveaux quatuors are sale copies. That Telemann sometimes tailored his editions to specific audiences is indicated by the four extant copies of the Quadri, only one of which includes a dedicatory preface addressed to the Hamburg amateur Joachim Erasmus von Moldenit.115 The three copies lacking the dedication may have been intended for non-Hamburg purchasers of the collection, for whom Telemann’s praise of Moldenit would presumably have meant little or nothing. Likewise, one of three

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extant copies of the XII Solos à violon ou traversière omits the dedication to three of the Burme[i]ster brothers, patrons of the composer in Hamburg.116 And when Telemann reprinted the Kleine Cammer-Music as La petite musique de chambre in Hamburg, he omitted the dedication included with the original Frankfurt edition.117 The subscription lists for the Musique de table and Nouveaux quatuors also raise the issue of how many copies of a publication Telemann typically produced. Press runs for engraved music during the early eighteenth century tended to be small by modern standards. For example, the Amsterdam publishing house operated successively by Estienne Roger, Jeanne Roger, and Michel-Charles Le Cène printed about 300 copies of Corelli’s op. 6 (1714), and something above 200 copies of Geminiani’s orchestral arrangement of Corelli’s op. 5 (Libro secondo, 1729). But first issues of new Vivaldi editions between 1711 and 1729 may have totaled only about 100 copies, with perhaps 50 or 60 copies for reissues.118 In 1739 J. S. Bach printed about 150 copies of Clavier-Übung III, and in 1747–48 he gave away or sold 100 exemplars of the three-part ricercar and accompanying perpetual canon from the Musicalisches Opfer; additional copies of the ricercar and canon were planned, and apparently produced, for the Leipzig book fair at New Year’s 1749. Other parts of the Musicalisches Opfer seem to have had more limited printing runs: perhaps only 100 copies for the six-part ricercar and two canons; approximately 50 copies for the canonic fugue and various canons; and as few as 30 copies for the trio sonata and accompanying perpetual canon.119 Walther’s estimate that Telemann printed 200–300 copies of Prince Johann Ernst’s Six concerts à violon concertant in 1718 has already been mentioned. Even in the expanded market for printed music of the 1770s and 1780s, press runs were usually not much bigger: the average edition attracted 200–300 subscribers (though bestselling editions might attract several times this number).120 At Mainz, initial press runs during the “early years” of Bernhard Schott’s music-publishing firm (founded in 1770) normally totaled only 30–100 copies.121 Typeset editions, offering no option for reprints, naturally saw larger runs.122 Accordingly, C. P. E. Bach had Breitkopf print 1,050 copies of each collection of his Clavier-Sonaten . . . für Kenner und Liebhaber despite a significant decline in subscriptions after the first collection (from a high of 519 to a low of 290).123 In 1788 Emanuel reported to the publisher that he had made a handsome profit on the six collections, even with half the stock left unsold.124 Thus the initial press runs for the Musique de table and Nouveaux quatuors—likely totaling 300–400 copies or more, taking into account both subscription and sale copies—were probably well above average for their time. They may also have been typical of Telemann’s Hamburg publications, for an advertisement of 1733 states

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his intention to print 400 copies of each song in the Singe- Spiel- und General-BassÜbungen.125 Judging from the number of subscribers who earlier that year signed up for the Musique de table (admittedly a very different type of publication), one might suppose that Telemann earmarked at least half of the press run for subscription sales. Rough as they are, these figures can give us some idea of Telemann’s gross income from his self-publishing business. If, for example, he sold 200 copies of the Übungen at the subscription price of 56 Gute Groschen and another 200 at the low sale price of 64 Gute Groschen (see Table 7.2), he would have brought in a total of 1,000 Reichstalers. Following the same formula, 400 copies of the Nouveaux quatuors (294 at the subscription price of 96 Gute Groschen and 106 at a hypothetical sale price of 128 Gute Groschen), would have yielded 1,741 Reichstalers. And if Telemann sold only 300 copies of the Musique de table (206 at the subscription price of 192 Gute Groschen and 94 at the low sale price of 288 Gute Groschen), he would have realized 2,776 Reichstalers. Some editions, of course, may have sold in relatively modest numbers, while others might have seen multiple printings. Almost inevitably, though, Telemann would have been left holding a small stock of unsold sale copies: the announcement of the 1769 auction of his estate notes that “the printed things are available singly, in duplicate, or in several exemplars: among them are many quartets, the Corellian sonatas and other trios, six cantatas, six ouvertures, 36 fantasies, six canons for two flutes, etc.”126 Despite all of these variables, and factoring in unknown costs for materials and printing, it is possible that Telemann cleared a few thousand Reichstalers from his publishing business in an average year during the period 1728–36. To put such a figure in perspective, Telemann earned 653 Reichstalers (1,960 Marks) from his official Hamburg duties, a figure that compares favorably with the salaries for the other two most prestigious city music directorships in Germany: Frankfurt, where Telemann earned 667 Reichstalers (2,000 Marks); and Leipzig, where J. S. Bach earned 720 Reichstalers (2,160 Marks). But Telemann had additional, guaranteed sources of revenue. He received 300 Reichstalers (900 Marks) for directing the Hamburg Opera, 200 Reichstalers (600 Marks) for serving as Kapellmeister in absentia to the Eisenach court, 100 Reichstalers (300 Marks) for serving as correspondent to Eisenach (1725–30), and the same sum for providing music to the Bayreuth court (from 1726). Thus his various positions during the mid-to-late 1720s brought in a total of 1,353 Reichstalers (4,059 Marks), a figure roughly equal to what the four Hamburg Bürgermeister earned, and exceeding the 1,200 Reichstalers (3,600 Marks) earned in 1719 by the Dresden Kapellmeisters Johann Christoph Schmidt and Johann David Heinichen, and by the Konzertmeister Jean Baptiste Volumier.127

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Production Methods Telemann’s first three publications—the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst, Sonates sans basse, and Kißner’s edition of the Auszug derjenigen musicalischen . . . Arien—were printed from movable type. All subsequent titles were engraved on copper or pewter plates, a change that may have been inspired partly by Uffenbach, who was not only a noted collector of engravings, but also a skilled artisan. In an October 1724 letter Telemann praised his friend’s engravings in the highest terms: “I couldn’t be more astonished at how far you have come in this pleasant science in such a short time. From what I have seen so far, the invention of [your engravings] cannot be improved; the inner harmony is exemplary, and the niceties of using a burin are observed with the greatest care.”128 Five years later Uffenbach made a gift to Telemann of an elaborately engraved frontispiece for the Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musikalisches Lieder-Buch.129 The engraving method adopted for Telemann’s editions made use of hammerdriven punches for many symbols, including noteheads, clefs, numerals, text, flats, naturals, dynamic indications, rests, braces, directs (custodes), and tr. symbols. Note stems, tails to single eighth and sixteenth notes, beams, bar lines, slurs, ties, “+” and staccato symbols, sharps, and some of the noteheads in chords were engraved by hand. Suggesting that the medium was initially copper plates are several letters in which Telemann complains to Uffenbach about his difficulty in procuring copper for printing cantata librettos and music; in April 1729 Telemann thanks his friend for sending him plates and mentions that he has of necessity been composing works without printing them.130 Perhaps this is why the only music Telemann seems to have published during 1729 was Der getreue Music-Meister. The printed “Verzeichniß der Telemannischen Musicalischen Werke” of 1730 lists five newly published works (the Zweytes sieben mal sieben und ein Menuet, Ouverture und Suite, Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musikalisches Lieder-Buch, Quadri, and Nouvelles sonatines) as engraved “in Kupfer.” After this, Telemann was virtually silent regarding production methods, though a newspaper advertisement of 15 December 1731 mentions that the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes was to be printed by means of a “new method of engraving [Kupfer-Ahrt].”131 This is likely a reference to the switch from copper to pewter plates. The latter, which were cheaper and did not require any softening preparation in order to take punches, had been adopted in London by the firm of Walsh and Hare by 1700, even as freehand engraving on copper plates continued to be preferred by their commercial competitors and by composers publishing their own music.132 Walsh’s editions, and perhaps those of Roger in Amsterdam, might easily have provided the impetus for Telemann to

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begin using punches and pewter plates, and one wonders if he was in contact with these publishers during the late 1720s and early 1730s. All this prompts the question of whether Telemann himself engraved his editions, with or without help from assistants. In the composer’s sole reference to his engraving work, a letter to Uffenbach of 13 November 1731 on the subject of the forthcoming Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes, he leads his friend to believe that he alone stamped the musical notation: “I am prepared to work on the music [to the poetry] with extraordinary diligence; with regard to the beauty of the notation, one will scarcely believe that my hammered cripple-work could turn out so well.”133 Telemann’s contemporaries certainly seem to have believed that he was the engraver of his music, and that his use of punches and pewter plates was innovative. In Johann Gottfried Walther’s personal copy of his Musikalisches Lexicon oder musikalische Bibliothek (Leipzig, 1732), a handwritten annotation quotes a footnote from Johann Bernhard Heller’s Wohlgemeynte Gedancken über Führung einer Buchdruckerey (Erfurt, 1740): “in our times, the famous Capell-Director in Hamburg, Herr George Philipp Telemann, has also devised something new for his own benefit, in that he himself engraves most of his musical pieces in pewter, then has them printed by a copperplate printer.”134 Confirmation that Telemann’s new engraving method was English in origin, and that it saved him considerable time in the workshop, is furnished by a biography of the composer published during the mid-1740s in German and French by Schmid in Nuremberg: This rare praise [for Telemann in Paris] was based upon many unimpeachable witnesses, especially his exceptional published works—all received with great approval, some engraved in copper, some typeset—of which there are over fifty. The typeset works are very few in number, but for the engraved works he greatly improved an English invention that allowed him to transfer onto plates all the essential musical figures without a burin, and with such speed that it was possible for him to complete nine or ten plates in a day. It is therefore no wonder that he could produce a publication of 200 or 300 pages in several weeks. This he did, however, without neglecting his usual responsibilities.135

There is surely an element of exaggeration here, for Telemann would have continued to use an engraver’s burin to execute symbols for which there were no punches. And it is hard to imagine the busy composer engraving nine or ten plates per day over an extended period of time. In his letter to Uffenbach of 23 February 1732, Telemann wrote of the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes that “around sixty plates are finished, and another forty should follow by Easter [13 April].”136 Even allowing for overlapping work on other publications, it would therefore appear that Telemann’s daily engraving output fell considerably short of

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nine or ten plates. Yet his method was undoubtedly quicker than freehand engraving on copper, where a skilled artisan might take six to eight hours to complete a single plate containing two pages of music.137 Certainly the passage quoted above goes a long way toward explaining how Telemann could issue as many as a half dozen publications—encompassing hundreds of plates—in a single year. We have strong circumstantial evidence, then, that Telemann did engrave his music—circumstantial, because none of the editions bears a standard signature phrase such as “Telemann sculpsit” or “Gravé par Telemann,” and because we cannot be certain that it was the composer himself who drove the punches. Indeed, the punching method resulted in much greater visual uniformity than did freehand engraving, making it extremely difficult to distinguish one engraving hand from another. An examination of the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes (for which we have the composer’s word that he engraved the plates himself) fails to settle the matter, for the edition’s appearance does not differ markedly from that of others. This is equally true of the notational elements executed freehand (mostly limited to vertical and horizontal lines) and by punching.138 On the other hand, some of the minor variations in punched musical and textual symbols noted below may indicate that the composer collaborated with one or more assistants. So if we are justified in speaking of Telemann as the engraver of his editions, it is with the caveat that some plates could have been executed by others under his supervision. Max Seiffert, who mistakenly assumed that Telemann used punches only for clefs, believed he could distinguish between the composer’s engraving hand and that of an artisan, whom he considered responsible for most of the work.139 In his view, only a few of the editions, including the Lustige Arien aus der Opera Adelheid (1st ed.), Singe- Spiel- und General-Bass-Übungen, and perhaps the Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musikalisches Lieder-Buch, were engraved by Telemann alone. It was inconceivable to Seiffert that the composer would willingly devote countless hours to the mechanical reproduction of his music—surely material need alone could force a busy creative genius to engage in such mundane activity—and he questioned the veracity of the Nuremberg biography just quoted: A man with a thousand kinds of writing commitments flying through his hands from morning till night, trying to cope with it all, had other, more important ways of passing his time than with music engraving. Rather, it was the struggle for existence that pressed the burin into his hand. . . . [The Nuremberg biography] asks us to believe a number of fairy tales. Nine to ten plates is certainly a respectable daily output for a diligent, skillful engraver, and one willingly concedes this to Telemann. But “without a burin” and without “neglecting his usual responsibilities”? Believe

370 The Hamburg Publications it if you wish. Telemann was no sorcerer and had, after all, only two hands. The lithographers were the first to use acid, and Telemann’s working hour, like that of other people, flew by in sixty minutes. . . . The truth of the matter will have to be determined by future bibliography.140

In the meantime, Seiffert suggested that most of the Hamburg editions resulted from a collaborative effort: after penciling the music directly onto the plates in mirror image, Telemann had professional engravers hollow out the notes. Titles, tempo indications, dynamics, and the like were then engraved (not stamped) by the composer himself prior to printing. This, Seiffert believed, was how Telemann could issue so many editions so quickly and with relatively few textual errors. Menke thought that the tracing method might also have been employed for the Singe- Spiel- und General-Bass-Übungen and agreed with Seiffert that Telemann hired a “practiced engraver” to execute his publications between 1728 and 1736 (though he considered the Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musikalisches Lieder-Buch to have been engraved by the composer).141 Seiffert and Menke were apparently unaware of both Telemann’s statement to Uffenbach about his “hammered cripple-work” and Heller’s published comment of 1740. They presumably singled out the Singe- Spiel- und General-Bass-Übungen and Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musikalisches Lieder-Buch as the composer’s handiwork because the noteheads in chords, too closely spaced to be punched, betray a relatively unpolished freehand technique.142 The uniformly shaped noteheads in other editions look, by comparison, like the work of a professional. But because they were punched, there is no need to surmise a two-stage process by which Telemann first wrote out the music in mirror image before entrusting most of the actual engraving to a professional.143 As for the Lustige Arien aus der Opera Adelheid, this may have been Telemann’s first effort at engraving. Examinations of the edition by Seiffert and Georg Schünemann before its loss in World War II suggest that it was engraved freehand on copper plates. Seiffert and Menke describe Telemann’s work here as that of a beginner, marked by unevenly shaped noteheads, poor use of space, faulty text underlay, and difficulties with writing in mirror image.144 The publication’s inelegant appearance may help explain why a second, more legible edition was issued in 1733, even though the original plates must still have been usable. Telemann’s engraving technique did improve over the years: the cramped appearance of the earlier editions gradually gives way during the early 1730s to a more spacious layout, errors are relatively infrequent, and both articulation and ornamentation are for the most part precisely indicated.145 But one skill that he apparently never mastered was engraving text by hand. When not typeset or stamped, the lettering of title pages, dedications, the Musique de table subscription

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list, part titles, and the like was executed by the same anonymous engraver. That this was Christian Fritzsch (1695–1769) is suggested by a comparison of the lettering in Figures 7.2 and 7.3, which show the 1733 Musique de table title page and a detail from the elaborately engraved list of participants at the 1730 centennial celebration of the Hamburg Bürgerkapitäne, signed by the engraver. Note in particular the distinctive forms of the upper-case letters “B,” “D,” “H,” and “L.” Although these two samples cannot prove conclusively that it was Fritzsch who executed the title page, the case for him is only strengthened by an examination of additional title pages and the Musique de table subscription list. Fritzsch settled in Hamburg in 1718, and his first engraving there was the well-known depiction of the 1719 Bürgerkapitäne celebration; later works include over 200 portraits.146 Telemann appears to have employed him between 1728 and 1736, but the two may have had dealings as early as 1726, when one of Telemann’s poems on the death of the Lübeck wunderkind Christian Heinrich Heineken appeared beneath Fritzsch’s engraving of the four-year-old boy.147 Fritzsch also engraved music by other Hamburg composers, including Lübeck’s Clavier Uebung (1728; unsigned by the engraver) and Hurlebusch’s Compositioni (ca. 1735; signed on the title page). In 1741 Fritzsch’s son Christian Friedrich executed the pastoral scene on the title page to Telemann’s Vier und zwanzig theils ernsthafte, theils scherzende Oden (published by Christian Herold) and may have engraved the odes’ music and text as well.148 The use of pewter plates for Telemann’s editions of the 1730s may be inferred from several surviving copies. Though pewter was easier to work with than copper, it required modifying the printing process to ensure that the softer plates did not prematurely flatten, bow, or curl as they were run through the press. The alloy also tended to be more brittle, depending on the amount of antimony it contained, and was thus prone to cracking.149 This seems to have caused problems during the printing of the Six concerts et six suites, for copies in Paris and Münster indicate that deteriorating plates led to a second state of the edition. In the Paris copy, the plates for the title page and pages 1 and 17 of the concertos have all been replaced.150 The new plate for page 17, which makes no substantive alterations to the musical text, replaced an original that was already cracking when the Münster exemplar was printed. But on the new plate for page 1 Telemann introduced a few minor revisions. Thanks to a recently discovered “Clavessin” partbook to the concertos in the music collection at Aalholm Manor on the Danish island of Lolland, we can observe the gradual deterioration of Telemann’s plates during the press run.151 Representing a late stage of the edition’s first state, this partbook reveals the cracks on the original plate for page 17 to have expanded since the printing of the Münster copy. But because the plate for page 1 shows no cracks at all, one surmises that Telemann replaced it for the Paris copy with

372 The Hamburg Publications

figure 7.2. Title page to the Musique de table

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figure 7.3. Detail of the list of participants at the 1730 Hamburg Bürgerkapitäne celebration, engraved by Christian Fritzsch (Staatsarchiv Hamburg)

the idea of revising the musical text. It remains unclear, however, why he had an abbreviated title page engraved for the second state of the edition, for the original was still in good condition when the Aalhom copy was printed.152 The replacement of damaged or error-filled plates may have been fairly common in Telemann’s workshop, for copies of the Fantaisies pour le clavessin at Berlin and Copenhagen bear witness to a process not unlike that seen in the Six concerts et six suites.153 In the earlier of the two Copenhagen copies, the plates for Fantasy 2 of the first dozen and Fantasies 3 and 12 of the second dozen show obvious signs of wear, including cracking, that have worsened since the Berlin copy was pulled. Because all three replacement plates in the later Copenhagen copy reflect the engraving style of the third dozen fantasies, we may presume that sales of the first two dozen were both steady and strong.154 Two other editions, Pimpinone and the Essercizii musici, were printed with both original and substitute title pages.155 In the case of the latter publication, what appears to be the original title page was

374 The Hamburg Publications

executed and signed by the Hamburg engraver Gottfried Christian Pingeling (1688–1769).156 Three of the surviving primo partbooks (Brussels, the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, and the Berlin Sing-Akademie) combine this title page with a misnumbered page 41 (reading “39”). In the Washington exemplar, which includes the new (unsigned) title page in all three partbooks, this error has been corrected.157 What has not been fully appreciated about Telemann’s publications is that their appearance changed markedly during the decade 1728–38, mainly on account of the replacement of punches. Uniquely in Telemann’s extant editions, the noteheads in the Six sonates à violon seul are lozenge shaped, with stems drawn from the center (Figure 7.4); all other editions use round noteheads with stems drawn to the right or left of center. This shape recalls the antiquated movable type then still in use by the venerable firm of Christophe Ballard in Paris (not to mention the type used for the first edition of the Kleine Cammer-Music). By using such punches, Telemann may have been hoping to tap into the prestige associated with Ballard, who had long held an exclusive royal privilege to print music in France. The fact that these punches were almost immediately replaced, along with the edition’s cramped spacing between staves in each system, points to 1727 or early 1728, that is, to the beginning of Telemann’s activity as an engraver.158 Other changes in Telemann’s musical orthography, though less striking, seem likewise motivated by a desire to refine the editions’ appearance. Consider, for example, the replacement of punches for rests. In the Six sonates à violon seul and subsequent publications to 1732 (through the 12 Fantaisies à travers. sans basse and the first six of the Fantaisies pour le clavessin, first dozen), quarter rests are formed with an “s”-shaped punch. A new, “r”-shaped punch appears during the course of the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes, and is used continuously throughout late 1732, 1733, and 1734.159 Finally, in publications from 1735 to 1739 the quarter-rest punch is simply a backward eighth rest (itself new in these publications). Figure 7.5 shows the three quarter-rest symbols in excerpts from four editions; also evident here (and in Figures 7.4 and 7.6) are the parallel redesigns of eighthrest symbols.160 Similar variations are observable in several other symbols, including numerals for bass figures, indications of trills (in 1733 “+” gives way to “tr.”), system braces, soprano clefs, and repeat signs.161 Figure 7.5b illustrates Telemann’s replacement of punches for the dynamic symbols “p” and “f ” (letters from text fonts) on the first page of the Continuation des sonates méthodiques. In measures 14–15 the old symbols are used for the system’s outer staves, where there is room to accommodate them, while the new, smaller ones are used for the more cramped middle staff. Only the new symbols appear on subsequent pages.

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figure 7.4. First page of music in the Hamburg second edition of the Six Sonates à Violon seul

376 The Hamburg Publications (a)

(b)

figure 7.5. Telemann’s engraving in (a) Sonate metodiche, p. 12; (b) Continuation des sonates méthodiques, p. 1; (c) Fugirende und veraendernde Choraele, no. 19; (d) VI moralische Cantaten II, p. 6

Seven Telemann in the Marketplace 377 (c)

(d)

Over the years Telemann used at least four stamped text fonts, all of which were subject to minor variations (two are illustrated in Figures 7.4–7.6). A few of the early publications make use of more than one: in Pimpinone, for example, German texts are engraved in Gothic script, while Italian texts are in a large Latin font common in Telemann’s early editions. This distinction is maintained in Der getreue Music-Meister, until Gothic script is all but abandoned following lesson 5 (perhaps in deference to the journal’s non-German readership).162 Gothic script appears for the last time in the Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musicalisches Lieder-Buch and Zweytes sieben mal sieben und ein Menuet, while the large Latin font gradually disappears during the early 1730s in favor of two smaller ones.163 One letter in particular, a capital “O” in the large Latin font, was used by Telemann only in four of the earliest extant publications: the Six sonates à violon seul (2nd ed.), Pimpinone, the Sonate metodiche, and Der getreue Music-Meister (through lesson 15). Bearing a small dot resting on the bottom inside edge of the circle, the letter whimsically suggests an eyeball (Figures 7.4, 7.5a, and 7.6b).164

378 The Hamburg Publications (a)

(b)

figure 7.6. Lettering in Essercizii musici, partbook 1: (a) p. 5 (letters engraved freehand); (b) p. 21 (letters punched)

These observations prompt us to revisit the question of when Telemann engraved and published the Essercizii musici, long considered his self-publishing swan song and today regarded as some of his finest chamber music. The widely accepted date of 1739 or 1740 was deduced by Martin Ruhnke, who noted that the collection appears in none of Telemann’s advertisements from the 1720s and 1730s, is absent from the list of publications concluding his 1740 autobiography (completed no earlier than June of that year), and presumably accounts for the last of forty-four engraved sets of plates Telemann offered for sale on 14 October 1740.165 But the collection’s absence from the autobiography cannot be taken as evidence that it had not yet appeared, because five other Hamburg publications from the 1720s and 1730s (the XX Kleine Fugen, XII Fantasie per il violino senza basso, Duos à travers. et violoncello, and the second editions of the Six sonates à violon seul and La petite musique de chambre) are omitted as well. Nor can we be absolutely certain which plates Telemann sold in 1740: including both editions of either the Six sonates à violon seul or the Lustige Arien aus der Opera Adelheid would have produced a total of forty-four sets without the Essercizii musici. Still, the latter collection’s absence from advertisements of the decade 1726–36 is not easily explained. What is clear, however, is that Telemann drew on older compositions as a source for the Essercizii musici. This is evident not only from the music’s style, dis-

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cussed in the following chapter, but also from its manuscript transmission: a Schwerin source for Solo 9 (41:e5) was copied no later than 1735, Darmstadt manuscript sources for all twelve trios were copied during the years 1725–30, and Dresden manuscripts transmitting Trios 1 and 3 (42:c2 and 42:g5) date from the period 1725–33.166 Corroborating evidence that the Essercizii musici circulated in manuscript copies during the 1720s comes from a 1726 invoice submitted to the Waldeck Hofkapelle in Arolsen by Johann Christoph Nemitz, who purchased for the court “Telemans Jahr Gang der Kirchen Music, item Concerten, Duetten, Exercitii Musici.”167 It is probable that the last item in this list included some or all of the Essercizii musici, given the early manuscript sources and the fact that no other works of Telemann are known to have circulated under such a title. Several aspects of the edition’s appearance raise the suspicion that it was engraved significantly earlier than 1739–40. It is curious, for example, that work titles and tempo indications in the first third of each partbook were engraved freehand, either by Telemann or an assistant (Figure 7.6a). Practically without exception, such text was stamped with punches in Telemann’s other editions, as it was in the remainder of each Essercizii musici partbook (Figure 7.6b).168 Moreover, these titles and indications (along with the collection’s two title pages) provide the only examples in Telemann’s editions of freehand lettering not executed by Christian Fritzsch. Was the engraver simply unavailable, or had Telemann not yet established a working relationship with him? Other features of the opening pages in each partbook are equally uncharacteristic of the composer’s engraving practice: stamped lower-case letters in Trio 5 differing from those found elsewhere in the collection; works starting in the middle of a page (farther on in the collection they invariably begin at the top of a page); reversed note stems (partbook 1, p. 14; partbook 3, p. 12); upside-down letters (partbook 2, p. 13); ungainly “tr.” signs (partbook 1, p. 5); short diagonal slashes replacing bar lines, presumably a space-saving measure (partbook 2, p. 13; partbook 3, p. 15); grotesquely oversized “p.” and “f.” dynamic symbols (partbook 1, p. 5; partbook 2, p. 3); and ending flourishes after “Da Capo” indications (partbook 1, p. 5; partbook 2, p. 3). Together these features convey the impression of an inexperienced engraver experimenting with different techniques, symbols, and fonts. Perhaps most tellingly, the edition was engraved with punches that Telemann used exclusively between 1728 and 1732: “+” symbols for trills, “s”-shaped quarter rests (and the accompanying eighth rests), numerical symbols for bass figures and repeat signs matching those in the Sonate metodiche and Sept fois sept et un menuet, “eyeball” capital “O”s, and the large “f ” dynamic symbol that was replaced in the Continuation des sonates méthodiques. Moreover, all stamped text (aside from that in Trio 5) is in the large Latin font that Telemann phased out in 1732–33.

380 The Hamburg Publications

A final piece of evidence that the Essercizii musici were engraved a decade or more before 1740 is furnished by the exemplar belonging to the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. The handwritten title found on the wrappers to each partbook (“Telemann / Trii et Soli a div: Strom: / [possessor mark:] C:W:V:B. / 1728”) indicates that the as-yet-unidentified owner of the print acquired it in 1728. The language this title shares with Telemann’s title page (“. . . Dodeci Soli / e / Dodeci Trii / à / diversi stromenti . . .”) confirms that the wrappers were originally intended for the Essercizii musici, not for some other collection of solos and trios.169 All this points to the conclusion that the Essercizii musici were composed during the mid-1720s, when they began to circulate in manuscript copies, and engraved some time in late 1727 or 1728. Given the idiosyncratic and sometimes defective notation of both music and text in the partbooks’ opening pages, it is even possible that the collection was one of Telemann’s first engraving efforts—undertaken, perhaps, soon after the second edition of the Six sonates à violon seul. But how does one reconcile the physical, documentary, and musical evidence for this redating with the collection’s absence from Telemann’s advertisements? The most plausible explanation is that Telemann never issued the collection to the general public, but instead distributed copies in the late 1720s among various patrons, colleagues, and acquaintances, much as J. S. Bach gave most of the first 100 copies of the Musicalisches Opfer gratis to friends. In this way, he could have tested the waters for the unusually ambitious instrumental collections he would soon issue, while working toward perfecting his engraving technique.

Closing Shop One of Telemann’s designs in commodifying his works was surely to bring courtly, ecclesiastical, and public kinds of music into the domestic sphere, until then relatively ill served by the German publishing industry: “one who can be of use to many does better than one who writes for a few,” as he noted in his 1718 autobiography.170 This sentiment, and a similar one expressed in the preface to Der getreue Music-Meister that “man lives for work, and in order to serve others,” seem to reflect the Lutheran belief that creations resulting from God-given talent should be shared with one’s neighbors. Expressions of this belief appear as a trope throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries in writings by Schein, Michael Praetorius, Schütz, Kuhnau, and J. S. Bach.171 Telemann, as a selfstyled autodidact who made good, may have felt a special responsibility to provide his neighbors with the type of compositional and performance models he lacked during his youth. Thus he edified connoisseurs, amateurs, and students with informative prefaces, commentaries, and musical examples relating to con-

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tinuo realization, the composition and performance of recitative, and the art of ornamentation. The didactic nature of some publications is quite explicit: Der getreue Music-Meister, broken up into “lessons,” was “especially for students”; and Telemanns Canones à 2, 3, 4 were designed for “those who teach singing to youths.”172 Noting the pedagogical value of Telemann’s music, an anonymous 1728 review of his early Hamburg publications in the Hamburgische Auszüge aus neuen Büchern und Nachrichten observed that it would be difficult to find a composer among us Germans who has zealously served the public with so many works and with so many associated costs as our Herr Kapellmeister Telemann, in that he is the publisher of all his works but one. . . . Musical amateurs and connoisseurs will not waste their time if they hold [Pimpinone and the Lustige Arien aus der Opera Adelheid] side by side and observe how much they differ from one another . . . From the preface that the Kapellmeister has appended to his Music-Meister (the rest of which will appear every two weeks), one sees that this work will not be the slightest of Telemann’s musical works, but on the contrary will serve the musical amateur to great effect.173

But as we have already observed with respect to the composer’s pricing strategies, his altruistic and didactic impulses were balanced by mercenary ones. Sales of printed music would have helped to erase the 5,000 Reichstalers of debt his second wife, Maria Catharina, had accumulated through overspending; 3,000 Reichstalers had been paid back (“I have no idea where they came from”) by September 1736.174 And the extra income helped support a large family: as Telemann put it in verse to Hollander in 1732–33, “My music business allows me to diminish a good part of the worries of many children, for whose upbringing I give many thalers; it is my field and plow, from which I live: that suffices.”175 Yet by 1740, with his children out of the house or nearly grown, his debts presumably paid off, and his wife no longer living with him, Telemann appears to have tired of tilling this field, exchanging it for a garden full of rare plants assembled and tended to with the same energy he had applied to his publishing business.176 An advertisement in the Staats- und Gelehrte Zeitung des Hamburgischen unpartheyischen Correspondenten of 14 October curtly announced the sale of the plates for forty-four of his published collections: The local Music Director Telemann wishes to sell the plates for his musical works, of which there are forty-four. The prices for these will be set in the catalog in such a way that if, for example, a copy costs 3 Gulden the buyer pays 100 Gulden for the plates; he therefore recovers 6 percent of his investment if as few as two copies are sold annually. The complete works must either remain together or be divided into no more than two groups.177

382 The Hamburg Publications

It is not known who purchased Telemann’s plates, or even whether the sale took place, and no catalog or inventory has been located. Evidently the composer hoped to find a reliable custodian of his printed legacy: the stipulation that the entire collection should go to one or two buyers was surely calculated to attract established booksellers with substantial capital, rather than a gaggle of small-time entrepreneurs who might purchase individual sets of plates. But regardless of whether Telemann found any takers and netted the thousands of Gulden he stood to gain from the sale, this notice heralded the end of his self-publishing career. Why did Telemann close up shop in such dramatic fashion? Was it simply that he no longer needed the extra income, or were there additional motivations? Menke suggested that the composer’s recent success in Paris increased his standing so much that he could now afford to leave the trouble of engraving, printing, and selling to professionals—though there is no sign of a surge in prestige or income during the late 1730s, by which time Telemann was in many respects Germany’s most successful composer.178 Wolf Hobohm interprets the sale announcement as a sign of Telemann’s declining physical health, while Laurenz Lütteken views it as indicative of a “deep creative crisis, an inner displeasure with his own production” and a suspicion that he had nothing left to say.179 These two diagnoses are, however, unsupported by biographical evidence—the composer’s extant correspondence reveals no signs of a crisis in health or confidence around 1740—and are difficult to reconcile with the steady stream of publications Telemann issued through other publishers during the following decade.180 One suspects, rather, that his cessation of publishing activities was a personal and professional watershed of a different sort. The previous few years had seen the closing of the Gänsemarkt Opera in the wake of steadily declining attendance, Telemann’s visit to Paris (proudly reported in the 1740 autobiography and the Nuremberg biography as the capstone to a four-decade career), and, shortly preceding his return to Hamburg, the death of his sixteen-year-old son, August Bernhard.181 Beyond financial considerations, it may well have been this combination of disappointment, triumph, and tragedy, together with a wish to escape the daily tedium of the publishing business and a realization that at age fifty-nine he was probably entering the final phase of his career, that spurred Telemann to redirect his energies. Telemann had, in fact, already begun to scale back publishing operations before the Paris trip. Just two editions appeared in 1736, and the following year saw none at all. Instead, he published works by others for the first time since Der getreue Music-Meister: Johann Graf ’s 6 Soli for violin and continuo, op. 3; Christoph Förster’s Sei duetti a due violini e basso ad libitum, op. 1; and the Anleitung: wie man einen General-Bass, oder auch Hand-Stücke, in alle Tone transponieren könne of Carl Johann

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Friedrich Haltmeier, Telemann’s nephew. According to the 1740 autobiography, these were “published to please good friends.”182 In the event, Telemann engraved the music for the Graf edition and supplied both the musical examples and a preface for the Haltmeier treatise, the title page of which identifies him as having “supported” its publication (“Zum Druck befördert von Georg Philipp Telemann, Music-Directore in Hamburg”).183 The nature of his involvement with Förster’s Sei duetti remains unclear, because the only surviving edition was published in Paris. This could be a reprint of a lost Hamburg first edition, or perhaps Telemann brought along a manuscript of Förster’s music on his trip.184 At this time he also edited and wrote a preface (dated 26 April 1737) to the second edition of David Kellner’s popular Treulicher Unterricht im General-Bass (published by Christian Herold in Hamburg). In the twenty-nine months between his return from Paris and the sale announcement, Telemann published only two collections of his own music (not counting the Essercizii musici) plus the Beschreibung der Augen-Orgel, a five-page description of Louis-Bertrand Castel’s “Clavecin pour les yeux.” After 1740 he made only occasional returns to the publishing business; he produced his student Johann Hövet’s Musikalische Probe eines Concerts vors Clavier (Hamburg, 1741; lost) and two treatises on tuning and temperament by Georg Andreas Sorge: the Anweisung zur Stimmung und Temperatur sowohl der Orgelwerke, also auch anderer Instrumente, sonderlich aber des Claviers (1744); and the Gründliche Untersuchung, ob die . . . Schröterische Clavier-Temperaturen für gleichschwebend paßiren können, oder nicht (1754).185 One is tempted to link both the slowdown in production and the emphasis on theoretical works by others to Telemann’s own ambitions as a music theorist, for in the previous decade he had embarked upon and then scuttled several major theoretical projects such as a German translation of Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum, treatises on recitative and composition (the Traité du récitatif and the Theoretisch-practischer Tractat vom Componiren), and a collaboration with Johann Adolph Scheibe on Der critische Musikus.186 In the preface to the Beschreibung der Augen-Orgel,Telemann assures his readers that he will respond to the request of “not a few” friends to publish his impressions of Parisian musical life: “Up to now, time constraints alone have placed limitations on my intent, but have not prevented a good many of [my ideas] to be set down onto paper, which, along with the rest of them, will be brought out one day.”187 Apparently in response to this announcement, the Hamburgische Berichte von gelehrten Sachen stated that “Herr Telemann will greatly endear himself to musical connoisseurs if, in keeping with his promise, he clearly describes the present state of music in Paris as gleaned from his own experience, and thereby seeks to render French music—which he has made so deeply appreciated in Germany—ever more popular with us.”188

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The Nuremberg biography comes close to attributing the demise of Telemann’s publishing enterprise to his desire to produce a body of theoretical writings: Our celebrated Herr Telemann has [with his published music] provided more than seems necessary to establish his immortal honor. He is therefore not to be blamed for deciding to place a final limit on his work of this sort. But it must redound to the great pleasure of all admirers of his thorough and highly developed science that he is of a mind to devote his remaining years to theoretical writings. We may surely expect the ripest fruits [from this endeavor], since he is preparing to publish serially a most important work under the title Musikalischer Practicus, in which he proposes faithfully to communicate all that he has observed through long experience.189

Telemann’s “remaining years”—almost a quarter-century’s worth, as it turned out—saw only one completed theoretical project: the Neues musicalisches System (1742 or 1743), a study of chromatic and enharmonic relationships written for Lorenz Mizler’s Correspondirende Societät der Musikalischen Wissenschaften. He did at least talk up his treatise on practical music: in a 1743 letter, Carl Heinrich Graun mentioned that Telemann’s effort “to show the world that our practical music must have coherence and order, among other attributes, is most praiseworthy and necessary,” then refers to a “chapter” on order and coherence.190 A year later, in the preface to the Musicalisches Lob Gottes, Telemann stated that he had intended to write about applying the theatrical style to church music, composing German recitative, and handling dissonance. But he limited himself to a few observations on continuo figuring, referring his readers to the more extended discussion on this topic that would appear in the Musicalischer Practicus. In the end, Telemann may have been too occupied with the practicalities of composing and making music to follow through on the Musikalischer Practicus and other writing projects. The seriousness of Telemann’s ambitions as a man of letters during the 1740s is on full view in the famous mezzotint engraving of the composer by Valentin Daniel Preißler (Nuremberg, 1750), after a lost painting by Ludwig Michael Schneider (Figure 7.7). Here Telemann’s left hand props up an untitled book resting on two sheets of ruled—but otherwise blank—music paper, an image that quite literally places his literary concerns above the purely musical. Indeed, this pose puts the composer in the company of many seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury writers, clergymen, and politicians, whose portraits often show them holding, touching, or supporting books as a token of their wisdom and learnedness.191 Musicians, on the other hand, were seldom depicted in this way.192 That the quill to Telemann’s right sits passively in its inkwell, instead of assuming a more active position by lying across the music paper or resting in the composer’s

figure 7.7. Mezzotint by Valentin Daniel Preißler (Nuremberg, 1750), after a lost painting by Ludwig Michael Schneider (Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum)

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hand, further suggests the suspension of compositional activity. Was the book itself intended to represent the Musicalischer Practicus? Telemann’s own music continued to appear under the imprints of several German and French publishers throughout the 1740s: the Sonates en trio, left behind by Telemann in Paris, was published by Antoine Vater; Herold in Hamburg issued the Vier und zwanzig theils ernsthafte, theils scherzende Oden; Schmid in Nuremberg published the Musicalisches Lob Gottes, the VI Ouverturen nebst zween Folgesätzen, and the Music vom Leiden und Sterben des Welt Erlösers (the 1745 St. John Passion); and Christoph Heinrich Lau in Hermsdorf am Kynast brought out the last of Telemann’s sacred cantata cycles, the serial “Engel-Jahrgang.”193 Telemann was apparently now content to let others worry about the logistical details of publishing his music, and by this time there was an expanding community of German music publishers willing and able to take on this task. After 1748, however, only four authorized editions of Telemann’s music appeared in print: a second edition of the Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musikalisches Lieder-Buch with text newly typeset by Piscator (a self-publication?); Blavet’s Paris edition of the Second livre de duo for flutes; the Danish cantata De danske, norske og tydske undersaatters glaede, published in Hamburg by Schönemann; and Michael Christian Bock’s edition of the brief Symphonie zur Serenate auf die erste 100jährige Jubelfeier.194 Symptomatic of Telemann’s withdrawal from the publishing process is his statement in the preface to the Musicalisches Lob Gottes that he had declined to correct proofs because of the cost in postage, the time involved, and the skill of his publisher, Schmid.195 Yet it seems the publication of the Passion and Musicalisches Lob Gottes did not proceed without some glitches. Telemann advertised for subscribers to the cantata cycle on 20 December 1742, two months after a sample work had been made available to the public.196 But his preface is dated 14 August 1744, suggesting that the engraving was subject to lengthy delays or that the collection of subscriptions ran into complications (as mentioned above, Carl Heinrich Graun was still collecting subscriptions in June 1743). The Passion was to appear at the end of September or beginning of October 1746, and subscriptions were to be collected until 24 June. But on 12 August, Schmid announced that the subscription period would be extended for an additional four weeks, presumably because not enough subscribers had yet come forward. It is worth noting that Schmid’s distribution network, although extensive, lacked the international scope of Telemann’s during the preceding decades.197 In his seventies Telemann corresponded with Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf, whose revolutionary method of letterpress printing with “mosaic” type was introduced in 1755 with the pamphlet Nachricht von einer neuen Art Noten zu drucken and Johann Friedrich Graefe’s setting of a sonnet by the Saxon Crown Princess

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Maria Antonia Walpurgis.198 Telemann must have seen one or both of these publications in the year they appeared, for on 20 November he wrote to Breitkopf requesting further information about the new printing method: Most Esteemed Sir, your new invention of printed music has my approval as well, except for the sharps, which seem too small to me. Therefore, I beg to inquire how much one must pay for a folio page without text, how much for one with text, and how much for a quarto page or a large octavo page with alternating text, as in a musical book? If you would be so kind as to furnish me with this information, I shall send you several things.199

Though it sounds as if Telemann was poised to offer the firm instrumental, vocal, or theoretical works (the latter presumably in the form of a “musical book” with “alternating text”), he seems not to have sent anything to Leipzig and in 1757 opted to work with the publisher Schönemann on De danske, norske og tydske undersaatters glaede. But on 27 May 1759 Telemann finally offered Breitkopf two large-scale vocal works and an annual cantata cycle, which would have been his fifth complete cycle to appear in print. Characteristically, he also proposed to include didactic prefaces to the projected editions: At last I find myself impelled to offer one of my current works to your press. . . . The score comprises thirty-five pages, to which I might add a discourse of several pages on the numerous points that a composer should observe in the descriptive manner of writing. Should the firm agree to print this in return for a number of copies to be delivered [to me], I would have a fair copy prepared immediately. . . . [Postscript:] I also have in mind to publish this year’s Passion music in installments, and in each part to discuss the advantages in composing vocal music that I have gained through experience, especially a correct use of the German language, which is often disfigured by the constraints of Italianate melodies. If I live long enough, a further holiday [cantata] cycle is ready, which is eagerly anticipated by a considerable number of Pränumeranten.200

None of these works appears to have been printed by Breitkopf, despite Ernst Ludwig Gerber’s vague recollection in 1792 that Telemann “had made use of ” the firm’s movable type (“at least, I remember having seen one of his church cantata cycles printed in this manner”).201 But if Breitkopf failed to consummate a deal with Telemann, he did sell numerous other works by the composer over the next two decades, including fifteen printed editions and the Nuremberg biography and portrait. Table 7.4 lists the Telemanniana offered in the 1760, 1761, 1763, and 1777 editions of the firm’s Verzeichniß Musicalischer Bücher sowohl zur Theorie

388 The Hamburg Publications Table 7.4 Telemann publications offered in the Breitkopf Verzeichniß Musicalischer Bücher sowohl zur Theorie als Praxis Edition

Publications

1760 1761

Musique de table Nuremberg portrait and biography; Auszug derjenigen musicalischen . . . Arien; Vier und zwanzig theils ernsthafte, theils scherzende Oden Beschreibung der Augen-Orgel; Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musicalisches Lieder-Buch (2/1751); “Engel-Jahrgang”; XX Kleine Fugen; VI Ouverturen nebst zween Folgesätzen; XII Fantasie per il violino senza basso; Sonate metodiche; Continuation des sonates méthodiques; Quadri; Nouveaux quatuors; Six ouvertures; Sonates sans basse (Amsterdam: Le Cène, 1729) Auszug derjenigen musicalischen . . . Arien

1763

1777

als Praxis (no works by the composer appeared in the 1770 or 1780 editions). Rather than collect Telemann’s editions more or less systematically, as Selhof appears to have done in The Hague, Breitkopf acquired a cross-section of the composer’s printed output. The sudden appearance in the 1763 Verzeichniß of no fewer than twelve publications suggests the firm’s acquisition in that year of one or more private collections rich in the composer’s music, an impression bolstered by the heavy concentration of manuscript works by Telemann in parts 3–6 (1763– 65) of the firm’s printed thematic catalog.202 Aside from his unrealized editions with Breitkopf and various aborted theoretical projects, Telemann mused about several publications that never saw the light of day. Mention of certain titles may have constituted a trial balloon designed to gauge public response, while other announcements were undoubtedly little more than manifestations of wishful thinking. A newspaper advertisement of 10 April 1726 promised that “as soon as the Kapellmeister fully recuperates from his present indisposition, he will publish a particularly well elaborated intermezzo and the [operatic] prologue performed here on the marriage of the King of France, both of which works were received with universal applause.”203 The intermezzo was evidently Pimpinone, but the prologue, the lost “Spirti amanti festeggiate,” TVWV 23:1 (1725), did not appear in print. In the preface to the Auszug derjenigen musicalischen . . . Arien, Telemann states that he had been urged to publish a full cantata cycle with choruses (to be issued in parts if financially feasible) and floats the possibility of publishing a Passion, a Magnificat, and a Kyrie with Sanctus.204 The 1728 Hamburgische Auszüge review cited earlier reports that at Easter 1729 Telemann would publish nine festival church cantatas on the gospels for the first Sunday in Advent, the first day of Christmas, New Year’s Day, the

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first day of Easter, Ascension Day, the first day of Pentecost, Trinity, Midsummer’s Day, and Michaelmas: The work will consist of a score, the music engraved [nach Kupfer-Ahrt] in a readable script and with a clean impression. The arrangement of the pieces is as follows: first comes a biblical quotation with four voices, 2 violins, a viola, and figured bass; then follows a recitative and an aria with an accompanying symphony; then a chorale; again a recitative; and finally another aria as before, whereupon the beginning quotation concludes [the whole].205

This project appears to be the one that Telemann mentioned in his letter of 26 July 1728 to Matthäus Arnold Wilckens, who had previously supplied the composer with librettos for the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst, the 1726 St. Matthew Passion, the 1728 St. Luke Passion, and the 1728–29 cycle of church cantatas.206 Like the proposed appendix to the Fortsetzung des harmonischen Gottesdienstes, didactic analyses of works in Der getreue Music-Meister (mentioned in the journal’s preface) failed to materialize.207 Among the forthcoming works listed in the 1733–34 Amsterdam/Hamburg catalog of Telemann’s publications are several that never appeared: “6. Sonates comiques”/“6 [Scherzende] Sonaten” for fourpart strings; “Galanteries pour le Luth”/“Lauten-Galanterien”; “Elite des Airs de diverses Opera de Telemann, ajustés pour être joüés des Instrumens”/“Auserlesene Arien aus den Telemannischen Opern und Serenaten, also eingerichtet, daß sie auf Instrumenten gespielet werden können”, perhaps inspired by similar aria arrangements in London; and two sequels to the Scherzi melodichi, advertised only in Hamburg. The projected sequel to the Quadri (“Second volume de Quatuors”/“Zweyter Theil von Quadri”), may have turned out to be the Nouveaux quatuors, while the “6. Ouvertures avec la suite comique”/“6 Scherzende Ouverturen” for four-part strings could have become the Six ouvertures. These imagined editions, considered alongside those that found their way into print, further point up the comprehensive nature of Telemann’s publishing vision. For however frustrated he may have been as a music theorist, he realized his apparent goal of providing the consumer of printed music with admirable examples of virtually every musical style, genre, and scoring common at the time—as well as many that were not. And though it would appear that a number of editions were targeted at specific segments of the market (for the amateur, “easy” music such as keyboard pieces, duets, solos, and aria collections; for the connoisseur and professional musician, “difficult” and more fully scored works such as the Musique de table, Nouveaux quatuors, and 1745 St. John Passion), one should not underesti-

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mate the breadth of their appeal. Indeed, such dichotomies as public/private, courtly/domestic, learned/popular, and professional/amateur readily dissolve in many of Telemann’s published collections. It is therefore unsurprising that as sophisticated a musician as Johann Gottfried Walther owned not only the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst—useful to him as a professional church musician—but also explicitly didactic, “amateur” publications such as Der getreue Music-Meister and the Singe- Spiel- und General-Bass-Übungen.208 Telemann’s Selbstverlag provided something for everyone, often in a single print; and this, to a greater degree than any innovations of production, marketing, and distribution, was responsible for its sustained success.

Chapter 8 Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber The Music of the Hamburg Publications

Telemann’s Hamburg publications of the 1720s and 1730s chart his deepening involvement with the galant style. With increasing consistency, the instrumental works from 1725 onward exhibit such progressive traits as heightened motivic contrast, slow harmonic rhythm (often involving drum and murky basses), incipient sonata forms, and characteristic rhythms such as triplets, Lombard figures, and alla zoppa syncopations; other galant hallmarks, including predominantly homophonic textures and periodic melodies, also figure prominently in certain collections. At the same time, Telemann’s mixing of genres and national styles becomes more assured and sophisticated. Yet for all their forward-looking aspects, these works also function as stylistic mediators between old and new: the galant style inflects strict canons, fully worked out fugues, the stile antico, and invocations of the Corellian sonata. Thus Telemann the Progressive maintains a fruitful dialogue with the musical past in stylistically eclectic works that, at their best, can seem as fresh today as they did to his contemporaries. In this chapter we survey twenty-seven published collections of instrumental music—as well as a few collections not printed by the composer—aimed at the connoisseur (Kenner), amateur (Liebhaber), or both.

Sonates sans basse As the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst was nearing completion in late 1726, Telemann issued his first publication of instrumental music in more than six years, the Sonates sans basse for two flutes, violins, or recorders (40:101–6). Extraordinarily effective on a variety of instruments, these works are now undoubtedly the most widely played instrumental duets from the eighteenth century. The collection was

391

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reprinted in Amsterdam by Le Cène (1729), in Paris by Le Clerc (1736–37), and in London by Walsh (1746), placing it among the composer’s best-known music during his lifetime.1 Marpurg cited the second movements of the E-major and Eminor duets as good examples of double fugues, and Quantz included excerpts of the first three duets in his Solfeggi (see Table 5.1).2 In the preface to his Sei duetti a due flauti traversi (1759), Quantz singled out Telemann’s duets—no doubt including the Sonates sans basse—as exemplary: “It is true that there is a kind of duet in which the parts do almost nothing but play in thirds and sixths with one another from beginning to end, and which are anything but hard to write. But anyone who is familiar with Kapellmeister Telemann’s flute duets, for example, will quickly perceive that the former type is not that to which I have referred.”3 Quantz then enumerated the qualities of a good duet, as if to provide an analytical overview of the Sonates sans basse: (1) the two instruments must provide a “correct fundamental part” at all times, so that there is no need for an additional bass part; (2) an imitative texture is essential; (3) the material should be equally distributed among the two parts; (4) fugal writing must follow “all the rules of twopart fugue”; (5) alternating with the subject should be pleasing yet brief episodic material mixing passages in thirds and sixths with “contrapuntal phrases”; (6) “long or numerous rests must not appear” except when a new fugal subject is introduced without a countersubject; and (7) “no new idea must be introduced that cannot be subsequently repeated at a convenient place.” Quantz judged duets to be “the most convenient and useful pieces for learning music,”4 and in dedicating the Sonates sans basse to the patrician amateurs George Behrmann and Pierre Diteric Toennies (players of the lute, flute, recorder, and bassoon), Telemann may have been acknowledging his pedagogical intent. It may have been the Sonates sans basse that the blind flute virtuoso Friedrich Ludwig Dülon (1769–1826) had in mind when he recalled the impact of Telemann’s flute music on his playing: I owe the greatest part of my dexterity to [the works of Quantz], but my security in keeping time entirely to [the Telemann pieces], for they are written throughout in a partly canonic and partly fugal texture; they also contain, besides our customary time signatures, others that have become almost alien to us, by which I mean above all 3/2 meter. I hasten to note this so as to draw the attention of those who are seriously concerned with obtaining a thorough mastery of music, and to advise them avidly to study compositions of this sort, assuming they are able to find them, and not to be dismayed by the poorly understood commonplace, now prevalent everywhere, that they are already outdated.5

The six duets all follow the same four-movement scheme in which a slow movement in variable style leads to a fugue, a slow movement in the Affettuoso mode, and

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a light finale that is usually dance based. Telemann goes to great lengths to ensure the equality of the two parts: neither is restricted to providing accompaniment to the other for more than a few measures at a time, and even sequential figuration tends to be divided between the parts though frequent voice exchange. Canonic writing, useful for involving both parts equally in the presentation of thematic material, is employed in many movements but never overused; particularly effective is the close canonic imitation of the E-major fugue. In the first movement of the E-minor duet, the only fugal slow movement, the combination of a slow-moving subject and faster countersubject is evocative of the stile antico (note the subject’s similarity to that of the following movement). Separating statements of this subject pair are episodes alternating between canonic imitation and galant parallel thirds. In the beautifully mournful Largo of the B-minor duet, the consistent distance of the imitations between the two parts also makes a slightly archaic, canonic effect. The fugues are remarkably varied in the character and length of their subjects, number of subject entries, and treatment of the countersubject (whether presented against the dux or comes). All, however, conclude with a lengthy episode. A brief passage from the giga of the B-minor duet may serve to illustrate the rapidly shifting textures characteristic of both the fugues and concluding fast movements (Example 8.1). Note especially the pointillistic voice exchange that compensates for a momentary slowing of the harmonic rhythm in measures 61–64. Although Telemann is not particularly concerned in the Sonates sans basse with alluding to other genres, two of the interior slow movements refer to well-defined types. The Andante of the G-major duet is a lament with a quasi-ostinato “bass” outlining a chromatically inflected descending tetrachord. Rather than state the bass pattern continuously, Telemann establishes the generic reference with two initial statements and returns to the pattern only twice. This allows him freedom to treat the flutes as partners in a “vocal” duet, trading imitative figures and clashing in suspension chains. Another reference to vocal music occurs in the Soave of the E-major duet, an early example of the movement type wherein a brief introductory passage functioning as a ritornello frames a central cantabile section. In another instance of Telemann’s evenhanded approach to the two parts, he switches them for the concluding ritornello.

Essercizii musici In the previous chapter, we noted that a variety of documentary evidence places the Essercizii musici in the mid-to-late 1720s. Supporting this chronological repositioning is the fact that the most progressive aspects of Telemann’s style of the

394 The Hamburg Publications example 8.1. Sonates sans basse no. 5/iv, mm. 60–69

               98                                        98                                                                                                                60

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

1730s are either absent or appear only incipiently in the collection. Although its title relates the Essercizii musici to other musical “exercises” such as Johann Melchior Molter’s Esercizio studioso (Amsterdam, 1722 or 1723; six violin solos) and Domenico Scarlatti’s Essercizi per gravicembalo (London, 1738 or 1739; thirty keyboard works), the combination of twelve solos and twelve trios seems to be unique among eighteenth-century publications. As shown in Table 8.1, Telemann arranged the solos symmetrically according to scoring, so that the recorder, flute, oboe, violin, viola da gamba, and harpsichord each receive two solos.6 No such symmetry is present in the trios (42:c2, G6, g5, A6, a4, h4, F3, B4, E4, D9, d4, Es3), which include twelve of the fifteen possible instrumental combinations (excluded are flute, recorder, continuo; violin, obbligato harpsichord, continuo; and oboe, viola da gamba, continuo). Nor does Telemann organize the solos or trios according to tonality. The two harpsichord solos, Telemann’s first publication of keyboard music (not counting treble-bass solos playable on keyboard), are French suites that help offset the otherwise Italianate style of the collection. They follow a prelude with standard dance types such as the allemande and corrente, but also admit elements of the galant style. With the redating of the collection, the four trios scored for melody instrument, obbligato harpsichord, and continuo (nos. 2, 4, 8, and 12) may be counted among the earliest known chamber works with obbligato keyboard parts. They antedate not only Telemann’s own Six concerts et six suites, but also such works as C. P. E. Bach’s two trios for obbligato harpsichord and violin, Wq. 71–72/H.

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 395 Table 8.1 Symmetrical arrangement of solos in the Essercizii musici Solo

Solo instrument

TWV

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Vn Fl Va da gamba Rec Ob Cemb Vn Fl Va da gamba Rec Ob Cemb

41:F4 41:D9 41:a6 41:d4 41:B6 32:3 41:A6 41:G9 41:e5 41:C5 41:e6 32:4

502–3 (Leipzig, 1731), and the “concertos” and sonatas for obbligato harpsichord with flute or violin by Johann Matthias Leffloth the younger and JeanJoseph Cassanéa de Mondonville (see chapter 6). In fact, Telemann’s trios are roughly contemporary with J. S. Bach’s six sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord, BWV 1014–19a, thought to have been completed around 1725.7 Although there is no evidence that Telemann’s obbligato keyboard trios, like many by J. S. and C. P. E. Bach, the Graun brothers, and Quantz, are arrangements of works with more conventional scorings, the right hand of the harpsichord is often playable on violin; there is little idiomatic keyboard writing apart from the occasional use of right-hand chords.8 The three-part texture in these works (melody instrument, harpsichord right hand, and harpsichord left hand doubled by the continuo) is not atypical of that found in Telemann’s trios as a whole and ranges from three-part imitation to parallel homophony (for the latter see especially the first movement of Trio 4). With few exceptions, the harpsichord’s left hand is limited to doubling or playing divisions of the continuo line. In the second movement of Trio 4, for example, the ritornello material is supplied by both hands of the harpsichord, with the continuo line supplying a simplified version of the left hand. When the flute enters, the sense of a two- or three-part texture is reinforced by the omission of either the harpsichord or continuo line for lengthy passages. In stylistic terms, the Essercizii musici sonatas are moderately more galant than those published at Frankfurt a decade earlier. The second movement of Solo 7, illustrated in Example 8.2, is especially progressive in its richly varied motivic

396 The Hamburg Publications example 8.2. Essercizii musici, solo 7/ii, mm. 1–20

  2Allegro    4                               2            4                                                                                                                          Violin



Continuo

7

6

6

6

6

6

7

6

7

¿

8

6

6

6

6 5

14

6

¿

6

¿

#

6

§

4§ 2

5§ 3

4 2§

content, alla zoppa syncopations over a drum bass (mm. 5–7), and Lombard rhythms (mm. 15–16). Yet such effects are less frequently encountered in the Essercizii musici than in Telemann’s publications of the 1730s. Rather than mixing styles solely through juxtaposing French and Italianate movements, as in the Frankfurt collections, Telemann occasionally combines them within a single movement—for example, through the alternation of French refrains and Italianate couplets in the rondeaus concluding Trio 8 and Solo 9. Another rondeau movement, the concluding polonaise of Trio 9, is an early instance of Telemann’s long-standing association of the Polish style with the expression markings “scherzando” and “scherzo.” The drone at the movement’s outset, no doubt an allusion to the rustic bagpipe, has a counterpart in the pastorale of Trio 10, where the device might instead be heard as referencing the more refined musette. A further pastoral topic, the chasse, colors the fourth movement of Trio 12. Here the obbligato harpsichord’s initial solo flourish, complete with horn fifths and stock rhythmic figures evocative of hunting calls, gives way to a fugato that quickly dissolves into homophony. Three other movements provide paradigms for types that would become common in Telemann’s collections of the late 1720s and 1730s. Thrice during the opening “Affettuoso” of Solo 4, the recorder plays threefold echoes of a single pitch with the dynamic markings [f]–p–pp. In later manifestations, this echo effect is often associated with the pastoral style (as are the loud–soft–softer echoes in “May the God of Wit inspire” from Purcell’s Fairy

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 397

Queen), and particularly with the siciliana.9 Solos 6 and 10 both open with contrast movements in which two different affects alternate throughout. As we shall see below, a similar contrast movement is identified as a “capriccio” in Der getreue Music-Meister.10 Until the 1720s Telemann had signified the operatic mode in sonatas through such devices as breathless “vocal” melodies, double-motto openings, ostinato accompaniments, and instrumental recitative. In the Essercizii musici, he also explores formal models associated with vocal music. We have already encountered the arialike slow movement with ritornello frame in chapters 3 and 6, and the third movement of Trio 3 provides an excellent example of this type. The ritornello here is an eight-measure period featuring suspensions and brief imitations in the violin and oboe, parts that are contrapuntally inverted upon the ritornello’s return. As seen in Example 8.3, Telemann underscores the contrast in “scoring” and style between ritornello and “vocal” duet through a caesura, tempo change, and tonal disjunction (V/vi–I). A similar formal process obtains in the third movement of Trio 2, the central “vocal” section of which is easily among the most beautiful of Telemann’s aria-style instrumental works. Here the obbligato harpsichord is heard only in the ritornello frames, leaving the viola da gamba to “sing” to a partially ostinato continuo accompaniment. This section also provides an early example of a formal procedure that would become common in Telemann’s later Hamburg solos. Dubbed “permutation technique” by Jeanne Swack, this procedure involves the reshuffling of melodic-harmonic segments ranging in length from brief motivic cells to entire phrases.11 Note in Example 8.4 that the segments marked “X” (prolonging a pedal tone on D) and “Y” (an offbeat figure over a descending bass) return out of order in measure 45, where their connection is smoothed by a brief transition (m. 48). Solo 5 alludes to vocal music in the first three of its movements: an ostinato bass underpins the opening Adagio; the following Allegro begins with a double motto and is in da capo form; and in the Cantabile, a particularly affecting minor-mode siciliana, the oboe enters with an unaccompanied phrase commencing with the sustained pitch typical of continuo arias. Telemann’s long-standing association of the oboe with vocal style also extends to the opening movement of Solo 11 (a motto aria) and the second movement of Trio 1 (in da capo form). Da capo form is further employed in the prelude to Solo 12 (a galant “Cantabile”), and in the auf Concertenart second movement of Trio 4. A number of other slow movements lacking formal references to aria types nevertheless seem inspired by the aria patetica.These combine certain aspects of the Affettuoso style—especially affective downbeat rests and sighing figures—with descending chromatic lines, wide melodic leaps, pedal tones, and the like. Con-

398 The Hamburg Publications example 8.3. Essercizii musici, trio 3/iii, mm. 1–21 Violin

Oboe

Andante

   c



  

                             

  

 c              c              

 

Continuo

6

5 4 3

6

6 5

5 4 3

     

5 4 3

6 5

5 4

4

3

Largo

 43                       43                   43                 

5



6 5

4

5 3

7 5

6

#

 

5 7

6

#

6 6

5

#

6

6

                                                         10



6 4

6

6 4

6

6 5

6

6

6b

                                                     16



6

6

6§

5

6§

§

          §

§

6

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 399 example 8.4. Essercizii musici, trio 2/iii, mm. 14–31, 44–55

4                           43                          Continuo   6  6  46   3 14

Viola da gamba

#

X

 

                                                                  6 6 6 18

¿

 

                                                   6 6 5 22

4

4

3

                                                 25

3

3

7 3

6

D

¿

2

6

6

Y                                                    6 6 7

  28

6



  44

6

#

6 5

6

#

Y

                                                 

6

6

6

7

6

6 5

6 4

#

                   X                                                 48

__________

6

6

#

6

6

4 6

#

                                                 52



5 #

6 4

7 #

¿

            6 6

#

400 The Hamburg Publications

tributing to a pervasive sense of breathlessness in the first movement of Trio 1, for example, are constant downbeat rests in both the principal melody (first heard in the oboe) and accompanimental figure (introduced by the recorder). And Telemann does not limit his vocal references to the aria: Solo 9/iii is a Recitativo and Arioso that evidently inspired a similar movement in Der getreue Music-Meister, discussed later. It is worth noting that all of these instrumental allusions to vocal music come from a time when Telemann was especially busy writing operas and sacred cantatas and publishing such collections as the Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst, Auszug derjenigen musicalischen . . . Arien, Lustige Arien aus der Opera Adelheid, and Pimpinone. Fugues figure prominently in the Essercizii musici, and trio fugues lacking thematic basses are as common as those with them. Such confinement of the subject to the upper voices is doubtless symptomatic of a galant preoccupation with homophony, even in polyphonic styles of writing; the lack of a true countersubject in Trio 5/ii may be taken as a case in point. The binary fugue, a common but often unsatisfying movement type among the Frankfurt sonatas, is represented by Trio 1/iv. But this example is more successful than most: it dispenses with parallel beginnings for each half of the form, delays the double return of subject and tonic in the second half, and introduces greater tonal and thematic contrast throughout. Contrasting sharply with most of the other fugues in the collection is the “scholastic” double fugue of Trio 11/iv, with its vocally conceived subject (spanning only a minor sixth), unaccompanied exposition, and dense counterpoint (two subjects plus a countersubject). Still more conservative is the stile antico second movement of Trio 7. Its expression marking of “Mesto” reinforces a solemnity that is at odds with the surrounding galant fugues. These last two movements remind us that in 1727–28 Telemann was working on a German translation of Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum; indeed, his cultivation of the strict style in the Essercizii musici may be a by-product of this aborted project.

Reading the Faithful Music Master Telemann conceived Der getreue Music-Meister not only as the first periodical in Germany to offer musical works, but also as a practical analog to the moral weeklies that had appeared in England and Germany during the preceding two decades. The London publication of the Tatler (1709–11), the Spectator (1711– 12), and the Guardian (1713), had inspired Mattheson’s Der Vernünfftler (1713– 14) and Der musicalische Patriot (1728) in Hamburg and Gottsched’s Vernünfftige Tadlerinnen (1725) in Leipzig. But the most influential moral weekly in Germany—and perhaps the immediate model for Telemann—was Hamburg’s Der

E ight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 401

Patriot (1724–26), published by the Teutsch-Übende Gesellschaft. Available in twenty-six cities besides Hamburg, Der Patriot reached a circulation of over 5,000.12 Like all of these periodicals, Der getreue Music-Meister was primarily concerned with instruction: each biweekly issue took the form of a “Lection” or lesson. Telemann’s didactic project, and the scope of its coverage, is spelled out in the journal’s title page and preface: The Faithful Music-Master, who proposes to present all types of musical pieces for singers and instrumentalists, suited for various voices and almost all instruments in use, and which consist of moral, operatic, and other arias, trios, duets, solos, etc., sonatas, ouvertures, etc., as well as fugues, counterpoints, canons, etc., therefore most everything that may occur in music according to the Italian, French, English, Polish, serious, lively, and amusing styles, little by little in a lesson every fourteen days through Telemann. Gentle Reader! The present work, the contents of which are already adequately described by the title, would have remained without a preface had I not thought to decorate the space of this empty page with a few black letters. With such an opportunity, I could have flatteringly extolled its worth to my readers. However, since I would thereby have been guilty of an inappropriate self-love, I would perhaps have cast suspicion on myself as requiring such finery. Accordingly, I shall only say that it is a musical journal and, to my knowledge, the first with real music to appear in Germany. If the so-called monthly journals, or those that appear piecemeal at various times, have found their many enthusiasts, then I expect that this one will not be rejected by those who it aims to benefit and entertain. One could surely make the point, however, that it is quite daring for a single person to undertake a work in which such varied things are to be presented. This is true, and I have thought about it at length before coming to a firm conclusion. I foresee that many lections may be accompanied with a certain amount of perspiration, though to some degree I have been able to depend on the fact that so far the notes have sought me almost as soon as I have looked for them. However, because man lives for work, and in order to serve others, I have in the end not let this obstacle hinder me, especially as I have reckoned that I would thus be inspired to the lively continuation of these pieces, for I find myself in a place where music appears to have its fatherland, as it were; where the highest and most reputable persons consider the art of music worthy of their attention; where various noble familes count virtuosos of both sexes among themselves; where so many skilful students of music hope to live permanently; and where, finally, so many terse thoughts of foreign musicians are heard on the stage, performed by the most select voices. In order that these pages may have all the more variety, I will not be opposed if others wish to make some contribution to filling them up, whereby the names of the authors will be added, should they make them known, but on the condition that the contributions are sent with sufficient postage.

402 The Hamburg Publications Should this Music-Master meet with a warm reception, so that its lessons continue, I may, when my duties permit, print a discussion of each piece from time to time (but only concerning my own pieces), in which I would show all sorts of advantages that might be profitably applied in practice. I have nothing further to express, except to request a favorably disposed opinion of me from musical amateurs, as much for this as my other work, to whom I remain Your most humble and obedient Telemann13

Certainly the journal represented a substantial undertaking; the fact that it lasted for only a year (twenty-five issues) should not necessarily be taken as a sign that it failed to attract “many enthusiasts,” for it was in the nature of moral journals to have short runs. The second paragraph of Telemann’s preface, incidentally, appears to be the source of Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg’s quip from the 1780s that “one said of Kapellmeister Telemann that he did not search for notes, but rather the notes searched for him.”14 No “discussion” of Telemann’s pieces was ever printed, but a number of his friends and colleagues—among them J. S. Bach, Johann Gottlieb Baron, Johann Georg Pisendel, Sylvius Leopold Weiss, and Jan Dismas Zelenka—took him up on his offer to print their pieces. For some of these composers, such as Pisendel and Zelenka, contributing to Der getreue MusicMeister was a unique opportunity to have their music published. But Telemann was almost completely on his own during the first four months of the project: only two works by other composers appeared in the initial eight issues. Although the journal includes vocal excerpts from Telemann’s Hamburg operas, the secular cantata Ich kann lachen, weinen, scherzen, TVWV 20:15, and several contrapuntal curiosities designed to enlighten readers, most of the pages are filled by one- or two-voice sonatas, suites, and “Galanterie-Stücke” for recorder, flute, oboe, chalumeau, bassoon, horn, trumpet, cello, viola da gamba, lute, and keyboard.15 The uncomplicated style and brevity of much of this music is surely a function of the journal’s amateur audience and serial format. No doubt the “Galanterie-Stücke” were included more for entertainment than instruction, and like the opera arias, they may have functioned as souvenirs of dramatic performances. For example, the “Niaise [silly dance] pour divers instrumens,” 41:E2, was “dancée par Ma.lle Kelp.” Similar Galanterien “pour divers instrumens,” such as the character piece “L’hiver,” 41:d1, may also be arrangements of theatrical dances. Intermediate between these and the longer multimovement works is the capriccio for flute and continuo, 41:G5, which might be described as a compound move-

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 403

ment built from three interwoven binary forms. The first repeated half of the movement includes three elements: an unaccompanied prelude filled with rapid figuration and remaining in the tonic (Allegro), a galant adagio pausing on V/V (Largo), and a passepied-like dance in the dominant (Vivace). In the movement’s second half, we are presented with the completion of each element, the harmonic motion now from dominant to tonic. Telemann also provided his clientele with the types of pieces they knew from his previous publications: the sonata for two recorders, flutes, or violas da gamba, 40:107, is essentially a supplement to the Sonates sans basse. Among the most substantial and sophisticated works in Der getreue Music-Meister are the ten solos by Telemann. The tuneful solo for cello and continuo, 41:D6— Telemann’s only work for this scoring—is especially noteworthy for its slow movements. In the aria-style Lento, the cello interrupts its own first phrase with what is apparently a fragment of the ritornello (not heard at the movement’s outset), then restates its phrase in the manner of a double motto. The third movement’s curious appearance, in which all pitches in the solo part have hollow noteheads, is a throwback to late-medieval mensural notation—though Telemann probably intended a didactic reference to the void notation of French composers such as Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Nicolas Clérambault, and François Couperin. Whether the noteheads indicate a slowing or speeding of the tempo seems to have been a matter of some disagreement during the eighteenth century.16 Another unique scoring in Telemann’s output is the bassoon solo, 41:f1, the first movement of which (“Triste”) achieves a breathless quality by beginning each of its brief motivic figures on an offbeat. The typical lamenting emblems of drooping melodic figures and a descending bass line are eschewed in favor of circular and leaping figures (Example 8.5). If Telemann cannot avoid some more conventional, though effective, chromatic descents near the movement’s end, he nevertheless prepares this with a chromatic ascent early on. Like the first movement of the cello solo, the second movement begins with a double motto. But here the aria reference is made more explicit by the movement’s overall da capo form, with a B section that explores material from the A section before cadencing in the mediant. Whether intentionally or not, Telemann achieves a sense of thematic unity across the four movements by including a 3ˆ–2ˆ–1ˆ melodic descent in each opening measure of the bassoon part. Two solos begun in lection 22 are evidently meant to demonstrate the differences between the Italian and French styles, not unlike J. S. Bach’s juxtaposition in Clavier-Übung II of the “Ouvertüre nach französischer Art,” BWV 831, with the “Concerto nach italiänischen Gusto,” BWV 971. As its archaic title suggests, the “Sonata di chiesa, à diversi stromenti” (flute, oboe, or violin), 41:g5, is not

404 The Hamburg Publications example 8.5. Solo in F minor for bassoon and continuo, 41:f1/i (Der getreue Music-Meister), mm. 1–19 Triste   43                      p f   43                                          

Bassoon

3

3

3

3

Continuo

6

6

§

b

7

§

6

6

b7

6

5 4 b3

                                    5 43





§

6

§

6

                                                                                          

11

5

6

§

5

6

15

§

5







3

3



§

7

6

6

6§

6

6

§

§

merely Italianate, but neo-Corellian. Each phrase in the opening sarabanda (Grave) begins with the characteristic motive of a falling octave and rising fourth, a kind of motivic consistency foreign to the galant style; it is the sort of movement Telemann might have written twenty or more years earlier. The following “Allabreve” fugue is based upon an appropriately scholastic subject (a countersubject is eventually introduced), and is notated with four half notes to the measure. Somewhat more modern in style is the following Adagio, with its drum bass accompaniment and slower harmonic rhythm. But the concluding Vivace features close, quasi-canonic imitation between melody instrument and bass that has a decidedly old-fashioned feel. Here, as in some of Corelli’s trios, the bass line often divides to create a third contrapuntal voice for melodic bass. Even the use of a modal key signature (one flat instead of the two used for 41:g4 in previous issues of the journal) is retrospective. By contrast, the “Sinfonie à Flûte traverse seule, à la Françoise” is filled with gallicisms. Like Telemann’s early trios alla francese, the piece has four movements with French titles disguising dances (including a loure en rondeau, bourrée en rondeau, and a through-composed gigue). Both the loure and

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 405

third-movement Gravement—the latter an especially effective example of the French goût—are adorned with written-out agréments, providing Telemann’s readers with a kind of primer on French ornamentation covering the tremblement, coulé, port de voix, coulade (port de voix double), accent, and tour de chant (mordent-trill). Further reinforcing the solo’s French style and appearance are the 2/2 time signature for the bourrée and a petite reprise at the end of the gigue. However, the piece as a whole does not look back to the past, but rather takes its cue from more or less contemporaneous French solos. The most fully scored instrumental work in the journal is the “Introduzzione à tre” for two flutes, violins, or recorders and continuo, 42:C1, a characteristic overture-suite. One may play the work as a simple trio or en symphonie, for some of the movements have soli and tutti markings. Formally, the most unusual movement is the overture, in which the fugal Vivace alternates, da capo style, with an expressive Andante in the relative minor. Several of the dance movements represent historical and mythological women: Xantippe, the sharp-tongued wife of Socrates (music punctuated with “rude” syncopations); Lucretia, the martyred wife of the Roman nobleman Tarquinius Collatinus (an elegiac sarabande); Corinna, a Greek poet (a jolly rigaudon); Cl[o]elia, a couragous Roman maiden who escaped from the Etruscan king Lars Porsenna (rushing triplets marked “Spirituoso”); and Dido, queen of Carthage (a contrast movement that expresses both sadness and desperation in “Triste” solos alternating with “Disperato” tuttis). In providing character portraits of these women, Telemann may have been attempting to appeal to the same female readership that was frequently targeted by collections of simple keyboard pieces. In any case, the suite forms an attractive literary counterpart to the other characteristic multimovement work in Der getreue Music-Meister, the “Intrada, nebst burlesquer Suite” on scenes from Gulliver’s Travels (discussed in chapter 6). Perhaps the journal’s most original composition is the excellent sonata for unaccompanied viola da gamba, 40:1, a precursor to Telemann’s published fantasias of the 1730s. It may be the earliest piece for this scoring written in Germany, and it is certainly among the most technically demanding works in the entire German gamba repertory.17 The sonata’s opening Andante manages to achieve a preludelike sense of improvisation while maintaining tight motivic organization. Bracketed by a fugue and a menuet en rondeau are a “Recitatif ” and “Arioso. Andante” (note the mixture of French and Italian words) that seem to have been directly inspired by the “Recitativo-Arioso” for viola da gamba and continuo, 41:e5 (Essercizii musici, Solo 9). If Telemann had earlier associated the oboe and violin with instrumental recitative (see chapter 3), he now evidently considered the viola da gamba to be especially well suited to this style. The “Recitatif ” is three times the

406 The Hamburg Publications

length of its Essercizii musici predecessor and consequently explores a broader range of affects. As shown in Example 8.6, it is a soliloquy that remains close enough to its vocal models to tempt one to imagine an absent text.18 Diminished chords in measures 2–4, represented as tritones formed between “continuo” and “singer,” establish a sense of strong emotion, perhaps modulating from initial despair (descending figures in mm. 1–3) to indecision (the questioning rise from F-sharp to G on the downbeat of m. 5) to defiance (ascent by leap to C-natural in m. 5). In the recitative’s second phrase (mm. 7–11), harmonic motion from E minor to G major suggests a lessening of emotional tension. The ascending fourth from D to G and outlining of the G-major triad at mm. 11–12 indicate some sort of exclamation, and because this high G is the first step in an ascent leading to the highest pitches of the recitative (C
⬙–d⬙–e⬙ in mm. 15–17), we sense growing resolve. (Interestingly, the sixteenth rests after the downbeats of mm. 5 and 12 appear to be attempts by Telemann to insert musical punctuation where the performer might otherwise press ahead; observing these expressive pauses in performance may alter the listener’s perception of what is being “spoken.”) The dramatic high point of the recitative’s third and final phrase is the first-inversion major triad on the third beat of measure 16, here functioning as the Neapolitan sixth in B minor. Is this an anguished cry? A vow of vengeance? Owing to its alto register, the final “vocal” cadence seems emotionally charged, expressing a sentiment such as sad resignation (played softly) or strong resolve (played more forcefully). The former interpretation is lent support by the following arioso, which is less concerned with closely imitating a vocal model than establishing a melancholy affect. Starting as a double fugue with two descending subjects, one lamentingly chromatic, the arioso soon abandons fugal texture in favor of chromatic ascents and descents in both “voice” and “continuo.” Among the most curious works in Der getreue Music-Meister is the solo for viola or viola da gamba (or various duet combinations), 41:B3, a galant sonata in which all four movements are strictly canonic at the unison, with the comes entering at intervals that vary from one movement to the next. This solo belongs to a group of canonic works and music-theoretical curiosities scattered throughout the journal. Lection 2 concludes with “a few contrapuntal variations on the first measure of the Telemann sonatina,” taken from the title page of the Sei suonatine (see chapter 6). In lection 6Telemann provides “several sudden movements to distant chords,” showing quick progressions from C major to C-sharp minor, C major to E-flat major, C major to F-sharp major, E minor to E-flat major, E minor to C-sharp major, and E minor to B-flat major. Lection 8 presents a chromatic fugue subject with five “solutions,” that is, different versions of the comes that are to follow the dux at an interval of time determined by the reader (the counterpoint is invert-

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 407 example 8.6. Solo in D major for unaccompanied viola da gamba, 40:1/iii (Der getreue Music-Meister), mm. 1–22 Viola da Gamba

Recitatif  c                 despair

       

                              relaxing of tension question

4

defiance / resolve

                               

8

exclamation

                                

12

growing resolve

Arioso                          24 anguished cry? sad resignation?

16

vow of vengeance?

strong resolve?

 24                      

19

lament

ible). The subject becomes the basis for a written-out “canon perpetuus” in lection 10. Readers of lection 21 are challenged to compose fugues on three “Themata zu Fugen.” And lest anyone takes all of this learnedness too seriously, lection 13 includes a fragment of an aria (“scena”) from the opera Die verkehrte Welt, TVWV 21:23, in which Telemann cleverly satirizes various contrapuntal techniques, tempos, and styles: canon in augmentation; invertible counterpoint at the twelfth, tenth, and octave; adagio in cantabile style; presto fugue; and andante with ostinato accompaniment.19 The association of this aria with the canons and contrapuntal curiosities is made explicit in the journal’s index, where it is listed under the rubric “Canones, Contrapuncte, etc.” rather than among the “SingeSachen.” Another humorous use of canon is the “Lilliputsche Chaconne” from the “Intrada, nebst burlesquer Suite,” 40:108. Canons by other composers include those by J. S. Bach (the so-called Hudemann canon, BWV 1074), Zelenka (ZWV 179), Johann Christoph Schmidt, and a “Mr. Dirnslot.” Bach had written his puzzle canon in 1727 and Zelenka his retrograde canon in 1728, basing it closely on a forty-year-old canon and its performance instructions by Angelo Berardi.20 Schmidt, Zelenka’s Dresden colleague, was a well-known proponent of

408 The Hamburg Publications

the strict style in vocal music; his letter to Mattheson on the subject had been published in Critica Musica some years previously.21 Given Telemann’s interest in enlightening his readers on theoretical matters, he may have specially requested canons from these composers. Now, one might think that a galant composer such as Telemann would have little interest in canon, the strictest of contrapuntal procedures. But his responses to questions posed by Mattheson in connection with the article “Die canonische Anatomie” in Critica Musica reveal that he valued canons, both as a composer and teacher. To Mattheson’s question of “whether the use of canon among beginning composers is common, and how common it is otherwise,” Telemann responded that even simple canons at the unison with two, three, or four voices produce an effect that is agreeable to the ear and delights the faculty of the intellect. However, this requires a proper man, who has mastered modulation and melody and therefore is able to follow the progression of harmony, if it is not beneath him to do so. With regard to beginners, canons are somewhat useful in that they render their pens skillful and in time, through practice, permit them more freedom in all kinds of contrapuntal forms. But just as insufficiently fiery minds thereby sink all too easily into pedantry, there are those who are far too galant to engage in such cerebral composition. Regarding this observation, it escapes me why among contemporary canonists very few follow Steffani’s flower-covered path, while so many others wander among thorn and thistle. In short, canons deserve praise; but they are to be compared to individual trees in a great forest or, alternatively, to a room in a spacious palace.22

Telemann’s praise for Steffani’s canons is significant in view of his claim in the 1740 autobiography that the older composer was one of his principal early influences (see chapter 1). In his own compositions, he made regular visits to the canonic room. Like the canonic solo in Der getreue Music-Meister, the trio for recorder, treble viol, and continuo 42:C2 is strictly canonic at the unison throughout its four movements. Most interesting is the second movement, a rounded binary Allegro in which the horizontal distance between dux and comes is variable, ranging from two and a half measures to half a measure (Example 8.7). This contrapuntal accelerando is effected either by foreshortening the imitation in the comes (as in m. 7) or by inserting breaks in the texture through lengthy rests in the dux (as in mm. 11–13). Similar alterations of the distance between dux and comes are also found in Steffani’s chamber duets.23 Two other trio movements preserved in manuscript, 42:D12/ii and F12/iii, are strictly canonic, as is the finale to the second of the Six sonates en trio, 42:c1; interestingly, all three movements feature continuo ostinatos.

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 409 example 8.7. Trio in C major for recorder and treble viol, 42:C2/ii, mm. 1–15 Recorder

Allegro      c                              c   c                    



3

3

Treble viol

3

Continuo

4 2

¿

              3

   

4

3

                     9



6 5

6 5

6 4

6

6

7

6

6

         ¿

5 4

3

                                    6 7 #

#

                               #

6

5

6 4

13

#

5 3

           



6

6 4

                 

5



6

6

§

6

#

                         5

#

b

6 5b

What seems to have interested Telemann in the 1720s and 1730s is the combination of strict canonic writing with the galant style, an interest culminating with Telemanns Canones à 2, 3, 4 and the XIIX Canons mélodieux, discussed later. Between Der getreue Music-Meister and these two collections, he indulged his taste for canon in arias such as “Ach, teure Bekehrung!” from Zirknirsche du mein blödes Herze, TVWV 1:121, and “Göttlichs Kind, laß mit Entzücken” from Kündlich gross ist das gottselige Geheimnis,TVWV 1:1020.24 In his Abhandlung von der Fuge, Marpurg praised the XIIX Canons mélodieux along with works by Johann Friedrich Fasch, Christoph Graupner, and Johann Christoph Pepusch as exemplifying the “galant, canonic

410 The Hamburg Publications

style of writing.” Providing an excerpt of a canonic trio by Graupner, he noted that such works “have become rare since the light melodic style came into fashion.”25 In fact, canonic trios appear to have enjoyed a vogue among German composers during the 1720s and 1730s. Besides those by Fasch and Graupner, canonic trios or trio movements were written by J. S. Bach, Fux, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (BWV 1037), Molter (MWV X/1), Quantz, and Stölzel.26 Thus Telemann’s canonic solo in Der getreue Music-Meister, far from being an arcane contrapuntal curiosity, may well have struck his readers as especially galant.

Menuets and Marches The Sept fois sept et un menuet (1728; 34:1–50), Zweytes sieben mal sieben und ein Menuet (1730; 34:51–100), and Helden-Music, oder 12 neue musicalische Marches (1728; 50: 31–42) are all collections of dances recalling the “Galanterie-Stücke” of Der getreue Music-Meister. Simple, fashionable, and aimed at delighting the Liebhaber, they may have been inspired by contemporaneous French recueils of menuets and pièces, such as Michel Pignolet de Monteclair’s [100] Menuets tant anciens que nouveaux qui se dansent aux bals de l’opera (ca. 1725) or manuscript collections such as the “New Select Arias, Menuets, and Marches, Mostly Composed by the World-Famous Musician and Capell-Director Monsieur Telemann While in the Hof-Capelle at the Duke of Saxony-Eisenach’s Residence,” 36:1–168.27 The two menuet publications’ division of fifty works into “seven times seven plus one” conjures up the many biblical invocations of the number seven. More specifically, it may refer to the combination of seven times seven and fifty appearing in Leviticus 25.8–10, where Moses is instructed by God on Mount Sinai: “You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. . . . And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.28 Though biblical number symbolism and modish dances may seem unlikely partners, Telemann was surely suggesting through his titles that even the most modest and worldly music serves to glorify God and rouse the soul. Seven times seven is also biographically significant, for the Zweytes sieben mal sieben und ein Menuet was published in the year that its composer turned forty-nine. The Sept fois sept et un menuet was dedicated to Andreas Plumejon, “famous merchant and businessman” in Harburg, just across the Elbe river from Hamburg. We learn in Telemann’s dedicatory poem that Plumejon had requested menuets from the composer, and that one ought not take a good menuet for granted:

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 411 And if you value a concerto with many parts, The menuet needn’t suffer by comparison. Moreover, this little thing is not so modest. For know that one must give much consideration to it: Melody and harmony, invention and weightiness, And what it doesn’t need are empty heads.29

Telemann inscribed the Zweytes sieben mal sieben und ein Menuet to Count Friedrich Carl von Erbach, noting, as we saw in the prologue to this book, the count’s ability to combine the French, Italian, British, and Polish styles into a “mixture filled with sweetness.” Erbach resided south of Darmstadt in the Odenwald, and had befriended Telemann in Frankfurt by 1720 (several letters between the two men were extant before World War II). In July 1727 the amateur composer requested that Telemann look over a set of his divertimenti prior to their publication; it may have been this request that prompted Telemann’s visit to the Odenwald in September of that year.30 Both sets of menuets were designed to be playable on keyboard or with a treble instrument and continuo. The Sept fois sept et un menuet was advertised in 1728 as being available “with and without score,” implying that one could purchase treble and bass parts; however, only the figured score has survived. In subsequent catalogs of Telemann’s publications, both collections are designated as “for keyboard or other instruments.”31 A newspaper advertisement of 3 February 1730 notes that the Zweytes sieben mal sieben und ein Menuet “may be played not only on keyboard, but also on the violin, flûte traverse, and flûte douce, for which purpose a special bass part has been added.”32 This figured bass part, titled “Bass zur Flûte douce” and “Basse pour la Flûte douce,” transposes the menuets up a major or minor third to accommodate the recorder’s compass.33 No treble part has been located, but in keeping with other publications by Telemann, it might have accommodated performances both at pitch (flute and violin reading in treble clef) and up a third (recorder reading in French violin clef with alternate key signature). When playing with a flutist or violinist, the continuo player(s) would have read from the figured left-hand staves of the clavier part. Telemann’s menuets are well-crafted miniatures of sixteen to forty measures; those of the second collection are generally briefer than those of the first. In both collections, the keys are arranged alphabetically so that each set of seven menuets (eight in the last set) is confined to one or two tonal centers: A major/A minor, B-flat major/B minor, C major/C minor, D major/D minor/E-flat major, E major/E minor, F major/F minor, and G major/G minor in the first collection; A major/A minor, B-flat major/B minor, C major/C minor, D major/D minor,

412 The Hamburg Publications

E major/E minor, F major/F-sharp minor, and G major/G minor in the second collection. Telemann probably devised this system to encourage novice players to master one small group of tonalities at a time. With few exceptions, the dances are unvarying in their two-reprise structure and four-measure phrasing. Two dances have a kind of da capo structure (II/38 and 48: AABA), while several offer relief from the oppressively regular phraseology by mixing in uneven or asymmetrical phrases (I/5, with five-measure phrases; I/10, I/44, and II/41, with six-measure phrases).34 Others strongly invoke the French style through the short–long–long–short “Favier” rhythm or numerous tierces coulées, ports de voix, and other agréments (I/12, I/22, I/31, II/20). Occasionally, Telemann high-mindedly writes a strict canon (II/50) or invertible counterpoint (I/5–6, 24–25, 50). Menuets I/5 and 24 are turned on their heads, so to speak, in I/6 and 25, where bass becomes treble and treble becomes bass; the same switch occurs between the two halves of menuet I/50. One is reminded here of the contrapuntal play with similarly artless music in the frontispiece to the Sei suonatine (see chapter 5). The sole copy of the Helden-Music, oder 12 neue musicalische Marches known to have survived into the twentieth century disappeared during World War II, but thankfully not before a modern edition could be prepared. We noted in the previous chapter that the collection’s scoring was unusually variable: the marches could be performed by pairs of oboes or violins with continuo, sometimes accompanied by a trumpet or two horns; but all were playable on solo keyboard. To judge from the modern edition, one could also play the marches with a single melody instrument and continuo. Indeed, the binary dances’ narrow range and limited constellation of keys renders them easily playable on most melody instruments of Telemann’s time; trumpet and horns were likely restricted to the first nine works, in the brass-friendly tonalities of D major, E-flat major, and F major. This “Hero Music” was probably intended equally for use at courts, where it might be played by military oboe bands and corps of trumpeters and drummers, and in the homes of Liebhaber, who would be more likely to perform the marches on violins, flutes, or solo keyboard. A hero, to quote a definition of 1735, “is one endowed by nature with an impressive character and exceptional bodily strength, achieves glory through courageous deeds, and is raised above the ordinary level of mankind.”35 It is the hero’s moral character that Telemann emphasizes in the marches’ characteristic titles: “Die Würde—La Majesté” (Dignity or Honor), “Die Anmut—La Grace” (Grace), “Die Tapferkeit—La Vaillance” (Bravery), “Die Ruhe—Tranquillité” (Calm), “Die Rüstung—L’Armement” (Armament), “Die Liebe—L’Amour” (Love), “Die Wachsamkeit—La Vigilance” (Vigilance), “Die Ausgelassenheit—La Gaillardise” (Liveliness or Jollity), “Die Sanftmut—La Douceur” (Gentleness or Sweetness), “Die Großmut—La

E ight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 413

Générosité” (Generosity), “Die Hoffnung—L’Espérance” (Hope), and “Die Freude—La Réjouissance” (Joy or Rejoicing).36 As with many characteristic dances among Telemann’s overture-suites, the descriptive titles are expressed through musico-rhetorical figures: dotted rhythms for dignity; slurred note pairs and conjunct melodies for grace and love; triadic gestures for courage, armament, and vigilance; and the typical “rejoicing” rhythm of two eighths followed by a quarter for liveliness and joy. To the extent that Telemann’s customers identified personally with the qualities and emotions depicted by the Helden-Music—most of which are individually, if not collectively, common enough—they could perhaps fancy themselves a bit heroic while playing the dances; we are all heroes of some kind, the collection seems to say. And what higher worldly purpose could music claim than to promote the best aspects of one’s moral character?

Quadri Telemann’s first publication of quartets, the Quadri (43:G1, D1, A1, g1, e1, h1), marks the culmination of roughly two decades’ experience with the genre.37 Like the Essercizii musici and Der getreue Music-Meister, the collection’s six quartets form an encyclopedic survey of genres and national styles: the first two works are labeled “Concerto” because of their auf Concertenart fast movements and emphasis on display figuration; the second two are “Sonatas” owing to their four-movement formal scheme and fugal fast movements, also auf Concertenart; and the final two, called “Suite” (“Balletto” in the collection’s Italian title), consist of a prelude and a set of French dance movements. Evident throughout the collection is an emphasis on technical and compositional virtuosity. The individual parts are challenging to play, and their combination in performance requires considerable precision of ensemble. Moreover, the quartets display a masterful handling of texture and instrumental color, a progressive approach to form, a highly refined sense of generic amalgamation, and an increased application of the galant style. As noted in the previous chapter, one copy of Telemann’s edition includes a French dedication to the Hamburg dilettante Joachim Erasmus von Moldenit: If knowledge of music is among the best qualities and ornaments of a galant homme, as no one but the ignorant or capricious denies, then You, Monsieur, merit a glory that is so much the more radiant, as one sees in You the height of perfection that You have attained. For [even] without hearing you play the flute, and without admiring the delicacy of a Blavet and a Quantz, which you have rather equaled as their student, your discourse already reveals a profound acuity in the beautiful

414 The Hamburg Publications science of harmony, and in the exquisite taste with which You always make a worthy choice of the many styles in writing and playing. Beyond this You possess, Monsieur, still other rare natural and acquired talents—I believe, indeed, that it is principally these—which, as if by an unknown instinct, compel me here to declare publicly the particular esteem that I have for You, and which I shall never cease to have Monsieur, Your very humble and very obedient servant, George Philippe Telemann Hamburg, 4 July 173038

Telemann was being exceedingly polite in complimenting Moldenit’s attainments as a flutist, for Quantz noted in 1758 (as part of a polemical response to Moldenit’s criticisms of the Versuch) that “since his fingers were too thin to properly cover the holes on the flute, I was of course not able to get him to produce a good and pure tone, as both of his former, brave teachers [Blavet and Buffardin] had failed to do. Moreover, because his tongue was too inflexible to allow him the necessary movement in fast passages, he was all the more incapable of reaping the benefits of my instruction.”39 Indeed, one wonders if Moldenit was at all able to play the music Telemann dedicated to him. The quartets’ scoring of flute, violin, viola da gamba/cello, and continuo allowed Telemann considerable flexibility in pairing the three melody instruments, for the obbligato bass functions alternately in the bass, tenor, and alto ranges. The separate gamba and cello parts are virtually identical, and equally viable in performance; in the relatively few places where they diverge, the differences mainly concern double-stops, articulation, and transposition (the cello is occasionally placed an octave lower than the gamba). It nevertheless appears from the title page and cello part, labeled “Violoncello, in luogo della Viola” (“Violoncello, in place of Viola [da gamba]”), that Telemann preferred the gamba’s sonority. Unlike the lowest obbligato instrument in several earlier quartets, the gamba in the Quadri is fully independent of the continuo: rarely does it double the bass line or play divisions. With all three obbligato voices partaking equally of the music’s motivic and thematic content, the quartets exemplify the principle of durchbrochene Arbeit;40 many movements feature kaleidoscopic textures in which alliances between the obbligato instruments shift rapidly and often, as seen in Example 8.8.41 Telemann rarely fails to rescore repeated material so as to distribute themes and motives evenly among the obbligato voices. Partially as a result of the gamba’s prominence, the bass line is simplified by comparison with his earlier quartets. Not surprisingly, this simplification goes hand in hand with a general slowing of the harmonic rhythm, sometimes entailing drum bass lines. Symptomatic of the continuo’s reduced importance are numerous passages in which it is omitted altogether for

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 415 example 8.8. Quadri, Sonata 1/ii, mm. 53–54

   c                        Violin   c   Viola   c           da gamba   6   c      Continuo 53

Flute



6 5

7

                         6   6    6 5

7

6 7§ 5

up to five consecutive measures. Often these omissions serve to underscore textural contrasts in the upper parts or to mark an otherwise special moment in a movement, such as a formal transition. The multisectional, almost improvisatory aspect of Concerto 1 suggests its function as a prelude to the rest of the collection, in much the same way as multisectional “Sonades” introduce each of the suites in François Couperin’s Les Nations. In the capriccio-like first movement, a four-measure section (Grave) comprising an imitative passage over a bass pedal alternates with two longer sections (Allegro) featuring brilliant passagework. Following this are two run-on movement pairs: an eight-measure, tonally open harmonic movement (Largo) linked first to a concertante fugue in the relative minor (Presto) and then to a giga en rondeau (Allegro). As tonal closure is provided by both the fugue and rondeau, the quartet has, in effect, a three-movement structure. Perhaps because there is no full-length slow movement, Telemann assigns the function of tonal contrast to the fugue, a practice not encountered elsewhere among his sonatas. This movement is also unusual in having a ritornello that is not a true fugal exposition, but a simultaneous presentation of three subjects. Alternating with three solo episodes (one for each obbligato instrument) are three rescored statements of the ritornello. The rondeau features a greater amount of concertante writing than is usual for Telemann’s rondeaus in the mixed taste. Featured in the refrain, shown in Example 8.9, is the kind of motivic density and contrast that would become a hallmark of Telemann’s galant style during the 1730s. Note especially the change of texture in measure 10, where the flute and violin play in thirds and the gamba provides a drum-bass accompaniment. Rather than introduce completely new material in the two couplets, Telemann bases them largely on motives from the refrain. As if to underscore the concertante aspect of the movement, the second couplet ends with the concerto-like gesture of four measures in octaves.

416 The Hamburg Publications example 8.9. Quadri, Concerto 1/i, mm. 1–13 Flute Violin Viola da gamba

  68       68           68    





Continuo

Allegro

 68  





   

               

                        65  5

7

                    7

                                                                     6             

6





6

                           10



6 5



   

   

              7  5     7 5

We observed in chapter 6 that in addition to several auf Concertenart fast movements, two slow movements of the Quadri (the second of Concerto 2 and the third of Sonata 1) allude to the concerto or aria. With its walking bass and chains of suspensions in the upper parts, the ritornello frame of the latter movement also references the Corellian style. Telemann contrasts the three “vocal” solos not only by altering the instrumentation, but by a kind of strophic variation: the first phrase of each solo is identical, the second is slightly varied (compare mm. 9–10, 16–17, and 23–24), and the third is substantially rewritten, featuring different figuration for each instrument. Moreover, tonal tension is heightened through the modulation of each solo period up one tone (C major–D minor–E minor). Immediately preceding the return of the ritornello are five extra measures of flute solo accom-

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 417

panied only by the “orchestra” (gamba and violin). The omission of the continuo in these measures not only provides an additional element of tension, but also helps to underscore the change of texture at the return of the ritornello. The last two Quadri are Telemann’s first published suites in either quartet or trio scoring and prefigure other such works he was to publish during the 1730s. Both suites begin with a through-composed, imitative prelude featuring rapid figuration traded between the three upper parts. The following binary dance movements contain a mixture of standard types, such as the courante, giga, menuet, passepied, and rigaudon (but not the allemande and sarabande), as well as galant airs. In the second dance of alternativement pairs, Telemann provides textural contrast either by breaking up the melody between the three upper parts (Suite 1, second menuet; Suite 2, second passepied) or by omitting the continuo (Suite 1, “Replique”). The binary courante of Suite 2 is unique among the dance movements in containing varied reprises: in the written-out repeat of each half of the form, Telemann transfers the melodic line from flute and violin to violin and gamba, and the characteristic eighth-note motion (embellished with modish triplet figures) from the gamba to the flute. Not only is the instrumentation varied, but the eighth-note motion is further ornamented through sixteenth-note divisions. Two movements in the Quadri adumbrate formal patterns developed more fully in the III Trietti methodici e III scherzi and the Musique de table. The binary giga concluding Suite 1 is noteworthy for its rudimentary sonata-allegro structure, in which the arrival of the dominant occurs well before the first double bar and coincides with the introduction of new material (m. 18). In the second half of the form, the double return (m. 62) is not a literal repetition of the first half, but begins with a phrase omitted from the beginning of the second half (heard originally at mm. 9–12). The first movement of Sonata 1 (“Soave”) employs the permutation technique Telemann had previously restricted to music in only two parts. Here the motivically rich opening material, falling into symmetrical fourmeasure phrases (mm. 1–29), is partially stated in the dominant (mm. 30–40), supplemented with new material in the dominant and tonic (41–68), and finally more fully reprised in the tonic (69–85). It is in the reprise (or recapitulation) that Telemann employs permutation technique, omitting the movement’s opening phrase and reordering the others.

The Methodical Sonatas and Nouvelles sonatines One would be hard pressed to argue with Frederick Neumann’s assessment that Telemann’s three collections of methodical sonatas (the Sonate metodiche, Continua-

418 The Hamburg Publications

tion des sonates méthodiques, and III Trietti methodici e III scherzi) represent “what might well be the most valuable textbook of late baroque diminution practice.”42 In supplying both plain and embellished versions of the first slow movement in each solo and trio, these collections provided the amateur or student musician with tasteful examples of free ornamentation, or what Quantz called willkührliche Veränderungen or Auszierungen.43 Telemann advertised the Sonate metodiche as being “very useful” to those who “wish to cultivate singing ornaments.”44 Unlike many surviving embellishments from the early eighteenth century, Telemann’s never obscure the structural notes of the original melody or become so dense that one must compensate in performance by slowing the tempo significantly. Yet they are also ingenious in their rhythmic variety. In keeping with the overall style of the solos and trios, the embellishments are predominantly Italianate. There are, however, a smattering of French agréments such as the battement and several types of coulé, as well as a few indications of rhythmic inégalité (e.g., Sonate metodiche 1/i, m. 6). The opening of Sonate metodiche 2/i, reproduced in Figure 8.1, may serve here as a representative sample of the solo embellishments. Note that Telemann begins not with an ornamental curlicue, but with silence—that is, written-out rubato.45 In the first four measures alone, at least ten distinct rhythmic figures are presented; the shortest values are reserved for the dominant cadence in measure 4, where the descending motion of the original line is momentarily reversed on beat 3 of the embellished version. Leading up to a dominant statement of the main theme in the second half of measure 7 is an ascending tirata that is balanced, in the spirit of the mixed taste, by two tierces coulées descending across the following bar line. Despite offering rare examples of early eighteenth-century ornamentation practice in trios, the embellished trietti movements have received far less attention in performance-practice studies than those of the methodical solos. They are of necessity less florid and as such follow the prescriptions of Quantz, the only eighteenth-century writer to discuss the ornamentation of trios: With regard to the embellishments in the Adagio, the flutist must, in addition to what has been said previously, consider whether the pieces are set in two or more parts. In a trio few embellishments may be introduced, and the second part must not be deprived of the opportunity to add his share. The graces must be of such a kind that they are both appropriate to the situation, and can be imitated by the performer of the second part. They must be introduced only in passages that consist of imitations, whether at the upper fifth, the lower fourth, or the unison. If both parts have the same melody in sixths or thirds, nothing may be added, unless it has been agreed beforehand to make the same variations. . . . If one player makes a grace in a trio, the other, if he has the opportunity, as he should have, to repeat it, must execute it in the same way. Since it is easier to introduce something than it is to imitate it, if he can add something clever in addi-

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 419

figure 8.1. Sonate metodiche no. 2/i, mm. 1–8

tion, let him do so at the end of the grace, so that we may see that he can imitate it simply as well as vary it.46

Owing to their restraint, the trio embellishments, to a greater degree than those of the solos, give the impression of being “frozen” Improvisations. It is not inconceivable that in an imitative texture, two sympathetic players similarly well versed in the style could produce spontaneously ornamented lines such as those shown in Example 8.10. (In an especially clear instance of Telemann’s borrowing from himself, the opening four measures of this siciliana reappear in the third movement of the quartet from Musique de table II, 43:d1. Performers might wish to follow Telemann’s lead and incorporate the trio ornaments into performances of the quartet.) As Quantz suggests, the more homophonic textures of the other two trietti movements would necessitate prior agreement between the performers. Also distinguishing the trio ornaments from those in the solos is an almost complete avoidance of French agréments. In the second and third trietti movements Telemann provides “solutions” to a common type of passage that seems to require ornamentation: a progression of chords separated by rests (Example 8.11). Compare this to the somewhat more florid treatment of a similar passage in the trio for oboe, violin, and continuo, 42:g8, copied by Endler at Darmstadt around 1730 (Example 8.12).

420 The Hamburg Publications example 8.10. III Trietti methodichi e III scherzi, trietto 3/ii, mm. 1–11 Largo         46        6   4 

     

 Violin or Flute 1

  46  6   4   6   4 

Violin or Flute 2

Continuo











   





  

  





 



6

                                   

                        4

4



     

 

6

b

6

#

                                             6



    



 6

 



7b

b



6

                                                                      

  7 5

                         

 





   

       

6

6

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 421

                                    

9

              

___________________

 

                                    6

example 8.11. III Trietti methodichi e III scherzi, trietto 2/ii, mm. 13–15

  c    c    c     c   c    13

 Violin or Flute 1

Violin or Flute 2

Continuo

                            6

                14



7

            

                        6

#

    

422 The Hamburg Publications example 8.12. Trio in G minor for oboe, violin, and continuo, 42:g8/iii Adagio

  Oboe   c   Violin   c     c   Continuo 

                            

                                                                                                4





7

    

It is also instructive to compare Telemann’s free ornamentation to that of his close colleague, Pisendel. At Dresden, the violinist often sketched out embellishments for the solo parts of his own violin concertos and those by Vivaldi, Fasch, Johann Gottlieb Graun, and Quantz.47 However, among the Dresden manuscripts of concertos by Telemann, only the “Violino Concertato” part to the concerto for violin, three horns, and strings, 54:D2, includes examples of Pisendel’s ornamental noteheads. In Manfred Fechner’s view, this disparity is perhaps the result of Pisendel’s especially high regard for Telemann’s music, which the violinist may have felt required no such additions.48 Yet there are three Dresden manuscripts of Telemann trios that include ornamental noteheads in the first violin parts.49 In the first movement of the trio for two violins and continuo, 42:A8, the violinist added a variety of diminutions that appear to reflect a fondness for triplets but that are generally less rhythmically varied than the embellished movements in Telemann’s methodical solos and trios. Figure 8.2 and Example 8.13 provide a facsimile of the first violin part in Pisendel’s hand and a hypothetical realization of his sketched-out embellishments. The methodical solos are, like the trietti and scherzi, designed for flute or violin.

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 423

figure 8.2. J. G. Pisendel’s ornamentation for 42:A8/i, violin 1 (D-Dl, Mus. 2392Q-11)

Between the Sonate metodiche (41:g3, A3, e2, D3, a2, G4) and Continuation des sonates méthodiques (41:h3, c3, E5, B5, d2, C3), Telemann explores twelve different tonalities, some of them (such as E major and C minor) challenging on the transverse flute of the time. In stylistic terms, the Sonate metodiche are reminiscent of the Essercizii musici solos, though the quality of their invention is more consistently high. Especially interesting is Telemann’s use of da capo form in a number of fast movements (Sonatas 1/ii, 2/iv, 3/iv, 5/ii, and 6/ii), the last two of which also include a double-motto opening. Offsetting the seriousness of the embellished slow movements are the brief, galant airs given expression markings such as “Cortesemente,” “Con tenerezza,” and “Ondeggiando,” though the “Mesto” of Sonata 6 has a suitably tragic affect; the first sonata includes a more substantial, but still galant, sarabanda as its interior slow movement. In dedicating the second collection to the Burme[i]ster brothers, amateur violinists who had long pestered the composer for a sequel to the Sonate metodiche, Telemann referred to the new solos as being in the “singing style.” As is true of many sequels, the Continuation does not always match the quality of its predecessor, though it also moves in new stylistic directions. All of the sonatas have an “extra,” fifth movement, though their overall dimensions remain comparable to those of the Sonate metodiche. Among fast

424 The Hamburg Publications example 8.13. J. G. Pisendel’s ornamentation for 42:A8/i, violin 1, mm. 1–2, 8–18 Telemann Pisendel



  cAffettuoso                                         c                   





6

                                                                         

8

6

                             

11

6

3

                    

14

                                           6

                                              6

6

                                      

16

6

6

6

6

6

                     

6

movements, binary forms are now more common, and only one movement is in da capo form (Sonata 6/iii, including a double motto). If the embellished slow movements in the Sonate metodiche are mostly conservative Italian adagios, those in the Continuation encompass a wider variety of movement types, including the siciliana (Sonata 1), sarabanda (Sonata 4), and Andante with basso ostinato (Sonatas 5 and 6). Especially instructive is the first movement of Sonata 3, where Telemann demonstrates how one may ornament an up-to-date, galant Andante including alla zoppa and Lombard rhythms. The title of the III Trietti methodici e III scherzi (42:G2, D2, d1, A1, E1, D3) communicates a good deal about its contents: “trietti,” according to Mattheson, denotes trios that are “small and in the Italian style,”50 and indeed Telemann’s trietti

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 425

are both thoroughly Italianate in style and small, insofar as they comprise three, rather than the usual four, movements; “metodichi” refers, of course, to the ornamented second movement of each trietto; and “scherzo” denotes the Polish style that, in its lightest form of expression, permeates each of the three-movement scherzi. Accordingly, one could gloss the title as “Three Small Methodical Trios in the Italian Style and Three Trios in the Polish Style.” Not indicated by Telemann, however, is one of the collection’s most striking features: its heavy emphasis on the galant style, especially in the scherzi and concluding binary movements of the trietti. The three fugal movements in the latter works reveal Telemann’s efforts to update—that is, to simplify—polyphonic textures. Following a conventional exposition in the fugue opening Trietto 1, all subsequent subject entries are presented in close stretto, thereby replacing what are normally occasions for thickening the texture with relatively facile imitation. The episodes, too, are characterized by simple imitations and passages in thirds. Nearly concealing the fugal texture of Trietto 2/i (Example 8.14) is its unusual subject, which is divided into two sections: the first features a closely imitative texture over a pedal tone (mm. 1–4), and the second a melody in the primo part accompanied by a rising scale in the secondo part (mm. 5–12). The second subject entry begins in measure 16, but the fugal nature of the movement may not be clear to the listener until measure 37, when the continuo takes up the melodic portion of the subject. Fast movements of the scherzi are mostly rondeaus, though Scherzo 1/iii exhibits a rudimentary sonata form.51 The most striking passage in these movements is the first couplet of Scherzo 2/i (mm. 17–34), which follows the unorthodox modulatory plan I– II– VI–v–vi before giving way to the second refrain in the major dominant. Until the 1990s, the Nouvelles sonatines (41:e3, c2, D7, G7, a4, E4) were known only from a single copy of the partbook for melody instrument. But the discovery of Dresden manuscript sources for Sonatinas 2 and 5 allows for a fuller assessment of the collection.52 Telemann’s partbook reveals the sonatinas’ variable scorings: the first, third, fourth, and sixth are for violin or flute, while the second and fifth are for recorder, bassoon, or cello. Like the Sei suonatine of 1718 and the solos of Der getreue Music-Meister, these new sonatinas are relatively slight and, in the last three works, include a high percentage of binary-form movements. As we noted in chapter 6, the second movement of Sonatina 3 is auf Concertenart. Several other movements refer to the aria stylistically or formally: the first movement of Sonatina 4 (“Cantabile”) is a motto aria, the concluding movement of Sonatina 2 is in da capo form, and the opening Andante of Sonatina 5 features a breathless melody over a basso ostinato.

426 The Hamburg Publications example 8.14. III Trietti methodichi e III scherzi, trietto 2/i, mm. 1–23 Violin or Flute 1

Violin or Flute 2



Continuo

             7



Vivace     38        38    



 38  

       

     





6 4

5 3

                      

                                                    

6 4 3

_______

5

5

6

6

3 9

8

__________

6 5

6

6

6 5

6 5

       

6

6

                            

      15



#

          19



6 4

5 3

                                      6 4 3

_________

5

The Fantastic Style The four collections of fantasias for flute, keyboard, violin, and viola da gamba published by Telemann between 1732 and 1736 include some of the most original and successful music for unaccompanied melody instrument from the eighteenth century. Hence the loss of the viola da gamba fantasias is especially un-

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 427

fortunate. Whereas the keyboard fantasias refer, at least nominally, to a rich tradition of improvised or improvisatory music for lute, guitar, and keyboard stretching back into the sixteenth century, the others transfer the genre to more unusual media. Unexpectedly, perhaps, it is the flute and violin works that more fully embody the unrestrained flights of fancy and strict contrapuntal procedures long associated with the fantasia. And more surprisingly still, these qualities are most evident in the flute works, which contain a greater number of fugal and improvisatory-style movements. The list of German works that could conceivably have inspired Telemann’s violin and viola da gamba fantasias is not long: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s violin passacaglia (written ca. 1676); Johann Paul von Westhoff’s violin suite and six partitas (published, respectively, in 1683 and 1696); Johann Georg Pisendel’s violin sonata (written ca. 1716?); and J. S. Bach’s sonatas and partitas for violin, BWV 1001–6 (completed in 1720), and cello suites, BWV 1007–12 (written by 1727–31). Telemann certainly knew Pisendel’s work, for he published the sonata’s concluding giga in Der getreue Music-Meister, and his sets of fantasias find a parallel in the apparent linking of Bach’s two sets (the violin works are labeled “Libro Primo,” and the cello suites are assumed to be the sequel “book”). It is also possible that Telemann was aware of a few French and Italian works for unaccompanied string instrument. But his fantasias may instead draw upon a tradition among violinists and viola da gambists of improvising such works, a tradition that is documented as far back as the early seventeenth century.53 Notated music for unaccompanied flute was rarer still: all that survives from before the 1730s are the “Ecos pour la flûte traversiere seule” in Jacques-Martin Hotteterre’s Premier livre de pieces pour la flûte-traversiere, op. 2 (1708); the very brief, improvisatory preludes in Hotteterre’s L’art de preluder, op. 7 (1719); and J. S. Bach’s partita in A minor, BWV 1013 (“Solo pour la Flute traversiere,” written by 1722–23). Telemann’s fantasias, alongside the A-minor partita and C. P. E. Bach’s sonata in A minor, Wq. 132/H. 562 (1747), are rightfully considered the most significant works for unaccompanied flute from before the twentieth century. And they seem to have been widely known during Telemann’s lifetime: in May 1758 Quantz challenged Moldenit to demonstrate his ridiculous methods of tone production and articulation by giving competing performances of the fantasias with one of Quantz’s students. Needless to say, Moldenit failed to show.54 Each of the flute fantasias (40:2–13) is in a different tonality, with the collection progressing more or less stepwise from A to G; an overview of the collection is provided in Table 8.2. Eight works are linked to their neighbors by a common tonic, a pattern interrupted in Fantasias 4–5 and 10 so as to preserve the stepwise motion while avoiding tonalities that are especially difficult or im-

428 The Hamburg Publications Table 8.2 Movement types in the 12 Fantaisies à travers. sans basse Fantasia

Tonality

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

A a b B C d D e E f
G g

Opening movement(s)

Concluding dance

Toccata Prelude-fugue-adagio Capriccio Adagio-(binary) allegro Capriccio-chaconne/passacaglia (giga) Adagio-fugue French overture (“Alla Francese”) Allemande-fugue (giga) Sarabande-fugue Corrente-fugue Prelude-fugue Capriccio

Menuet Bourrée/rigaudon Giga Air Gigue/canarie Rustic (rondeau) Rustic (rondeau) Passepied Bourrée/rigaudon Menuet Giga Rustic (ternary)

practical on the one-key flute (B major, C minor, F minor, and F-sharp major). Wolfgang Hirschmann has noted how the twelve fantasias may further be divided into four modally contrasting groups of three: major–minor–minor; major– major–minor; major–minor–major; minor–major–minor.55 That one might also divide the fantasias into two groups of six is suggested by the placement of a French overture (“Alla Francese”), with its introductory associations, at the beginning of the seventh work. Nine years later, J. S. Bach employed a similar formal strategy when he commenced the second half of his Goldberg Variations with a French overture (Variation 16). The opening movements or movement complexes allude to a wide variety of genres, though only the “Alla Francese” of Fantasia 7 does so explicitly. Fantasia 1 most clearly embodies the collection’s improvisatory aspect. Its toccata-like succession of contrasting ideas, most set off from one another through expressive pauses, has inspired some to search for an underlying order in this apparently disjointed discourse by likening it to a speech governed by the principles of classical rhetoric.56 Certainly the fanfare figures of the first ten measures may be heard as an exordium, or introduction, preceding the propositio, the central thesis represented by the fugal subject (mm. 11–12). Yet identifying further sections and motives with the components of an oration requires some special pleading, for the thread of the “argument” quickly unravels. With their whimsical alternations of tempo, style, and affect, the opening movements of Fantasias 3, 5, and 12 are closely related to the “Capriccio” for flute and continuo in Der getreue MusicMeister.57 These fantasia capriccios differ from the introductory toccata of Fantasia 1 principally in their repetition of musical segments and avoidance of fugal texture. Fantasia 12, with three contrasting segments, allows the collection to end

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in much the same improvisatory mode as it began. Also in an improvisatory style are the openings of Fantasias 2 and 11, the latter recalling in its incessant broken-chord figuration the moto perpetuo “pattern” preludes of Bach’s E-major partita, BWV 1006, and suites in G major and C major, BWV 1007 and 1009. The adagios, in the mode of slow sonata movements, are more varied in their melodic and rhythmic content; like the rounded-binary corrente of Fantasia 10, they give the impression of being more composed than improvised, and indeed the inclusion of a second slow movement in Fantasia 2 creates an overall plan reminiscent of the sonata da chiesa. (A weaker sense of a slow–fast–slow–fast movement scheme is provided by the brief, tonally open slow sections preceding fast movements in Fantasias 9 and 11.) The more modern sonata scheme of slow–fast–fast/dance is represented by Fantasias 4, 6, and 8. Similar variety is exhibited by the mostly binary concluding dances, with that of Fantasia 12 having an overall ternary form in which a rustic “fiddle” tune (complete with simulations of triple-stops in mm. 8 and 16) alternates with bird-call imitations. The other two rustic dances are rondeaus in which the texture often becomes monophonic. Elsewhere, however, Telemann’s compound lines imply a two-voice texture—and even three voices in portions of Fantasia 10/i. Most imaginative are those movements that reference genres seemingly unsuited to a melody instrument incapable of producing chords. Whereas Hotteterre, J. S. Bach, and C. P. E. Bach included preludes, dances, and sonata-style movements in their unaccompanied flute works, none attempted to write fugues, a chaconne/passacaglia, or a French overture. In these last movements, Telemann seems to delight in the sleight of hand needed to establish such generic references. The overture’s slow section begins with a “bass” pedal tone and includes stereotypical tirades before giving way to a three-voice fugue (the second and third subject entries are cleverly subsumed within a compound line). Dynamic echoes in the episodes suggest solos for a wind trio. This movement functions as a prelude not only to the second half of the collection, but also to the initial, dance-based movements of the next three works, with which it forms a kind of discontinuous suite (overture–allemande–sarabande–courante). Fantasias 7–10 are in fact the most suite-like of the collection, despite their inclusion of fugues. Counting the fast section of the French overture and the toccata of Fantasia 1, no fewer than eight of the fantasias include a fugue or fugal section. The fugue of Fantasia 6 is particularly ambitious in its two stretto presentations of the subject (mm. 16–17 and 25–26).58 In the chaconne/passacaglia of Fantasia 5, the three-measure theme is heard in both treble and bass registers a total of twelve times in fifty-four measures. At the movement’s outset, Telemann effects a rhythmic accelerando by stating the theme in dotted quarters, then quarters, and finally in eighths.

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The keyboard fantasias, by contrast, downplay the element of improvisation and contain no fugues; they consequently seem more directly aimed at the amateur musician of modest ability. Essentially in two voices, many of these works are playable as solos for flute, oboe, or violin with bass. That they number thirtysix in total, as opposed to the dozen of the other fantasia collections, no doubt speaks to the healthy market for keyboard Galanterien during the 1730s. The Italian-style fantasias (nos. 1–12 and 25–36) generally follow a through-composed fast movement with a slow movement, after which the fast movement is repeated; some of the later fantasias have instead a slow–fast or fast–fast movement succession. Their style is modishly galant, especially in nos. 25–36. We have already noted the presence of a few auf Concertenart fast movements (see chapter 6), and there are also references to dance types such as the giga, sarabanda, siciliana, and polonaise. Not surprisingly, binary and rondeau forms are more common in the French fantasias (nos. 13–24), where Telemann adopts a suite-like plan of slow prelude–dance–dance by adding a brief third movement that is played following the repeat of the first (for an overall ABAC structure). The ternary effect of the first two movements in all thirty-six fantasias is repeated on a larger scale, for Telemann instructs that each odd-numbered fantasia is to be repeated after the following even-numbered work. In a 1735 printed catalog of his published works, Telemann listed the violin fantasias (40:14–25) as “12 fantasias for the violin without bass, of which 6 include fugues and 6 are Galanterien.”59 His distinction anticipates Quantz’s observation that “trios are, as the phrase goes, either elaborate [i.e., contrapuntal] or galant. With the solos the case is the same.”60 Indeed, four fugues occur in the collection’s first half (Fantasias 2, 3, 5, 6) and only one in the second (Fantasia 10). The fugal fantasias are also more elaborate in their use of multiple stops to suggest contrapuntal voices or to fill out the harmony. Structurally, the set incorporates elements of its predecessors: as in the flute fantasias, two or three movements are followed by a binary dance; but like the keyboard works, Fantasias 1 and 11 reprise fast movements. Many of the movement types in the flute fantasias are also found here, and there are new ones such as the allegro with varied reprises (Fantasia 11/i) and the einstimmiges Concert (Fantasias 1/ii and 4/i; as noted in chapter 6). Table 8.3 provides an overview of the collection. The central fantasias (nos. 6 and 7) are the most sonata-like in their adoption of a slow–fast–slow–dance format. They also highlight differences of style and technique between the collection’s two halves. In Fantasia 6, a solemn sarabanda beginning with a point of imitation leads to the collection’s most rigorously worked out fugue, the four-note subject and chromatic episodes of which lend it an archaic intensity. Both movements, and indeed the following siciliana and

Eight Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber 431 Table 8.3 Movement types in the XII Fantasie per il violino senza basso Fantasia 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Tonality B G f D A e E E b D F a

Opening movements

Concluding dance

Adagio-concerto-adagio (sarabanda)-concerto Prelude-fugue Adagio-fugue Concerto-adagio Capriccio-adagio-binary allegro Adagio (sarabanda)-fugue-siciliana Adagio-binary allegro-adagio Adagio-binary allegro Siciliana-binary allegro Fugue-adagio (Binary) allegro-adagio-allegro Prelude-allegro

None Giga Menuet Giga None Bourrée/rigaudon (ternary) Gavotte Passepied (burlesque) Giga Giga Rustic Rustic

paired bourrées/rigaudons make extensive use of multiple stops. Fantasia 7, by contrast, begins with a galant adagio that seems to make deliberate reference to the opening of Fantasia 1 through its cantabile melody over a descending “bass” line. Both this movement and the ensuing binary Allegro are long on rhythmic contrast but short on multiple stops, instead implying counterpoint through the compound-line technique of the flute fantasias; the following Adagio and gavotte rely exclusively on this strategy. In these two works, as in the music of several other published collections, Telemann moves fluently between the old (baroque) and new (galant).

The Musique de table and Six ouvertures à 4 ou 6 Telemann had high expectations for the Musique de table, which in many ways represents a summation of all that he had accomplished in the realm of instrumental music up to the early 1730s.61 In this sense, it would not be entirely inappropriate to compare the collection with Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos or Handel’s Grand Concertos, op. 6. Prior to its publication, Telemann wrote to his friend Johann Reinhold Hollander in verse that “I hope that this work will one day bring me fame. At no time will you regret its cost.”62 The composer had, in fact, already won great fame for himself, but following the collection’s republication in 1927, the Musique de table did much to rehabilitate his standing in the twentieth century. By 1733 there was already a long tradition of vocal and instrumental music associated with festive meals, especially those in courtly settings. Many musical

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publications from the early seventeenth century onward note their suitability as “Tafel-Music,” and indeed there was a great need for such background music until well into the eighteenth century.63 (A late example that will immediately come to mind for many readers is the Harmoniemusik accompanying dinner in the act 2 finale of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.) A 1744 description of Tafelmusik notes that it is heard daily at princely courts, as long as no great mourning is occurring, when at noon and evening the court and chamber musicians set up in a room adjoining the banquet hall and must play pleasant symphonies and concertos on all sorts of instruments for the amusement of persons of high standing. Such Tafel-Musiquen are also heard at public weddings, christenings, and other festivities held by people of the middle class.64

The placement of musicians in an adjoining room is illustrated in an engraving commemorating a September 1719 banquet at the Dresden court’s “Turkish Palace,” part of the festivities surrounding the marriage of Crown Prince Friedrich August II to Maria Josepha, Archduchess of Austria.65 Here the entertainment is provided by an oboist, at least three (and perhaps as many as six) violinists/violists, two bassoonists, and two cellists (or a cellist and a gambist)— all dressed in Turkish garb. More players than these are likely to have been present at the actual event, however, since the engraving’s focus on the banquet hall necessarily relegates the musicians’ room to a small corner of the image. Indeed, Scheibe notes that music in orchestral scorings was especially desirable in such settings, because “with a well-stocked banquet table surrounded by a large number of people, a symphony will never have much of an effect unless it is amplified by a full and loud harmony as well as lively, forceful activity in the middle voices.”66 At the Württemberg-Stuttgart court in 1717, Tafelmusik consisted of instrumental works in as many as six to nine parts for oboes or recorders, horns or trumpets, strings, and continuo, the full performing ensemble numbering about twenty musicians.67 With the addition of flutes, these are precisely the instruments called for in the Musique de table, which Telemann advertised as containing orchestral works in seven parts.68 Yet despite its parallels with other baroque banquet works, the Musique de table surpassed all previous Tafelmusiken both in its length and variety of scorings. Each of the collection’s three musical sets or “Productions” (overturesuite, quartet, concerto, trio, solo, and one-movement “conclusion” for the same instruments as the overture-suite) might be considered a discrete performance unit, designed to provide entertainment for sixty to ninety minutes. All that ties the six works together musically, however, is the identical key and scoring of the framing overture-suite and conclusion; neither the overall key scheme nor the in-

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strumentation would discourage mixing and matching works from different productions. The overture-suites embody the three most common subtypes: galanterie dances (Production 1), “airs” (Production 2), and characteristic pieces (Production 3); all, as discussed in chapter 1, are concerts en ouverture. Each is scored for four soloists, including two winds (flutes, oboe and trumpet, and oboes) and two violins. In this respect, they resemble the overture for two solo violins, two trumpets, drums, and strings that opened Telemann’s 1723 serenata Unschätzbarer Vorwurf erkenntlicher Sinnen, TVWV 24:1. The concerto-like nature of the first work is reflected most vividly in the overture’s fast section, where each pair of soloists, supported by the cello, receives a turn at its own episode and figuration before joining with the other in the third and final episode. A similar organization is found in the trio of the “Réjouissance,” scored for the four soloists and cello (continuo tacet). In the gavotte en rondeau, where the lengthy episodes are given over to this quintet, the flutes enter with suspension chains over a running bass—a momentary Italianate intrusion upon an otherwise Gallic dance. The soloists’ interaction in the trios of the loure and passepied is more subtle, bringing to mind the suites of the Quadri. Most impressive of all is their interplay in the episodes of the “Air” en rondeau, where the integrity of the soloist pairs breaks down and a variety of colorful instrumental combinations are explored. This “dance,” incidentally, also dissolves the barrier between rondeau and ritornello forms, for the interior refrains not only appear at different pitch levels, but are also abbreviated. Although the concluding gigue has no trio, the soloists are given brief solos in each half of the movement. As mentioned in chapter 1, the second overture-suite is the most concerto-like of the three. Signs of the mixed taste surface as early as the overture’s slow section, where a passage of repetitive rhythms and circular melodic motion over a dominant drone evokes the Polish or rustic style (mm. 14–16). The ritornello of the fast section is cast as a double fugue, with the imitation involving four contrapuntal voices. All of the soloists are introduced during the first episode, some of their material drawn from the ritornello’s principal subject, but the second episode features only the oboe and first solo violin in turn, and the third implicates the two winds in a close dialogue with the tutti. In a clever touch, Telemann assigns the oboe and trumpet to play the brief Polish episode in the concluding slow section. The first of four “airs” that follow the overture has the rhythmic profile of a bourrée but is in fact a ritornello–da capo movement in which the A section contains two episodes highlighting mainly the oboe and solo violins and the B section is a long episode that omits the trumpet altogether. Next a graceful passepied en rondeau momentarily reminds us that the piece is a suite—though its soloistic couplets easily overshadow the refrains. Without the slightest pretensions

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to being a dance, the following air would not be out of place as the first fast movement of a concerto; it follows the same formal plan as the first air. The final giga en echo (both phrases of its ritornello are repeated softly, in reduced scoring) has a looser da capo form: the second episode’s cadence in the relative minor leads immediately to a repeat of the opening ritornello. Many writers have commented on the opening measures of the third overturesuite, where in place of the standard rhythmes saccadés, Telemann writes Lombard rhythms in the violin parts, as if to effect a reversal—in both the literal and figurative senses—of the overture’s majestic affect. But this does not come to pass: despite the Lombard, triplet, and alla zoppa rhythms, the occasional drum bass, and a passage for oboes in thirds over sustained harmonies, the slow section fully retains its dignity and grandeur; Telemann has shown us that the Lullian and galant styles can indeed coexist. Several venerable movement types are explored in the following suite of dances. The bucolic “Bergerie” en rondeau calls upon an array of pastoral topics, including 6/8 meter, drones, parallel thirds, and “folk” slides; it is one of Telemann’s finest pastorales. The “Allegresse” is suitably gay in the manner of Telemann’s “Réjouissance” movements and features the solo quintet in a trio. “Postillons,” a menuet en rondeau, is filled with the octave leaps common to musical evocations of the mail coach and its posthorn signals. (Telemann had previously associated the posthorn topic with the giga, as in “Les Postillons” of 55:D18 and the “Gigue” of 55:d3.) “Flaterie” is a binary sarabande in which the oboes and solo violins repeatedly interrupt the musical flow with frivolous figuration. The tutti return the favor in the dance’s second half, but not before the soloists engage in some mock-serious suspensions over a walking bass—another Italianate non sequitur. Following a “Badinage” that includes many of the same rhythmic figures found in the “Battinerie” of BWV 1067, as well as some delightful bantering among the soloists in the dance’s trio, the suite concludes with a pair of menuets. We might pause here to consider how these three overture-suites compare to the Six ouvertures à 4 ou 6 for strings with ad libitum horns (55:F1, A1, Es1, a1, D2, g1), another publication that might have filled the need for Tafelmusiken. Although Telemann’s print has been missing since World War II, the third and sixth overture-suites survive in Darmstadt manuscripts (presumably copied from the print), and the fourth is known from an early twentieth-century edition. The three surviving works are briefer and less musically ambitious than those of the Musique de table, but they are also more representative of Telemann’s overture-suites as a whole. Of these, the strongest is the G-minor suite, which includes two colorful invocations of folk music (“Napolitaine” and “Polonaise”), two effective character pieces (“Musette” and “Harlequinade”), and the modish “Mourky”

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(with a continuous murky bass). Suite 5 concluded with a passacaille, one of the few such movements among Telemann’s overture-suites, and other relatively uncommon dance types represented in the collection include the forlane (Suite 4), branle, and galliard (both in Suite 2). If the Musique de table suites were written with court Kapellen in mind, then the Six ouvertures appear to have been intended for a broader audience, one that might also include collegia musica and ensembles in domestic settings. To return to the Musique de table, each of the concertos begins with a ritornello in which the soloists are heard as such, a feature we have observed in other Telemann concertos of the 1730s. Perhaps the most galant of the three works is Concerto 1, which opens with a ritornello packed with drum basses and alla zoppa and Lombard rhythms. The solo group of flute, violin, and cello recalls that of 54:D1 (two flutes, violin, cello), perhaps composed around the same time. Unusually for Telemann, all four movements are in ritornello form. Although the second and fourth movements exhibit the same ritornello–da capo structure found in the collection’s overture-suites, their proportions are greatly expanded: the A section includes the usual three structural ritornellos, but the first episode is punctuated by tutti interjections of the Vordersatz. Both B sections highlight the flute and violin, the second movement placing them in a delicate dialogue with pizzicato string accompaniment. By contrast, only the first-movement “Maestoso” of Concerto 3, for two horns, two violins, and strings, is in fully fledged ritornello form (both fast movements have binary structures, though there are ritornello elements in the concluding giga alla caccia). As if to further demonstrate that the galant style is not incompatible with the serious and majestic, Telemann inserts Lombard rhythms into the opening fanfare idea. With two very different pairs of instruments as soloists in this concerto, Telemann mostly treats them as separate but equal entities. The ritornello opening Concerto 2, for three violins and strings, exhibits a classic tripartite organization. Interrupting the Epilog segment is a typically Vivaldian turn to the parallel minor, featuring the three soloists with bassetto accompaniment. This brief interlude returns not in a subsequent ritornello, as one would expect, but during an episode. More importantly, it seems to affect the tonal plan of the entire movement. As shown in Table 8.4, most of this F-major movement explores minor tonalities; aside from the opening and concluding ritornellos, only a handful of measures are in the major mode. To my knowledge, no other concerto movement by Telemann features this kind of tonal “composing out,” and here it lends a special intensity to the piece. This intensity carries over to the slow movement, an aria-like Largo with a ritornello frame featuring canonic imitation and suspension chains between the soloists, who are accompanied by a bassetto ostinato imaginatively broken up between the ripieno violin

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(“Violino grosso”) and viola parts. As in so many of Telemann’s ostinato-based slow movements, the repeated figure migrates to one of the solo parts as the ritornello concludes. The “aria” section allows the soloists to shine in turn, as did the first three episodes of the preceding movement. Much of the action happens with only bassetto support, and the absence of bass-register accompaniment adds an element of tension. Predictably, the third movement is lighter than the first two. But its fugal ritornello adds a kind of contrapuntal intensity that has so far been lacking in the piece. Each of the collection’s nine sonatas is scored for a different combination of obbligato instruments, but only the scoring of Quartet 2 (recorder/bassoon/ cello, two flutes, and continuo) was new for Telemann. These works exhibit all of the progressive stylistic elements introduced in the sonata collections of the early 1730s but employ them in a more refined manner. Many of the movement types and structures are modified to achieve greater internal contrast or appear with greater consistency: auf Concertenart movements in da capo form (Solo 3/ii, Quartet 1/ii) now include a B section in which not only the texture changes, but also the tempo and meter; the French overture–inspired opening movement (Quartet 1) replaces the dotted slow section with a siciliana; and rondeaus (Trio 2/ii, Trio 3/i, Quartet 2/iv, Quartet 3/iii) are all in the mixed taste with tonally contrasting refrains. Throughout the nine sonatas, harmonic rhythm is further slowed, homophonic textures are more common, motivic contrast is heightened, and Lombard and alla zoppa rhythms are ubiquitous. Passages omitting the continuo are found in many movements, and in some fast movements (Trio 3/iv, Quartet 3/ii and iv) the continuo does not participate in the fugal imitations; one could, in fact, omit the continuo altogether in performing the first allegro of Quartet 3. Permutation technique is commonly, and extensively, employed in the solos and trios (for example in Trios 1/ii and 3/ii). The first movement of Trio 1 also reorders or isolates submotives, a process dubbed “partitioning technique” by Swack.69 This “Affettuoso” is also remarkable for being one of the most stylistically progressive sonata movements in the collection. Here extreme rhythmic contrasts, abrupt tonal shifts, suspensions, phrases unexpectedly broken up by rests, written-out appoggiaturas, and angular melodies approach the midcentury aesthetic of Empfindsamkeit. One of the most magical effects in the entire Musique de table occurs in the Largo of Quartet 2, where a brief passage in three-part canon (mm. 28–32) is followed by the Neapolitan harmony expressed as parallel 46 chords (mm. 35–37). The conclusions bring each of the Productions to a close by means of brilliant fugues with virtuosic episodes for the soloists (though Conclusion 1 omits the solo violins). The first two works are both da capo forms in which the B section

Table 8.4 Structure of 53:F1/i (Musique de table II) Measures Ritornello/solo Key Ritornello material

1–16 R1 I V, F, I, E

16–30 S1 –ii

30–33 R2 ii V

33–47 S2 –iii

47–50 R3 iii V

Ritornello material: V = Vordersatz, F = Fortspinnung, E = Epilog, I = (Solo) Interlude

50–73 S3 –V I

73–81 R4 V V, F

81–95 S4 –V/vi

95–100 R5 vi E⬘

100–118 S5 –I

118–32 R6 I V, F, E, E⬘

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sharply contrasts with the A section through changes of tempo and affect, as in the auf Concertenart movements of Solo 3 and Quartet 1. The A section of Conclusion 1 alternates a fanfare idea and pseudo-fugal imitation with brief episodes for the flutes, while that of Conclusion 2 is a concerto-allegro with fugal ritornellos and episodes highlighting all four soloists. In Conclusion 3 (“Furioso”) a perfidia opening for two solo violins leads first to a tutti fanfare and then to a vigorous fugue on a repeated-note, “galloping” subject; this much is repeated in the dominant before a codetta restates the fanfare and fugue subject. One has to wonder, upon hearing this and many other works in the Musique de table, whether attentive listeners in Telemann’s time could have concentrated on the meal in front of them.

Divertimenti If publications such as the Quadri and Musique de table were conceived with the sophistication and technical capabilities of professional musicians in mind, the Six quatuors ou trios (43:D2, e3, 2, G3, a1, E1) and Scherzi melodichi (42:A4, B3, G5, Es2, e4, g3, D7) were aimed at an amateur market that demanded fresh-sounding music that made relatively few intellectual or technical demands. These last two collections belong to a divertimento tradition that stressed simplicity and naturalness in music written for the Liebhaber or dilettante. Indeed, “Divertimento” is the title of several movements in the Six quatuors ou trios, and the word appears in the title and dedication of the Scherzi melodichi.70 Whereas the Six quatuors ou trios display important elements of the galant style as seen in the III Trietti methodichi e III scherzi and Musique de table (homophonic textures, slow harmonic rhythm, balanced phrase lengths, and alla zoppa rhythms), other features such as heightened rhythmic contrast, written-out appoggiaturas, permutation technique, and sonata forms are virtually absent. Telemann appears to have tailored his galant style to an amateur audience by pruning away some of its most modern, expressive, and “difficult” features. The works’ uncomplicated textures and relatively modest dimensions must also have been calculated to appeal specifically to nonprofessionals. As discussed in chapter 5, such textural simplicity is to some degree a function of the first cello’s dual role as obbligato voice and bass line. Seventeen of the twenty-three movements in the Six quatuors ou trios have relatively brief binary forms. Among the four through-composed movements are several three-voice fugues (1/ii, 2/ii, and 3/ii) that offer the most contrapuntal rigor among the sonatas—although they, too, are relatively homophonic in texture; that of Sonata 2 even includes a chromatically ascending subject that is heard frequently in inversion. Countering the fairly conventional layout of the

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first three sonatas, which include not only fugues but other familiar movement types such as the Affettuoso (2/iii) and siciliana (3/ii), is the suite-like succession of binary divertimenti in the final three sonatas. These divertimenti feature close imitation and lively rhythmic patterns, many of which are reminiscent of Telemann’s Polish dances. The third movement of Sonata 4 is, in fact, a polonaise, and its tempo indication of “Giocando” is a further example of the association of humor with the Polish style (recall the “scherzos” of the III Trietti methodichi e III scherzi). The divertimenti concluding each sonata are only half the length of the others and bear the uncommon tempo indication “Allegro-Allegro,” which, according to Walther, means “a doubling of the cheer