Georg Philipp Telemann Armonico Tributo Austria

Viola di Gamba Lorenz Duftschmid Georg Philipp Telemann Armonico Tributo Austria

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To each instrument what is suitable for it by Brit Reipsch1

It was in his autobiography of 1718, enlivened with German verses, quotes, proverbs and Latin and French poems, that Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) first made known his maxim as a composer in these amusing and ironic verses of his own creation: Full knowledge of these instruments is equally essential. For otherwise, sentence will be unclearly pronounced: The violin is treated like an organ / The flute and oboe are felt like trumpets / The viola da gamba follows, trailing / As does the little bass / If only a trill were put over here and there. / No / no / it does not suffice / that we hear the notes / or that you know how to lay out all the paraphernalia of the rules. / Give each instrument / what is suitable for it. / Then he who plays will do so with joy / and you will take pleasure in listening to it.2 Putting this principle into practice contributed to making Telemann’s chamber and orches- 2 tral music some of the most frequently played in the first half of the 18th century. His cre- ations brought him the respect and esteem of contemporary musicians and theoriticians, and he was in touch with the most famous figures of the musical world, such as Georg Friedrich Händel, Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Heinrich Graun and Johann Mattheson. During his childhood and student years, spent in Magdeburg, his birthplace (from 1681 to 1694), Zellerfeld (1694-97) and Hildesheim (1697-1701), he had begun to learn how to play various musical instruments. He was less concerned with attaining the perfection of virtuoso playing than with mastering the basics of the greatest possible number of instruments. Armed with his knowledge concerning their specific sonorities and techniques, once he had become a composer, he was able to provide idiomatic writing wherein the easy, flowing musical discourse, adapted to each instrument, spoke as successfully to the virtuoso as to the amateur musician. Telemann knew how to compose in extremely varied ways adapted to performers and their particular instrument.

1 Telemann-Zentrum, Magdeburg. 2 1718 Autobiography, published in Mattheson’s Grosse GeneralBaß-Schule, Hamburg, 1731. English

We will summarize the path which led Telemann to music, for it is rather unusual. His musical talent declared itself early: at the age of 12, he not only composed an opera, Sigismundus, but also sang the leading role. The young boy had received his first instruc- tion from the cantor of Magdeburg, Benedikt Christiani, who gave him personal support. It was thus that Telemann began studying composition based on Christiani’s works, the master helping him to the point of entrusting this talented student with rather particular homework: we will never know if he had truly authorized Telemann, as he asserts in his autobiography, to give lessons in his place. The opera Sigismundus, on a libretto by Christian Heinrich Postel, was doubtless more of a school exercise whose production was autho- rised by Christiani. At that time, Telemann had a few problems with an unknown organist from Magdeburg who ‘tortured’ him with tablatures to such an extent that the classes did not continue for long. The composer’s father, pastor of the Church of the Holy Spirit, had died in 1685, and his widowed mother had understandable worries for her son whom she hoped to see learn something ‘respectable’ and not become a ‘boatman, tightrope walker, fiddler, or marmot tamer’.3 Therefore, at the urgings of her family, she sent him, when he was 13, to the superintendant Caspar Calvör, in Zellerfeld, who was supposed to pre- pare him for studies, ‘as my grades tyrants perhaps believed that witches from behind the 3 Blockberg did not tolerate music’.4 But Calvör would rightly recognize Telemann’s gifts and encourage them with all his energy. The following stages of his life did not frustrate him in regards to music. In Hildesheim, at the Gymnasium Andreanum, Telemann set school plays and poems to music and also wrote cantatas for the Godehardikirche. Once again, for his mother’s sake, he tried to give up music and, in 1701, decided to enrol in the law school at the University of Leipzig. However, Telemann’s name not being on the lists of students enrolled at Leipzig, we may question the seriousness of his plans. In any event, barely had he discovered some instruments in another student’s room that ‘all my good intentions’, as he himself wrote gracefully in his autobiography, vanished. As of that moment, Telemann would devote himself exclusively to music. He founded a student ‘Col- legium musicum’ and performed his works in churches, at the opera and in concert. His success was such that Kuhnau himself, the old cantor of the Thomaskirche, complained

3 1718 Autobiography. 4 Ibidem. about the competition from this ‘operist’ (a pejorative term aimed at the ‘opera singer’ in Telemann). And yet, Kuhnau was one of Telemann’s models. Appointed organist at the Neue Kirche, the young composer had a fixed position for the first time. During the following years, he worked as a court musician, first for Count Erdmann von Promnitz in Sorau (1705-08), where only French-style instrumental music was performed. He then entered the service of Duke Johann Wilhelm von Sachsen-Eisenach (1708-12) where Telemann had an excellent orchestra at his disposal for carrying out his various tasks which ranged from occasional music for court celebrations to church cantatas, and from chamber music to concertos. Beginning in 1712, he turned his back on court life for good to become a ‘town musician’ in Frankfurt am Main. The abundant musical life of this free imperial city opened up a thousand opportunities to the composer: church music, commissions for solemn occasions, not to mention orchestral and chamber music for the ‘Collegium musicum’ of the Gesellschaft Frauenstein as well as for the nearby court of Darmstadt.5 None of that would prevent Telemann from applying for the position of cantor of the Johanneum in Hamburg, in 1721; he took up his new post the same year. In addition to be- 4 ing cantor and musical director of Hamburg’s five main churches, he also became director of the Opera. Telemann would remain faithful to this other free imperial city until the end of his life, the only interruptions being short voyages and a stay in Paris in 1737-38. He wrote a great deal in all areas (amongst others, and particularly, for the opera) and had numerous instrumental works and even entire annual cycles of cantatas printed and published. It was only after 1740 that he seemed to distance himself somewhat from musical life. In any event, he put the engraving plates up for sale. Telemann composed sacred music especially, as he had always done, and, around 1755, with the Passion oratorio Der Tod Jesu, entered his final period, made up of impressive works including above all oratorios and secular cantatas on poems by Carl Wilhelm Ramler, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariae. As would later be the case with Haydn, in his final works, he went well beyond the music of his time. Telemann died in 1767, at the ripe old age of 86.

The viola da gamba was one of the instruments familiar to Telemann as of his earliest

5 [Translator’s note]: This society was made up of a group of wealthy merchants who supported the collegium which had been founded in the 17th century. English years. There is mention of this in his third and final autobiography, published in 1740 by the Hamburg theorist Johannes Mattheson, in his Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte (‘Founda- tion of a Triumphal Arch’), an interesting collection of biographies of contemporary musicians and composers. Looking back on his student days at the Gymnasium Andreanum in Hildesheim, Telemann relates how he often made excursions to Braunschweig-Wolfen- büttel and Hannover to attend concerts and opera performances. There he became more familiar with and learnt how to distinguish the French, Italian and ‘theatrical’ styles. Im- pressed by the quality of performances, he also experienced ‘the desire’, when listening to the musicians, to further practise the instruments that he had already studied: ‘the harpsichord, violin and flute’. Telemann wrote, with a wink, that he would have gladly followed this desire ‘if a more ardent fire had not pushed me […] to familiarize myself more fully with the oboe, transverse flute, chalumeau, viola da gamba, etc., with the exception of the double bass and bass trombone’.6 Throughout his life, from his very beginnings right up to the end, Telemann wrote for the basse de viole (as the French called it) and especially in chamber music. Of course, the viola da gamba also plays an important role in works intended for larger formations, such as concertos and orchestral suites, church cantatas and, lastly, oratorios. According to the 5 custom of the time, Telemann also used the viol in funeral cantatas. Furthermore, he wrote for it as a solo instrument: for example, the Sonata in D major, TWV 40:1, recorded here, or sonatas for two viols or for viol and basso continuo. Unfortunately, none of the twelve solo Fantasies published in Hamburg in 1735-36 have survived. One notices that Telemann curiously continued to include the viola da gamba in his orchestral scores, even when the instrument’s golden age was on the wane. This is the case, for instance, in certain works from his fruitful final period (as of 1755): the instru- mentation of the ‘Midday’ arias of the cantata Die Tageszeiten (‘The Times of the Day’), calls for a viol, and, in the oratorio Der Tag des Gerichts (‘Judgment Day’), the song of one of the ‘Blest’ is accompanied by a viol soloist. The present recording brings together various works with solo viol, selected from different periods of the master’s output. Here one will find a double concerto for recorder, viol, strings and continuo, two solos with basso continuo, a sonata for solo viol and two quartets.

6 1740 Autobiography. We possess a contemporary copy of the Concerto in A Minor for recorder, viola da gamba, strings and continuo, preserved at the Hessischen Landes- und Hochschulbib- liothek in Darmstadt. Even if undated, the style of the work corresponds most closely to Telemann’s Frankfurt period. It was in Eisenach that he began to interest himself closely in the concerto genre, even though he admitted: How amusing is the change / I also set about writing concertos. I must admit, while on the subject / that they never came very easily to me / even though I have already written quite a few. He explains this aversion by the fact that: In most concertos / I have looked at / I indeed encountered many difficulties and strange jumps / but little harmony and even worse melodies. Telemann doubtless had in mind the relatively meagre substance – on the writing level – of Italian concertos or those following the Italian model, for the aesthetic norm and characteristics of the genre consist of pure virtuosity. His own concertos for one, two or a group of instruments, which are numerous and take into account nearly all the instru- 6 ments currently used at the time, invite us to relativize the antipathy Telemann expressed for this genre. They follow the concerto’s more recent form, with its three movements (fast-slow-fast) as well as the older, four-movement layout of the church sonata or sonata da chiesa (slow-fast-slow-fast). It was this latter form which provided the structure for our Concerto for recorder, viola da gamba, strings and continuo. However, here one senses the influence of the Italian concerto alla Vivaldi, especially in the fast movements with their alternations between tutti and solo episodes. But, differing from Vivaldi’s solo passages, which imply a certain length of development, with Telemann we encounter considerable melodic and rhythmic variety on short motifs, repeated by the two solo instruments in the concertante style. The vast richness of musical ideas concentrated within a minimum of space explains how it is structured by the repetition and variations within the movement. Contrary to the fast movements, the introductory Grave, with its solemn dotted rhythms recalling the French-style ouverture as well as its changing metre and the variety of rhythmic motifs, confirms Telemann’s remark according to which his concertos ‘have a whiff of France in many spots’. The aforementioned brevity of sequences is also notice- able here. The following hot-blooded Allegro observes the Italian ritornello form with long English virtuoso passages for the soloist. In the third movement, which represents the concerto’s moment of peace, the galant writing in the pastoral style moves into major and a third lower, thus to the ‘gentle’ F major. The high strings fall silent, and the recorder and viol sing their duet alone, sustained by the continuo. The particularly melodic continuo part, as wished by Telemann, is perfectly achieved here in the highly sensitive alternation between pastoral imitation of the bourdon and the skipping of the galant bass. More so than many other composers of his era, Telemann knew how to create his own musical language from elements of different national styles. In this concerto, aside from the French or Italian influences, we recognize elements from Polish folk music. They appear in the vital, dancing fervour of the ritornelli in the concluding Allegro, in the division of the first down beat of the bar and in a joyfully twirling melody. When he was Kapell- meister to Count Erdmann von Promnitz in Sorau (1705-08), Telemann accompanied his employer to his summer residence at Pless (today Pszczyna, in Poland), where he had enthusiastically listened to the folk music played for dancing. All his life, he would continue to incorporate into his art musical impressions inherited from the Polish people, and ‘its real barbarian beauty’.7 7 One has difficulty in believing what marvellous inspirations such flute players and violinists may have in the fantasies they improvise whenever the dancers take a break. If someone were to note them, he could, in a week, snatch up enough ideas for a lifetime […]. After this stay, I wrote various large concertos and trios in this style which I put in Italian form, by alternating adagios and allegros.8 The concerto’s quite rapid conclusion is made up of this well tempered mixture of dance elements and Eastern European folk music decked out in Italian dress, which alternate with unison tutti already prefiguring the Mannheim style. Even before Johann Joachim Quantz, the Berlin flautist-composer and professor of Frederick II, dubbed this the ‘mixed style’, Telemann was already using it in his compositions by synthesizing elements of national styles (French, Italian, Polish, German): When one knows how to choose with the necessary discernment what is best in the style of the Music of several nations, there results from this a mixed style which one

7 1718 Autobiography. 8 1740 Autobiography. might quite well & without overstepping the limits of modesty, currently call: the German style; […] For a music which is received and approved in general by several peoples, and not solely in a single province, in a single country or a particular Nation, must be the most excellent, […] basing itself on the rules of sound reason and true feeling.9 This musical style revealed not only a demanding and eclectic (in the best sense of the word) artist, but also Telemann’s desire to create, in accordance with the theory of the great minds of the 18th century, an art based on free inspiration and whose language would be universally comprehensible. ‘He who can serve many / does better / than he who writes for only a few,’ stated Telemann as of 1718, while Kapellmeister at the Barfüßerkirche in Frankfurt am Main (1712-21). Three years earlier, he had begun publishing hundreds of his own works, either in letterpress or engraving. This process enabled him, on the one hand, to widen his audience and to increase his sources of income, but also to make known his artistic conceptions and didactic aims, and to formulate them in prefaces which are worth reading. Telemann therein emphasizes his intention to offer scores of high quality, both for beginners and amateurs as well as for specialists well-versed in music. He often gives indications for playing his works and for the instrumental distribution as well as for 8 the realization of the basso continuo. His publications thus represent a precious source of information on musical practice of his time. He continued to devote himself to publishing and distribution even when he was musical director of Hamburg and cantor of the Johan- neum (beginning in 1721). With the exception of the Double Concerto in A minor about which we have previously spoken, and the Concerto in G Minor, TWV 43:g2, all the works on this programme appeared in publications printed by Telemann. On 13th November 1728, the Staats- und Belehrte Zeitung des Hollsteinischen Correspondenten announced Der getreue Music- Meister as a musical journal ‘for singers as well as for instrumentalists, and especially for learners’. This was the title of the first German musical review which appeared in 1728-29. Telemann’s intention evidently was to furnish the framework for a collective work contain- ing ‘all sorts of genres of musical pieces’ in the most diverse formations and styles of chamber music, thus ‘in the Italian, French, English, Polish, etc. manners, serious as well as lively and pleasant’. In the manner of English musical revues, Telemann published Der 9 Quantz, Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (Berlin, 1752), ch.XVIII § 87, 89; English translation: Quantz, On Playing the Flute, London, 1962. English getreue Music-Meister, in 25 bimonthly issues. This ‘Loyal Music Master’ contained, above all, chamber music by Telemann, but also works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Jan Dismas Zelenka and Silvius Leopold Weiss, amongst others. The more important pieces, such as the Sonata in D major for viola da gamba, TWV 40:1, were published in several issues. It even occurred that Telemann spread individual arias over two ‘lessons’ (the didactic- sounding expression selected by the composer to designate his publications of four-page notebooks); that guaranteed, to a certain degree, the success of the following issue, a procedure worthy of today’s press and its serial novels! In 1740, Telemann brought his publishing activities to a halt. The Hamburgische Cor- respondent of 14 October announced that ‘Telemann, the musical director of Hamburg’ was intending to sell his ‘plates of musical notes, numbering 44’. The Essercizii musici overo dodeci soli e dodeci trii a diversi stromenti (Hamburg, 1739-40) were doubtless the last work he published himself. This modestly pedagogical-sounding title conceals an important collection of ambitious compositions consisting of two suites for harpsichord, ten sonatas for solo instrument and basso continuo, as well as twelve trios for all instrumental combinations imaginable with nearly every instrument used in baroque chamber music, such as recorder, flute, violin, viola da gamba and oboe. It is from this collection that come 9 the Sonatas in A and E Minor for viol and basso continuo. Beginning with the Sonata in E minor for viola da gamba and basso continuo, TWV 41:e5, we find a short but expressive cantabile beginning. Telemann prepares the listener with a ‘painful, begging and flattering’ minor sixth, to quote Johann Philipp Kirnberger, a contemporary theorist. The Allegro in form of a gigue has Italian vigour, whereas the slow movement which follows includes music like a language turned into sound; the beginning is a real recitative of lamentation, analogous to that of a cantata, followed by a fervent arioso in the relative key of G major. It is in such pieces that Telemann’s ‘modernity’ is best revealed: already marked by the style of Empfindsamkeit (‘sensitivity’), they remind one of the generation to come, that of a Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach or a Carl Friedrich Abel. The final Vivace is a galant rondo, close to a minuet, the episode intensifying each time in playful pleasure. Its popular aspect recalls somewhat the E minor rondeau ‘Les Fêtes Champestres’ (‘The Village Fête’) from Marin Marais’s Suitte d’un Goût Etranger, its title announcing the programme in an admittedly more explicit form. The writing of the Sonata in A minor, TWV 41:a6, is much more pathetic, with a basso continuo which takes a more active part in the thematic play. It begins with the solemn expressivity of an Italian-style slow movement, followed by a brief, tempestuous, almost irascible Allegro. This expressive force however combines with a highly skilful fugato conception, in which the viol does a roll in semiquavers over a counterpoint in quavers; the writing is thus close to that of a duet in which the antagonists are treated equally, in concertante fashion. The calm Soave, in the relative C major, has a simple, lilting melody which corresponds well to the sought-after effect. The principle formulated by Telemann – ‘Whoever plays instruments must be thoroughly versed in singing’ – is perfectly achieved on the melodic level here. It is again to Telemann’s Frankfurt period that must belong his Concerto in G minor, for oboe, violin, viola da gamba and continuo, TWV 43:g2; in any event, one of two sur- viving copies is to be found in the Hessischen Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek. Its style also has similarities to the master’s first quartets. Several theorists and musicians of his era especially appreciated Telemann’s quartets. Quantz, in his famous, previously quoted 1752 essay, points out: A Quartet or Sonata for 3 concertante instruments and bass is the touchstone of 10 a skilful Composer; and it is there that those who are not yet quite solid in their knowledge can fail most easily […]. There are six Quartets for different instruments, most of them for Flute, Oboe and Violin, that Herr Telemann composed already some time ago, but which are not printed. They may serve as excellent models in this type of Music.10 The Lento which introduces the Quadro in G minor is subjected to the contrary forces of a lilting theme and broken, ornamented chords in the other voices, with an oboe already ‘outside’ because of its timbre in contrast with the strings and whose melodic role is relatively favoured. In the almost fugal Vivace which follows, the strings unite with the basso continuo to produce an effervescence in semiquavers over which the oboe sings its aria, without taking much part in their feverish activity. The masterful way in which the idiomatic properties of each instrument are exploited is fully typical of Telemann. The viol part, characterized by frequent changes of timbre, register and key, is related to Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts. It is in the third movement (Adagio) that the

10 Quantz, Versuch cit., ch. XVIII §44. English musical intention seems to go the furthest: above a systematically monorhythmic bass, the upper parts present unexpected harmonic progressions until just before the end, when this advance is suddenly halted. A large-scale final cadence is built on the bourdon of the viol’s sixth string, preparing the spirit of a monumental fourth movement. The pleasure of playing once again returns to the forefront. Here the gamba, amongst others, makes use of fluidity in rapid runs on gymnastic chords throughout all its registers. The diabolical force which emanates from such passages recalls Antoine Forqueray or certain movements in François Couperin’s Les Nations (e.g., the 6/8 air from ‘La Françoise’). In 1730, Telemann had printed in separate parts six Quadri a violino, flauto traverso, viola di gamba o violoncello e fondamento, ripartiti in 2 Concerti, 2 Balletti, 2 Sonate including the Sonata Prima in A major, for flute, violin, viola da gamba and basso continuo, TWV 43:a. An amusing fact: around 1736, the Parisian publisher Le Clerc brought out a pirate edition of this collection, that is, he copied and printed it by King’s privilege without even seeking the composer’s authorization and, of course, without giving him his share of the profits. The case moreover was not rare, and the absence of reglementation such as we conceive it today concerning royalties left the author without the slightest legal recourse. But – irony of fate – Telemann profitted nonetheless, for this pirate edition contributed 11 more than others to spreading the fame of this collection of quartets in France. These quadri were particularly appreciated in the Parisian virtuoso circles which included the flautist Michel Blavet, violinist Jean-Pierre Guignon and gambist Forqueray the Younger, and it was precisely for them that Telemann would publish, during his Parisian sojourn of 1737-38, a second series (the New Quartets) in the same formation. The quadro recorded here is of remarkable elegance and melodic wealth. Beginning with the Soave, the melody’s charm is doubled with a distinction which already announc- es, quite in advance of its time, the ‘Dance of the Blessed Spirits’ from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. The serenely joyful Allegro is, on the other hand, of contrapuntal conception, with a theme first stated by the violin, then developed by the viol and flute and finally, by the basso continuo. However, this movement is not a fugue in the strict sense, but would serve well as a musical reference for this remark of the theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Warpurg, ad- dressing himself to Telemann in 1753: ‘The masterpieces from your pen have long refuted the erroneous opinion according to which the so-called gallant style would be incapable of combining with certain aspects inherited from counterpoint’. Menu

The elegiac Andante is framed as an expressive lamento, with a central episode in which the viol first states a lilting theme taken up by the violin, then by the flute. With a sighing melody which lets us sense the Empfindsamkeit, this Andante reveals once again a Telemann ahead of his time. The Finale is constructed like the first Allegro, although the theme is stated by the viol, and contains solos – in particular for the flute – full of playful joy. The free opening-up of the melody in the slow movements, verve and fluid virtuosity blended with the refinement of the counterpoint in the fast movements: we can easily understand the enthusiasm of Parisian musicians of the time. The only work for solo viol recorded here is the Sonata in D major, TWV 40:1, from Der getreue Music-Meister. As of the introductory Andante, we are gripped by the modernity of a music which is gropingly discovering ‘sensitivity’. The abrupt changes of mood – from melodic legato to repeated full chords, or from the highest register to the lowest string – are found alongside harmonic sequences familiar to Corelli, Vivaldi or Pisendel. The ‘beatings’ of French-style chords, in the fast movements, offer a spicy contrast to the German-Italian writing of the arioso, in the solo-sonata tradition of Johann (or Giovanni) Schenck’s Echo of the Danube. Significantly, we even find in this work for solo gamba, a 12 recitative, a discourse transformed into music without words. For a specialist in instrumental idioms like Telemann, this instrument doubtless possessed a quite special rhetori- cal expressivity. In the Arioso which follows, the passage to B minor (relative key) is the oc- casion for experimenting with a complete breaking of the given formal framework. Shortly before the end, the tension mounts progressively, escaping from all links with the motifs of the Arioso to expand a free-floating chromaticism across keys which will be resolved in the naiveté and good humour of the Vivace (in rondo). Its simplicity leaves the musician considerable room for improvising on the ornamental level.

Be it in the Double Concerto, the unaccompanied sonatas or the quartets, everywhere one finds Telemann’s sense of timbre, emotional content and the instrument’s language. Our recording, which reflects like a kaleidoscope all the variety and richness of inspiration of Telemann’s compositions for the viola da gamba, also attests to the high artistic level attained on this instrument, in the German tradition, during the first half of the 17th century. And yet – a unique case in the history of music? – barely fifty years later, no trace of this tradition would remain. English

Lorenz Duftschmid Menu

À chaque instrument ce qui lui convient par Brit Reipsch1

C’est dans son autobiographie de 1718, épicée de vers allemands, de citations, proverbes et poèmes latins et français, que Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) fit connaître pour la première fois sa maxime de compositeur dans ces vers plaisants et ironiques de son invention : Est également indispensable toute la science de ces instruments. Car sinon, il faut prononcer la sentence : Le violon est traité à la façon d’un orgue / La flûte et le hautbois sentis tels les trompettes / La viole de gambe suit en traînant / comme va la petite Basse / si ce n’est qu’on a mis çà et là un trille par-dessus. / Non / non / il ne suffit pas/qu’on entende les notes / que tu saches déballer tout l’attirail des règles. / Donne à chaque instrument ce / qui lui convient / alors celui qui joue le fait avec joie / et tu as plaisir à l’entendre.2 14 La mise en œuvre de ce principe contribua à faire de la musique de chambre et d’orchestre de Telemann l’une des plus jouées de la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle. Ses réalisations lui attirèrent le respect et l’estime de ses contemporains musiciens et théoriciens. Il était en relations avec les personnalités les plus célèbres du monde musical, comme Georg Friedrich Händel, Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Heinrich Graun et Johann Mattheson. Pen- dant son enfance et ses années d’études, que Telemann passa à Magdebourg, sa ville natale (1681-1694), Zellerfeld (1694-1697) et Hildesheim (1697-1701), il avait commencé à apprendre à jouer de divers instruments de musique. Il se souciait moins d’atteindre la perfection d’un jeu virtuose que de maîtriser les bases du plus grand nombre d’instruments possible. Fort de ses connaissances concernant leurs spécificités sonores et techniques, il fut capable, une fois compositeur, de trouver une écriture idiomatique dont le discours musical facile et fluide, adapté à chaque instrument, parlait aussi bien aux virtuoses qu’aux musiciens amateurs. Telemann savait composer de façon extrêmement

1 Telemann-Zentrum, Magdeburg. 2 Autobiographie de 1718, publiée dans la Grosse General-Baß-Schule de Mattheson, Hambourg 1731. Français variée, adaptée aux interprètes et aux instruments particuliers. Nous résumerons le chemin qui mena Telemann à la musique, car il est assez inso- lite. Son talent musical s’éveilla tôt, puisqu’il composa dès l’âge de douze ans un opéra, Sigismundus, dont il chanta même le rôle-titre. Le jeune garçon avait reçu ses premiers cours du cantor de Magdebourg Benedictus Christiani, qui lui apporta un soutien per- sonnel. C’est ainsi que Telemann commença à étudier la composition à partir des œu- vres de Christiani. Celui-ci le soutenait dans la mesure où il confiait à cet élève doué des devoirs particuliers. On ne saura jamais s’il avait vraiment autorisé Telemann, comme le dit l’autobiographie de celui-ci, à donner les cours à sa place. L’opéra Sigismundus, sur le livret de Postel, fut sans doute plutôt un exercice d’école dont Christiani autorisa la repré- sentation. Telemann eut à cette époque quelques difficultés avec un organiste inconnu de Magdebourg, qui le « torturait » avec les tabulatures, si bien que les cours ne durèrent pas longtemps. Le père du compositeur – curé de l’Eglise du Saint-Esprit – était mort en 1685, et sa mère, une fois veuve, eut des inquiétudes compréhensibles pour son fils, qu’elle espérait voir apprendre quelque chose de « convenable », et ne pas devenir « ba- teleur, danseur de corde, violoneux, montreur de marmottes ».3 Lorsqu’il eut 13 ans, elle l’envoya donc, comme l’en pressait sa famille, auprès du superintendant Caspar Calvör, à 15 Zellerfeld, qui devait le préparer aux études, « car mes tyrans des notes croyaient peut-être que les sorcières de derrière le Blockberg ne souffraient point la musique ».4 Mais Calvör allait justement reconnaître les dons de Telemann et les encourager de toutes ses forces. Les étapes suivantes de sa vie ne le frustrèrent pas de musique. A Hildesheim, au lycée Andreanum, Telemann met en musique des pièces de théâtre d’école et des poèmes, et écrit des cantates pour la Godehardikirche. Encore une fois, pour sa mère, il essaie d’abandonner la musique et décide, en 1701, de s’inscrire à la faculté de droit de l’Universi- té de Leipzig. Le nom de Telemann ne se trouve pas, cependant, sur les listes d’étudiants inscrits à Leipzig, on peut donc douter du degré de sérieux de ses projets. En tout cas, à peine avait-il découvert des instruments dans la chambre d’un autre étudiant que « toutes mes bonnes intentions », comme il écrit lui-même avec grâce dans son autobiographie, s’étaient évanouies. A partir de ce moment, Telemann va se consacrer exclusivement à

3 Autobiographie de 1718. 4 Ibidem. la musique. Il fonde un « Collegium musicum » d’étudiants, donne ses œuvres dans des églises, à l’opéra et en concert. Le succès est tel que Kuhnau lui-même, le vieux cantor de Saint-Thomas, se plaint de la concurrence de cet « opériste » (terme péjoratif visant en Te- lemann le « chanteur d’opéra »). Et pourtant, Kuhnau était l’un des modèles de Telemann. Engagé comme organiste de la nouvelle église, le jeune compositeur est pour la première fois à un poste fixe. Les années suivantes le mettront au service de la cour. D’abord celle du Comte Erd- mann von Promnitz à Sorau (1705-1708), où l’on ne joue que de la musique instrumentale dans le goût français ; puis auprès du Duc Johann Wilhelm von Sachsen-Eisenach (1708- 1712) ; Telemann y dispose pour ses nombreuses tâches – de la musique de circonstance pour les fêtes à la cour aux cantates d’église, de la musique de chambre aux concertos – d’un excellent orchestre. Dès 1712, il tourne le dos définitivement à la vie de cour pour devenir « musicien de ville » à Francfort sur le Main. L’abondante vie musicale de cette ville libre impériale lui ouvre mille occasions de composer : musique d’église, circonstances solennelles, sans parler de la musique d’orchestre et de chambre pour le « Collegium musicum » de la socié- 16 té Frauenstein ainsi que pour la cour de Darmstadt, toute proche. Tout cela n’empêchera pas Telemann de présenter, en 1721, sa candidature au poste de cantor du Johanneum de Hambourg. Et il réussit ! Il entre en fonction is more usual l’année même. Cantor et directeur de la musique des cinq églises principales de Hambourg, il de- vient de surcroît directeur de l’Opéra. Telemann restera fidèle à cette autre ville libre impériale jusqu’à la fin de sa vie, avec pour seules interruptions de courts voyages et un séjour à Paris en 1737-1738. Dans tous les domaines (entre autres et particulièrement à l’opéra), il écrit beaucoup, et fait imprimer et publier de nombreuses œuvres instrumentales et jusqu’à des cycles annuels entiers de cantates. C’est seulement après 1740 qu’il semble prendre un peu de distance par rapport à la vie musicale. Il propose en tout cas ses planches de gravure à la vente. Telemann compose surtout, comme il l’a toujours fait, de la musique sacrée, et entre vers 1755, avec l’oratorio de la passion Der Tod Jesu (« La morte de Jésus »), dans sa der