Telemann: The Colourful Telemann (CD review)

Barthold Kuijken, Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. Naxos 8.573900.

This is only a guess, but I’d say if you asked almost any casual classical-music listeners to name their favorite Baroque composers, they’d probably respond with Bach, Handel, or Vivaldi. So why does the German Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) get less love than these other fellows? Maybe it’s because he didn’t write a set of Brandenburg Concertos or Water Music or Messiah or 800 variations on “The Four Seasons.” People tend to remember someone’s greatest hits, and, face it, Telemann didn’t have a lot of greatest hits.

Nevertheless, Telemann was among the most prominent composers of his day and was at least as famous in his time as his personal friends Bach and Handel. What’s more, he was at least as prolific, if not more so, than his celebrated contemporaries. The album under review, “The Colourful Telemann,” contains five of his more vibrant, spirited yet relaxed, picturesque, and convivial tunes.

The performers are a comparatively recent period-instruments orchestra, the Indianapolis Baroque (or IndyBaroque), formed in 1997 and led by flautist and recorder player Barthold Kuijken, whom you may know from his work with brothers Wieland and Sigiswald Kuijken in La Petite Bande. The Indy ensemble are good and serve the music with skill and high spirits.

First up is the Ouverture in C minor. Here we find Telemann at his most unhurried, and Kuijken seems perfectly content with playing it that way. There is nothing forced, rushed, or driven about the performance. Instead, it’s a little like a Frederick Delius piece, maybe a casual boat ride one summer evening. Still, Kuijken moves it along at a graceful, stately gait, ensurng it doesn’t become stodgy.

Next is the three-movement Concerto for Two Flutes in G major, where Kuijken shares the baroque transverse flute solos with Leela Breithaupt. Again, we get a relaxed Telemann, his inspirations French, Italian, and even Polish in the final presto. The playing is refined and elegant.

After that is the five-movement Sonata in E minor, which is perhaps a shade more solemn than the previous selections. Nevertheless, Kuijken moves it along at a fluid, gracious pace, the concluding movement, marked “Gay” a special delight.

Then, there is the four-movement Concerto for Two Flutes, Violin and Cello in D major, which seems to include parts for just about everyone in the ensemble. You may notice here a certain degree of similarity with Bach’s Brandenburgs, partly in the layout of instruments and multiple soloists and partly in the tunes themselves. Kuijken leads the players with a slightly yet subdued tone.

The program ends with the seven-movement Sinfonia Melodica in C major, which may have been among Telemann’s final compositions before he died. If so, he went out in style. It’s a delightful, affable, and courtly farewell.

Producer, engineer, and editor Malcolm Bruno made the recording at Ruth Lilly Performance Hall, Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center, University of Indianapolis in February 2019. The sound is a tad sharper and clearer than we usually hear from Naxos. For the most part, it’s quite natural, with a smooth, rounded midrange and a nicely extended high end. The lower treble is sometimes prominent, but it is never distractingly bright. The lower end of the musical spectrum is somewhat wanting, however, and dynamics are average at best.

JJP

To listen to a brief except from this album, click below: