Thursday, April 19, 2012

Telemann: Complete Violin Concertos Vol. 3


Volume 3 of Telemann’s Complete Violin Concertos is performed by The Wallfisch Band; a band which consists of Elisabeth’s friends and students.

“...this is the third instalment of a very fine series. The best work is the Concerto in D, which has movement titles like Badinage and is wonderfully inventive...Wallfisch is joined by Susan Carpenter-Jacobs for some very elegant duetting.” --The Guardian ****





Telemann's violin concertos, for the most part, are genre-bending pieces that are apt to tie musicologists in knots. Most of them date from his years in Frankfurt (1712-1720), and were composed for gifted amateurs rather than professional virtuosi. The solo writing, consequently, isn't anything like as prominent as we find in Vivaldi, for instance, which explains why some violinists have turned their noses up at them.

Structurally, many of them take French dance suites as their models, which has led them to be awkwardly renamed Ouvertures en concert in French, or Overture Concertos in English. Undaunted by this confusion, Elizabeth Wallfisch and her band have been recording them for CPO: this is the third instalment of a very fine series.

The best work is the Concerto in D, which has movement titles like Badinage and is wonderfully inventive. The late Concerto in A was triggered by a trip to Paris in 1737, and is an example of how Telemann, chameleon-like, could absorb and reproduce another composer's style, in this case Rameau's. In the beautiful, more conventional Double Concerto in G, Wallfisch is joined by Susan Carpenter-Jacobs for some very elegant duetting. -- Tim Ashley, The Guardian

MP3 320 · 130 MB

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