Vienna/ Konzerthaus/ Mozartsaal: “Georg Philipp Telemann”
(on 15.1., Matinee – Karl Masek)

The 250^th anniversary of the death of the Baroque composer and great master from Magdeburg, Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), is being observed this year. The Konzerthaus got started in the celebration. In the series “Matinees of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra”. With a Telemann programme. Including an encounter with an unbelievable late work: the dramatic cantata “Ino: Wohin, wo soll ich hin?“, (Where, where should I go?), composed at the age of 84! What a meeting with a genius, who even in old age kept a finger on the pulse of the time and continued to develop musically. Even though he wrote self-critically to friends at the age of 70: “I have now written shabby melodies for so many years… several thousand times copied my own work, duplicated … If there is nothing new to be found in the melody, you have to look for it in the harmony…”: so there are still treasures to be discovered even in his later works…

Reinhard Goebel is such a treasure hunter! The encounter with the Telemann rediscoverer (founder and decades long leader of  “Musica Antiqua Köln“) was immensely enriching!

Someone who has a burning interest in this music is standing on the podium. An affetuoso conductor. He’s constantly spurring the orchestra on. He is electrified. A fanatic for the musical cause. Like Nikolaus Harnoncourt, whom we’ll never forget. Goebel was his successor as professor for “Historical Performance Practice” at the Mozarteum in Salzburg…

The musicians of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra fulfil the affetuoso demands with passion, intensity, audible enthusiasm while perched on the edges of their seats.

At the centre of the first half was the dramatic cantata TWV 20/41, from 1765, “Ino” (Telemann was 84 years old at the time!)

Sophie Karthäuser, Belgian soprano and Baroque specialist, has collaborated with William Christie and René Jacobs, among others, also a much-acclaimed Mozart singer, was this “Ino”.  With an expressive, youthfully dramatic, technically perfectly mastered voice, blossoming highs and not for a moment overstrained or harsh. Splendid!

Furthermore: Telemann showed himself to be a perfect composer in an early bourgeois music scene. Hardly anyone else was able to react to the wishes and demands of the audience of the day as he did. With well-written, sparkling and often unconventional music.

For example: The Concerto in F Major TWV 51 (1725 “or later“): surprise effects through changes of key and modulations, original pizzicato gags, sliding chromatic passages, juicy dance rhythms from “Corsicana” to “Polacca”. Where “German humour” is concerned, clichés that have come to be well-loved need to be reconsidered. A concert with a refreshing fun factor!

Source: Online Merker
Translation: John Allan Moffatt