Thread - Telemann, Concerto TWV 54:F1

I think it will have to be a generic concerto with more clarification at the bottom about what we don't know. The Vivaldi title is a good model -- it would end up as Concerto, TWV 54:51.

In the booklet of the CPO Cd we find: Problems of source transmission are particularly acute in the case of the Concerto in F major for two horns, recorder, oboe, two cellos, strings and continuo (TWV 51:F1, tracks 8–14). As with most of Telemann’s concertos, the autograph, meaning the first full draft in the composer’s hand, has not survived. The two surviving sets of parts prove on closer inspection to be arrangements of an earlier version that can no longer be completely reconstructed. As Peter Huth has shown in a special study, Telemann conceived the piece with two additional chalumeaux. As these instruments were unavailable at the Schwerin court and the Dresden court chapel, the musicians responsible for chamber music at these courts undertook massive changes in the work’s design and scoring to make it playable for the instruments at their disposal. We follow the Schwerin version on our recording, it being closer to the work’s original form than its Dresden counterpart. However, both arrangements omit a second minuet movement in which Telemann explored the delightful combination of two horns and two chalumeaux (only the two horn parts deleted by the arranger have survived). But as the use of chalumeaux was most certainly not limited to this movement alone, the arranger must have made further alterations as well. If we are not given the ‘complete’ Telemann in this piece, at least the Schwerin version grants us a fascinating glimpse into one of the must unusual concertos from Telemann’s pen. The opening ritornello movement (track 8) is followed by a two-section Scherzando for recorder and solo violin above a D-minor pizzicato accompaniment leading, as in the Concerto in E-minor TWV 53:e2 (see Vol. III, tracks 11 and 13), to a repeat of the expansive opening movement. (The relevant instruction ‘Si replica’l Concerto precedente ’ was likewise deleted in Schwerin.) There now follow four dance movements in the manner of a suite (tracks 11–14): a three-part Bourrée in which the two cellos play in concert with the two solo violins, a Menuett heightened with anapaest rhythms and dominated by the horns (as already mentioned, the original central section, a second minuet, is missing), a Loure that changes to D minor like the Scherzando, and a final Gigue which again features triadic motifs in the two horns. In short, we are given a hybrid form: a suite-concerto.Telemann, it would seem, rarely turned to this sort of hybrid form of concerto cum suite (an equally unusual second example will appear in Series V of our recording). Further, the scoring of our concerto, as extravagant as it is richly hued, suggests that this work, too, was written for a particular occasion. Perhaps it originated in Frankfurt. perhaps in Hamburg, but certainly not in Dresden or Schwerin, for Telemann was, of course, fully aware of the instruments available to the ensembles for which he wrote his music.

This seems to be best information we have and your changes of the workpage fit to these statements, i think.

Dear Notenschreiber: I have one more question about this before I create an arrangement tag that we might not need after all. As far as I can see in the Pisendel, there are three oboe lines, i.e. the concertato oboe part + two orchestral oboe parts.

Wouldn't the header need to be "For Violin, Oboe, 2 Horns, Orchestra and Continuo (Pisendel, Grundig)" or "For Violin, Oboe, 2 Horns, and Orchestra (Pisendel, Grundig)", since it isn't just a string accompaniment?

Thanks, B

Yes, keyboard is included -- any keyboard part in a full orchestra is not tagged separately. Thanks, I think I can fix this one now. B