Search - Telemann, Stotzel, Immer :: Festive Cantatas

Telemann auf der Autobahn

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 07/08/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Big, brash, and brazen, these festive cantatas - literally brazen since they feature the brass of the Friedemann Immer Trumpet Consort, together with the very muscular Collegium Bach Choir Siegen with the Hannover Hofkapelle orchestra - and very German both in musical style and performance. Just as much as Telemann overshadowed Bach in his lifetime, Bach has come to overshadow Telemann today, but they sprang from the same musical wonderland of Protestant Germany and these three cantatas composed by Telemann in his most German manner sound a great deal like Bach.



Most Telemann lovers today are best acquainted with his works in the French style, his sonatas for recorders, his Paris Quartets, his chamber cantatas. The compositions on this CD, written for large forces in Frankfurt and Eisenach, that "Luther" city, will surprise such fans of Telemann's galante music. When he chose to, Telemann could write polyphony as fierily complex as Bach's, and he does so in several arias and chorales recorded here. He could also turn up the drama to a German pitch in his recitativos, and his use of trumpets and timpani is as imposing as that of Biber or the various Bachs, including Johan Sebastian. What greater compliment can a listener of 2008 pay than to say that if these three cantatas WERE by Bach, they would not be among his least?



Still, I wish I could hear them performed by another ensemble, with soloists a little less committed to power over grace. Alto Mechthild Georg, to my ears, sings Telemann with a voice too prophetic of Wagner for my taste. I find the tone color of the soprano alto duets more passionate than musical. The Friedemann Immer Trumpet Consort is impeccably skillful, but more consistently majestic than subtle; their trumpets, by the way, are modified Baroque, equipped with several finger holes to ease certain tunings and trills. All in all, it seems to me that conductor Ulrich Stötzel has preferred pomp and circumstance to spiritual supplication and blessedness. I repeat, I'd love to hear these three cantatas performed by a second ensemble. Who knows, in the end I might prefer pomp and circumstance also, but I suspect that a little French subtlety or Italian bravura would be a welcome addition.



Nonetheless, even with all those niggling reservations, I'd say this is a CD that Baroque vocal music lovers need to hear - Telemann at full throttle down the Autobahn!"