|
|
3.0 out of 5 stars
Topflight Telemann, but . . ., Dec 16 2002
For aficionados of period music performance I can understand the high marks given these unusual and outstanding Telemann works by previous reviewers. Goebel's group strives for technical perfection - and gets pretty close to it. As you can tell by my user name, Telemann is one of my favorite composers. However I feel that the excitement and inspiration in his works - highly appreciated in his time - is, paradoxically, blocked from contemporary music lovers by groups that insist on performing for audiences who have been dead for 250 years. Reinhard Goebel and his Camerata Koln have given me intense frustration by continually rediscovering and performing music that I love - but performing it in a way that I regard as "antiqued", arbitrarily inhibited and stylized. Although Goebel may have mellowed a bit since his earlier, rigidly mannered performances, Telemann's mastery of all the orchestral instrument sonorities available in his time (and some that were not yet in the orchestra, like the chalumeau or early clarinet), his unexpected twists, and above all, his love of melody, has trouble coming alive to modern audiences in period performance recordings. It is doubly ironic that whereas Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel's music is available to contemporary general audiences in dynamic, "living tradition" performance styles - and consequently sells substantial numbers of recordings, Telemann, who was specially committed to audiences and performers (he was the first in Germany to open up the hitherto closed university Collegium Musicums to the public), is largely heard by elite listeners - professionals, esthetes, and cognoscenti of early music. There is another new recording of Telemann: oboe concerti, also available from Amazon.com. For those to whom this debate is new, listen to the opening E-flat major concerto and you'll hear what I am talking about.
|
