Commentaries

Prominent artistic personalities comment on their personal relationship to Georg Philipp Telemann.

Paul Dombrecht
Michi Gaigg
Reinhard Goebel
Ludwig Güttler
Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Wolfgang Hirschmann
Felix Koch
Dorothee Oberlinger
Siegfried Pank
Burkhard Schmilgun

Peter Schreier
David Stern

Do you remember your first encounter with Telemann’s music or do you associate a special experience with it?

I cannot exactly say when I encountered Telemann for the first time. However, I do remember a first conscious encounter with his music: My mother, who was also my first flute teacher, accompanied me on the organ to the first partita from „Kleine Cammer-Music” („Little Chamber Music”) in my father’s church. I was then eight years old. It was one of my first public appearances and I was so excited. Besides, I chose the same suite many years later for the program of a Telemann CD.
At that time my parents had a lot of LPs of Frans Brüggens in the closet, one of them contained Telemann’s flute sonatas and which was played non-stop…

Which Telemann composition(s) would you take with you to the legendary desert island?

I would take the 12 solo fantasias for flute (since I am alone) with which I will certainly not get out of practice.

If I could at least bring an iPod, it should contain the complete recording of the „Tafelmusik”. So I have a reminder of our European culture while I eat the exotic island plants.

What would you like to talk about with Telemann over a glass of wine?

About the whine? Better not about growing tulpits since I have no idea of it and he does the better.
Then I would ask him if he could ever have imagined that Johann Sebastian Bach today is more famous than he. He could finally tell me what he really composed and what was foisted on him as plagiarism (if he can still remember). After a view glasses I would want to find out what went wrong in his second marriage. And maybe I could commission another concert for recorder …

What does Telemann have that other’s do not?

Leggerezza, entertainment value, depht, wit, enormous stylistic variation and manual skills at the same time.

_{[Source: Telemann aus Magdeburg. 50 Jahre betont. Program of the Magdeburg Telemann Festival, 9.-18. March 2012, page. 128.]}

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