Telemann Fantasias

Georg Philipp Telemann (source: Bibliothéque nationale de France)

During his tenure as city music director in Frankfurt am Main (1712–21), Telemann began publishing music at his own expense. This venture was no doubt a response to the dearth of music publishers in German-speaking lands at the time, and it represented a financial roll of the dice, since there was no guarantee that the composer’s initial outlay of time and money would be rewarded with strong sales. The advantage was that Telemann could closely control the marketing and distribution of his products. In order to limit material and labour expenses, he published only instrumental chamber music in economical scorings: two collections of sonatas for violin and continuo (1715 and 1718), one of suites for oboe and continuo (1716), and one of trio sonatas for various melody instruments with continuo (1718). He also published a set of concertos by the recently deceased prince Johann Ernst of SachsenWeimar (1718), a talented amateur musician who was also the dedicatee of Telemann’s first opus. (The prince’s concertos appear not to have sold very well, at least to judge by the high number of unsold copies.) For all these publications, Telemann hired a professional typesetter or music engraver to produce the physical copies.

Soon after making a lateral move to Hamburg in 1721, Telemann embarked on a far more ambitious publishing program. This was facilitated by the city’s mercantile spirit and motivated by the composer’s desire to provide consumers with music that educated and entertained even as it filled practical needs in churches, private homes, public concerts, and courts. At a certain point, Telemann was also sorely in need of the extra income his publishing business provided, for his family was expanding and his wife had run up substantial debts.

He did not start modestly, debuting in 1725–26 with an entire annual cycle of 72 church cantatas issued serially–— the first of four cycles he would eventually publish, in addition to the arias from a fifth. In order to entice subscribers, Telemann offered a substantial discount to those who paid for publications in advance of their appearance. This helped him to recover some of his up-front expenses and to better calculate the size of the initial print run (probably just a few hundred copies). As he had done in Frankfurt, Telemann hired a professional printer to typeset the music for his first Hamburg publications. But he quickly realized that he could both save money and improve the appearance of his products by engraving the music on copper or pewter plates himself. This he did to reasonably good effect until closing up his self-publishing business in 1740. By this time, he had issued over 40 separate publications of his own music, an impressive and unprecedented feat.

As a series within this series, Telemann published 72 fantasias for solo instrument: three dozen for keyboard and a dozen each for flute, violin, and viola da gamba. The flute fantasias appeared first (1731), followed by the keyboard fantasias (1732–33) and those for violin and viola da gamba (both 1735). Like the flute and viola da gamba pieces, the violin fantasias recorded here have come down to us via a single 18th-century source–—in this case not Telemann’s own publication, but a manuscript copy made from it by an unknown scribe. We also have the printed title page, which describes the music as “Fantasie per il Violino, senza Basso.” It is a sobering thought indeed that all this great music might have been lost to history were it not for a few fortunate survivals.

The six fantasia sets differ from one another not only through instrumentation, but also through their unique arrangements of keys. For example, keys of the flute fantasias ascend from work to work, whereas the violin fantasias divide into four groups of three, each following a major-major-minor key sequence. The latter set may also be divided into two groups of six, following Telemann’s description of it as “12 fantasias for the violin without bass, of which six include fugues and six are galanteries.” In addition to including fugal movements or sections, fantasias of the first group simulate counterpoint by requiring the violinist to play more chordally than in the other fantasias. The “galanterie” fantasias are evidently so named because of their fashionable music, but this is to some extent true of all 12 works.

It is interesting to consider which models, if any, Telemann may have had in mind while composing this extraordinary music. He may have known some late 17th-century works for unaccompanied violin, most notably Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s unpublished violin passacaglia (ca. 1676) and Johann Paul von Westhoff’s published suites (1683 and 1696). Telemann himself had published the last movement of his friend Johann Georg Pisendel’s unaccompanied violin sonata in a 1729 issue of his short-lived music journal, Der getreue Music-Meister (The Faithful Music Master). And he could also have known the unaccompanied violin music of another friend, Johann Sebastian Bach, whose sonatas and partitas were composed by 1720. But none of these earlier works explores the idea of improvisation to the same degree as Telemann’s fantasias, suggesting that he may also have drawn on a long tradition of extemporized violin music.

Like much of Telemann’s music, the violin fantasias are accessible to accomplished amateurs while posing a moderate challenge to professionals–—a fine line that the composer was particularly adept at treading. Apart from their technical demands, the fantasias require of the player not only an alertness and sensitivity to various styles, but also a strong imagination. Telemann evidently regarded the fantasia as a musical category in which almost anything could happen. Its freedom from the kind of expectations that players and listeners brought to other types of pieces (for example, the more familiar sonata or suite) allowed him to assert his compositional fantasy by shifting frequently between contrasting modes of musical expression. At one moment, the violinist might solo in a concerto; at another, work out a learned fugue; and at a third, play a rustic dance tune. In fact, the broad emotional range of the fantasias as a group can scarcely be exaggerated.

Most of the pieces adhere to the basic formal pattern that Telemann had established in his flute fantasias: two movements of contrasting character followed by a dance-like conclusion. However, the first and eleventh fantasias take a page from the keyboard works in reprising their fast movements. Some of the opening slow movements have a strong prelude character (for example, Nos. 2 and 12), while others have a distinctly vocal quality (Nos. 1 and 7). Fugues may appear as first or second movements, while sonata-like fast movements are found in second position (Nos. 8 and 9). The collection’s eclecticism is loudly proclaimed in the first fantasia, where a singing slow movement leads to a concerto allegro in which the violinist assumes the dual roles of soloist and orchestra (Telemann was especially fond of transferring the form and style of the concerto to implausibly small scorings). By contrast, the fifth fantasia begins in a more off-the-cuff manner, with capricious alternations between improviatory figuration and a buttoned-down fugue, which soon dissolves into less formal music.

The fantasias’ concluding dances sweep away any serious pretensions of the preceding movements. Most common is the rhythmically flowing giga (Nos. 2, 4, 9, and 10). But other courtly dances appear, too, such as the minuet (No. 3) and gavotte (No. 7), both delightfully quirky. Three more dances (Nos. 8, 11, and 12) sound more like fiddle tunes that might be danced to in a rural tavern. The resulting shifts between courtly and rustic idioms is entirely characteristic of Telemann, who found almost equal value in both. In this respect it is telling that the violin fantasias, like their predecessors for flute, conclude with an especially earthy dance–—the musical last word going to the country rather than to the city.

— Steven Zohn