(Magdeburg 14-III-1681 - Hamburg 25-VI-1767)
He was Kapellmeister in a church in Leipzig, where he founded a student choir; he made numerous trips to Poland before settling in Eisenach in 1708 as a court kapellmeister.
From 1712, he was active in Frankfurt, and in 1721, he settled in Hamburg as a kapellmeister in various churches and organized concerts and opera performances. In 1728, he founded the first German musical periodical, the "Getreuer Musik-Meister." A contemporary of Bach, Telemann was a more extroverted and worldly musician, curious about different styles and unusual forms.
He trained in contact with French, Italian, and Polish music. He maintained an eclecticism throughout his production that, if it did not allow him to achieve expressive results of particular depth, nevertheless made him a skilled, self-assured musician capable of imaginative and graceful ideas. His music flows entirely on the surface. It remains a typical example of the transition between the German Baroque and Rococo, so much so that it can almost be considered a link between Bach and Mozart.
Telemann's production is immense (it exceeds in quantity that of Bach and Hendel combined!).
He composed thousands of pieces for liturgical use, at least 25 theatrical works, oratorios, and passions in great numbers, chamber music, and hundreds of orchestral pieces. In this last field, he was curious about new forms and revealed a marked tendency for program music, writing, among other things, water music, hunting scenes, pieces on human characters, and so on, in addition to serenades, concertos, suites, and overtures in the Italian and French style.
Since it is not possible for Telemann, as for many other composers of the 17th and 18th centuries, to examine even a tiny part of his production, which is still being re-evaluated, we will point out a few pieces that exemplify his style and the musical genres he preferred.
Don Quixote suite for strings, 1735
It is a series of pieces that evoke the feelings of Don Quixote, as well as episodes of his life and naturalistic impressions.
As in the Musica da Tavola, here, too, the discourse is fluent and graceful, without dramatic contrasts. The eight parts of the suite (with the titles in French in the original) are: "Ouverture" ('Largo-Allegro-Largo'); "Don Quixote's awakening" ('Andantino'); "Don Quixote's attack on the windmills" ('Moderato'); "Loving sighs for Princess Alina" ('Andante'); "Sancho Panza mocked" ('Allegro moderato'); "The Gallop of Rocinante" ('Allegretto'); "That of Sancho's Donkey" ('Alternativo'); "Don Quixote Lies Down" ('Vivace').
