Andrea Coen – Telemann: 36 Fantasias for Harpsichord (2011)

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) is a match for his friend and contemporary JS Bach -- in their cantatas and oratorios, in their orchestral suites and concertos, in their Passion settings -- except for one: their works for solo keyboard (harpsichord or organ). No solo harpsichord work by Telemann approaches the grandeur of Bach's Goldberg Variations, "French" Suites or "English Suites." Telemann's compositions for organ are largely unexplored musical territory but I'd be flabbergasted if they met the standard of Bach's preludes and fugues. The thirty six "fantasias" of TWV33, played here by Andrea Coen, compare more suitably with Bach's Two and Three Part Inventions and with the charming miniatures from the Ana Magdalena Notebook. In that comparison, Telemann hold his own in terms of delight.

Sophistication and delight are probably the key qualities of these pieces. Good keyboardists tell me that they are not especially challenging but that they are a constant joy to play, first because they are so thoroughly idiomatic to the harpsichord and second because they are tirelessly inventive and effervescent. Whereas Bach's keyboard works are intellectual and pedagogical, Telemann's are ineluctably entertainments, both for the player and the listener. Hearing them before or after Bach's Art of Fugue, for instance, I can understand why musicians and audiences of the generation of Bach's sons regarded Bach as "dry." And why Telemann was enormously more successful as a career composer. There's a huge stock of musical craft in these pieces, but one hardly notices it while being charmed by their emotional and kinaesthetic piquancy. Don't mistake effortlessness for facility! Telemann had YOUR pleasure in mind when he wrote this music, and he knew how to achieve it.

The 36 fantasias are divide into three sets of twelve. The first and last are Italianate in style, while the second set is gallantly French. To my ears, the French twelve are more distinctive and more affective. All 36 are played on the same harpsichord, a copy of an 18th C German instrument, but the timbres of that instrument sound especailly lovely on the slow movements of the French-style fantasies. Harpsichordist Andrea Coen has performed with Monica Huggett, Christopher Hogwood, and a number of Italian HIPP ensembles, though he is better known as a musicologist and teacher at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Roma.