Musica Antiqua Koln - Telemann: Sinfonia spirituosa, String Concertos (2002)

If you're one of those who feel Telemann has gotten a bad rap, your day has come. Here's a disc that will make even diehard skeptics take another listen to this Baroque master. Reinhard Goebel and the Musica Antiqua Köln perform a program of Telemann's chamber music for strings, including a pair of symphonies (which didn't mean nearly the same thing to Telemann as it did to Mozart or Beethoven), a suite, and a series of concertos (which also meant something else to him). They play with crisp precision and unflagging energy, bringing the music joyously to life, but that should come as no surprise to followers of this accomplished ensemble. The real discovery here is the marvelously high quality of the music. Much of it may remind you of Vivaldi, who cast a wide shadow over northern European music in the late Baroque. The A Major Violin Concerto "Die Relinge," for example, seems only a little removed from The Four Seasons. But a lot of the music is quite unlike anything else from the period. The concertos for four solo violins, in particular, have no counterpart that this listener is aware of, and the music is surprisingly forward looking for the time. Listen to the very beginning of the G Major Concerto: jabbing, biting dissonance -- is this really early-18th-century music? Of course, there are moments of great beauty, too. Just let that movement play a little longer to sample Telemann's wonderful lyric writing, or try the Affettuoso from the A Major Concerto for a taste of the Baroque at its lilting best. The bookends to the disc are larger-scale works for full string ensemble. The Sinfonia spirituosa -- a gleeful work if ever there was one -- was an inspired choice to open the program. It's certainly not the Telemann you thought you knew.