Alex Potter - praised by the press as "a rising star in the world of countertenors" - interprets sacred works by Telemann for cpo on this album. The setting of Psalm 6 continues to be thoroughly obliged to the tone of the sacred concertos of the seventeenth century associated with names such as Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Rosenm�ller, and Johann Schelle. However, even though this psalm setting entitled "Ach, Herr strafe mich nicht" very much resembles similar works by older authors, it nevertheless displays a very special aura. Accompanied by two violins and basso continuo, an affectively nuanced narrative of a soul plagued by fear and hoping for the end of it's torments is heard. The Missa in B minor is similar in style to the music of the psalm; it is what is known as a Lutheran �short mass,� which with it's Kyrie and Gloria merely consists of two compositional complexes. All the numbers comprising "Me miserum" concern the faithful soul, which tells it's story, is aware of it's insufficiency but does not yield to despair, and therefore is able to register it's experience of faith. A sonata and two fugues round off the album.

One of Telemann's later works, this Passion oratorio was composed to a text by Karl Wilhelm Ramler. How it came to be set by both Carl Heinrich Graun in Berlin and Telemann in Hamburg, the results performed within weeks of each other, is a topic of great speculation that's pointedly covered in the historically oriented program notes. Telemann's work is scored for four soloists, chorus, and a small orchestra. Ramler assumed that everyone knew the story of the Crucifixion; the solos, accompagnatos, and chorales all comment on the story rather than giving a blow by blow account. As sectioned in this interpretation, Part I is devoted to events that took place in the Garden of Gethsemane and Part II to the horrors of Mount Golgotha. The overall tone is reverent and hopeful rather than morbid and grim, and the work is full of lovely arias, choruses, and chorales.


Telemann's use of obbligato wind instruments is thoroughly masterful, from the dulcet flutes in the alto aria "Ein Gebet um neue Stärke", to the transverse piccolos that delightfully chirp away in the soprano chorale "Singt dem göttlichen Propheten" near the beginning of Part II. A soulful horn solo is the focus of the Introduction (Lamento), while the same instrument is used in military fashion in the tenor aria "So stehet ein Berg Gottes". An expressive oboe d'amore accentuates the bass aria "Ihr weichgeschaffnen Seelen".


With one exception, a somewhat bland soprano, the soloists are marvelous, singing with great expression and conviction to fully convey the meaning of every word. The small chorus is divided 5/8/6/6, more lower voices than upper, which produces a lovely darkish timbre--and it sings with impeccable intonation and good diction. The orchestra, including the aforementioned soloists, has a lovely sound, and conductor Ludger Rémy finds the right pace for every passage. The recording is warm and intimate, with lots of space around the singers and instrumentalists. [10/16/2000]
--Rad Bennett, ClassicsToday.com

Includes cantata(s) by Georg Philipp Telemann. Ensemble: Cologne Camerata. Soloist: Ruth Ziesak.

Includes work(s) by Georg Philipp Telemann. Ensemble: Cologne Camerata.

Classical Music

Telemann surprises connoisseurs and lovers of his orchestral music again and again through his unusual combination of instruments and melodic ingenuity.There are still impressive pieces in his oeuvre that are not or only too rarely recorded.The Concerto Stella Matutina presents some of Telemann‘s orchestral art, which mix together principles of the concerto, sonata and suite genres.Founded in 2005, the Austrian Concerto Stella Matutina perform familiar and forgotten works from the 17th-18th c., extending to experimental projects in music and dance, often with artist collaboration.

Classical Music

Ino was the wife of Athamas and thus the daughter-in-law of Aeolus, the god of the winds. For reasons that are not entirely clear, she incurred the resentment of Hera, the wife of the gods, who confused Athamas to such an extent that he shot one of his own sons and also wanted to kill the second - whereupon Ino threw herself into the sea with her offspring. In the end, mother and daughter are transformed into maritime deities. When Georg Philipp Telemann set this material to music, he was already well past eighty; musically, however, he exploded like a young man with a bright future ahead of him. The Ino of our new recording comes from the ranks of the Boston Early Music Festival: Amanda Forsythe, most recently celebrated as the irresistible "Serva Padrona", opens an aria recital with this demanding role, which portrays the opera composer Telemann from monodrama to lively comedy and looks ahead to upcoming productions.

After listening to a substantial number of operas, cantatas, concertos, and chamber music left by the immensely prolific Georg Philipp Telemann, one might assume there would soon be nothing new to discover. This is far from the truth, as demonstrated by the latest production from Camerata Koln and it's director, Michael Schneider. The "Six Quatuors ou Trios 1733" are not merely a continuation of Telemann's Concerti da camera. They differ significantly: polyphonic, chromatic quirks, delicate cantilenas, highly virtuosic (and expertly executed) miniatures, and finally, a series of ancient women's portraits in the contemporary colors of the "Getreue Music-Meister" - if anything is repeated here, it is the amazement at an almost limitless, inexhaustible imagination.

Our most recent Telemann album is a special highlight for the Christmas season! It brings together three Christmas oratorios from Telemann’s Oratorischer Jahrgang for the church year 1730/31 and a cantata from the annual cycle Musicalisches Lob Gottes printed in score form in Nuremberg in 1744. The oratorios are new discoveries and premiere recordings. Even if the works concerned are of cantata length, the term “Oratorio” is in this case perfectly justified. Not only the soprano, alto, and other vocal parts sing but also personified allegories such as Faith, Hope, and Love. Telemann’s musical realization of the poetic sources of the writer and musician Albrecht Jacob Zell is distinguished by great imagination and subtle artistry. The affections and emotions contained in the texts penned by Zell and the Biblical texts inserted by him in the arias and choruses are developed logically and with great feeling: here Telemann employs and combines the whole spectrum of compositional techniques at his command. Telemann’s opulent settings were made to order for the rich resources of Hamburg’s church music, for which he had available eight vocalists as well as some twenty instrumentalists.

Telemann World-Premiere Recordings. Between 1717 and 1765 Georg Philipp Telemann composed more than 1, 700 cantatas for performance on all the Sundays of the church year. Some dozen annual cycles from his period as music director in Frankfurt am Main and above all those from his Hamburg years have come down to us. In quantitative terms, the four Sundays of Advent and the three days of Christmas are the most strongly represented – with almost about two hundred cantatas. Apart from the cantatas for solo voice and solo instrument with basso continuo from his anthology Harmonischer Gottesdienst of 1725, only a few compositions for larger ensembles from this treasure trove have been edited and recorded. This album features four cantatas by Telemann that may be regarded as world-premiere recordings. They are musical gems that impress us with their melodic originality and musical character and even after more than 250 years are very much worth being performed again!

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

12 FANTASIES RECORDER