Customer Reviews

Telemann String Concertos Musica Antiqua Koln Goebel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have listened to the entire CD, and it was thoroughly enjoyable throughout every single track. I bought this CD especially for the viola concerto and double viola concerto. Florian Deuter performs these pieces in a unique and totally convincing manner. The articulations (especially fast movements) are completely opposite of what one might normally choose to do in an interpretation of a faster movement. In this rendition, the 16th notes (2nd movement) are decidedly played off the string (short) and the 8th notes are on (long). I would never have imagined liking it that way, but I totally did! The orchestral accompaniment always sounds great in tone, and the balance between the soloist and orchestra is always very good. This is my new favorite recording of the Telemann Concerto.

Kenneth Martinson- professor of Viola at University of Florida, asst. editor of the American Viola Society Journal.

Although the number of orchestras which specialize in early music has grown tremendously over the last quarter century, Reinhard Goebel and MAK continue to remain a notch above all the rest, as this Telemann CD shows. They are the most technically proficient ensemble in the world; they have a lush, wonderfully rich and full string sound which no other group is able to match; they continue to unearth previously unknown musical gems; and they remain the most innovative, exciting group around, with an uncanny ability to stir the listener like nobody else. It doesn't matter that the personnel keeps changing; with Goebel and his musical ideas guiding the group, they will maintain their standard of excellence. This CD is full of some wonderful pieces, and MAK makes them all come alive with excitement. The viola concerto in G-Major has never sounded as good as it does here with Florian Deuter. Nobody has played Telemann better over the past 25 years than this group, and that remains true today.

Beautiful music, beautifully conducted and performed.

The Music Antiqua Cologne are my favorite ensemble; their playing is always top-notch. Further, this is a selection of some of Telemann's best works.

This is among the best CD's I've ever heard; great playing, great composing.

While acknowledging that one does not go to Telemann in search of anything like profundity, these concertos chosen by Goebel are vacuous even by Telemann's standards.

The only concerto with any sort of harmonic rigor and emotional expressiveness is the Concerto in G "a sei". This one is up to the standards of Telemann's Tafelmusik -- music in which he really applied himself. The last concerto for 2 Viols is slightly less interesting but possibly worth knowing.

The rest are cotton candy, and conductors like Goebel probably picked them for the same reason Telemann wrote them. They sell music. Any one less familiar with baroque music and classical music will probably enjoy them very much. But they're like over-sweet gum drops. It won't take long before you have had your fill of them and want something a little more substantial.

Good background music, but that's all.

I don't blame Telemann. The man knew how to make a living. I blame Goebel for his lack of taste. Telemann wrote far better stuff.

Yes, it's extremely well done and I would recommend it highly.

However, to say that this group is the best baroque ensemble is stretching it, to say the least. They have fine technique, but I've found other groups such as : Il Giardino Armonica, Rare Fruits Council, Europa Galante, Palladian, Florigellum, to be just as good if not better.

We are blessed that some very dedicated musicians have preserved and reproduced this wonderful old music.

The playing on this CD is excellent and the recording quality is fine. Some of the pieces are less interesting in terms of their composition in my opinion however. The later pieces on this disc with a more prominent solo instrument are perhaps the best here. If you are exploring baroque era music and are looking to try out Telemann you might consider his fantasias for solo violin or some of his excellent cantatas as a better place to start. He wrote some good table music as well.

Another bizarre and quirky performance by the people who play most things just too fast and others with stylized bad musicianship - the 'anything to be new and different crowd.' Where are they getting these ideas from? Not from any history I've ever read. The first movement of the G major viola concerto is a case in point with its annoying thud on the strong beats. The third movement is strangely rushed and the fourth is just plain too darn fast. Is this a new European thing? - everything very fast? And, though old instruments can be made to sound wonderful, the sound here is simply not good. While this group has produced a number of recordings over recent years (under various leaders) that are banal and rushed, they are now wandering into the weird and ungainly. Not my Baroque.

I am a great fan of Georg Philipp Telemann - but regret that in recent time he only gets performed by the "authentic instrument" specialists. Telemann's special qualities include the keenest ear for instrumental sonorities of all Baroque composers (he played all the instruments of the contemporaneous chamber orchestra). Nobody has exploited the brooding low register of the clarinet (chalumeau), the special quality of the viola, the viola da gamba, or the intriguing combination of recorder and flute (a popular concerto for this combination) Like Georg P. You can't know these qualities in "ancient instrument" groups because of the stylized, abbreviated or archaic-sound of the music. One Baroque composer tends to sound like another. You need modern instruments and sensibilities to bring out the ravishing tonal textures in Telemann - not to mention the clever solo-orchestral interplay. Iona Brown with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields did it up "Brown" with the Telemann violin concerti. Well, I give Musica Antiqua credit at least for playing Telemann.