Customer Reviews

Telemann: Trio Sonatas

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My listening is schizophrenic. One side of me takes in overall musicological detail regarding Baroque compositions, skill and quality of performance, and the insight performers bring to their published recording. This side of me rates Parnassi Musici's recording five stars.

The boom in Baroque music has created many younger groups with fascinating European groups with mixed nationalities - and often American performers. Among this record's performers Matthias Fischer, violin; Stephan Schrader, violoncello; and Martin Lutz, harpsichord and organ, are German. Sergio Azzolini was born and got his early training in Bolzano a northern Italian city with strong influences from its former history as a part of Austria. His training to become one of the world's master baroque bassonists included studies in Hannover, and a professorship in Stuttgart,Germany. He's now associated with the Basel Music Academy in Switzerland. All the instrumentalists perform with effortless technique, and ensemble nuance.

Teaming up with her "European Union" colleagues, is Margaret MacDuffie, violin. Among her training influences was study in Warsaw, Poland under a Fulbright scholarship, and baroque violin studies with Daniel Stepner (now at Brandeis and Harvard Universities). She is now a member of the Southwest German Radio Orchestra of Freiburg, Germany.

One unusual feature of this recording is its knowledgeable and insightful liner notes on Georg Philipp Telemann and his music - devoid of usual cliches about Telemann's huge productivity, etc. This is also associated with the group's intensive library research and performance of rare works.

Examples include: "What for us seems to be so natural and self evident in his trio compositions - the balance of form, the casual conversational tone of the instruments, the ingenious singing design never overladen with counterpoint, and the sparkling allusions to stylistic models from Corelli to Polish inn (folk) music - all this had to be invented." and "..he packed into his trios everything that Germany's rich musical had to offer in sources of inspiration".

The notes also include a dated list of Telemann trios showing the evolution of this form, which among other things led to Telemann's pioneering chamber music in quartets for various instruments.

Now, having said these things, I have to admit the more emotional side of my schizophrenic listening. This is a "regressive" tendency to most enjoy Telemann played with modern instruments and tastefully adapted vibrato and adventuresome dynamics - something one normally has to go back to recordings before the 1980s recordings to find (but please let me know if I'm missing newer recordings). Part of the reason is that I think that Telemann was a (pre)romantic in temperament. He relished exploring new sonorities achieved with unusual instrumental combinations (like the Concerto for Flute and Recorder, in E-minor - where he uniquely exploits the timbres of each solo instrument and their combinations). His music can also obviously - to my mind - call for crescendi, sudden changes in rhythm, loudness or softness, and dramatic color effects. The wild Polish folk fiddlers and bagpipers incorporated in the finale of the above Concerto is a case in point.

However, I greatly enjoyed the Parnassi group's musicality, spirit, and choice of repertory, and am pleased to spend this time with fellow baroque music lovers in sharing a few details about their fine work.

Beautifully played and very realistically recorded, engaging music from the master of melodic invention. The Opening movement from the Quartet is one of the most seductive Baroque sound-pictures I've ever heard, with beautiful counterpoint between organ and violins. A winner.