Telemann: Harmonischer Gottesdienst, Cantatas for Easter & Pentecost

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Nowadays we may think of Bach as the great German Baroque composer, but in his own day Telemann was much more famous and more widely published. No doubt this is in part because Telemann knew his market. Take, for example, his most famous vocal collection: Harmonischer Gottesdienst is a cycle of cantatas for every Sunday and feast day in the Lutheran calendar. Telemann made sure the entire series was accessible to churches with limited resources–and even to musicians in private homes: all the cantatas have the same format (aria-recitative-aria) and scoring (one singer, one solo instrument, and continuo); extremes of vocal range and virtuosity are avoided. You might think that so many cantatas for so few musicians make for dull, limited music–in fact, Telemann’s way with a tune and a text transcends these limitations with aplomb. (The combination of inventiveness and prolific output reminds one of Vivaldi.) For a collection so popular in its ow (more…)