Water Music

saidthewizard:

Today, June 25th, is the 250th anniversary of the death of Georg Philipp Telemann.

He was one of those rare musical figures who spanned an age of growing cultural upheaval and successfully adjusted to the changing demands of the times. His earliest works reflect Heinrich Schütz, his late phase looks ahead to Mozart – a most gifted composer, and one who explored his gifts against the decided wish of his family. Telemann was meant to study law but defied expectaions to explore the world of music, and in the process much to enrich it.

Here is one of his most popular works, called Water Music (Hamburger Ebb’ und Fluth), an orchestral suite centering on the river Elbe which was – and to some extent continues to be even today – the life blood of the North German port city of Hamburg. In 1723, when Telemann wrote this, he had for two years been music director of the city’s largest churches, a job so well paid that he even turned down an offer to succeed J S Bach as Thomas-Kantor in Leipzig. This shows him to have been a man not perhaps relentlessly determined to place artistic interests above  material values. All the same, he must be remembered as one of the greatest composers of the baroque era.

Wassermusik – Hamburger Ebb’ und Fluth TWV 55

1. Ouverture (Grave – Allegro)
2. Sarabande. Die schlafende Thetis (The Sleeping Tehtis)
3. Bourée. Die erwachende Thetis (Thetis Awakes)
4. Loure. Der verliebte Neptun (Neptune in Love)
5. Gavotte. Spielende Najaden (Water Spirits At Play)
6. Harlequinade. Der scherzende Tritonus (Jocular Tritonus)
7. Der stürmende Aeolus (Aelos, Raging)
8. Menuet. Der angenehme Zephir (Pleasant Zepyhr)
9. Gigue. Ebbe und Fluth (Low and High Tide)
10. Canarie. Die lustigen Bootsleute (The Joyful Watermen)

Musica Antqua Köln is conducted in this recording by Reinhard Goebel.