Search - Andrew Joy, Andras Keller, Manfred Kramer :: Telemann: Tafelmusik (Musique de Table partagée en Trois Productions)

SENSATIONAL!!!!!!!

D. Gammelgard | Falun, Sweden | 03/27/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This might be the best baroque recording ever made!! You MUST hear it!!

The precision, intonation, phrasing and overall playing is nothing but spectacular. The music is also wonderful. It has everything to entertain and touch you. There is nothing that comes close to this recorded today. Mark my words. Reinhard Goebel is a genius and this was the golden period of his legendary ensemble, Musica Antiqua Köln.

If possible, I would give it ten stars. A MUST HAVE!!!!"

Spectacular

anonymous | Los Angeles | 05/05/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've been a fan of Telemann's Tafelmusik ever since I bought the Telefunken vinyl set featuring a young Frans Bruggen and a bunch of his friends in the pickup band Concerto Amsterdam, most of the members of which went on to major careers in music. That was over 30 years ago. After performing some of this music myself, and listening to it a great deal, my devotion to the music has only grown.



The Bruggen set is still competitive in many ways..but Goebel outdoes it in all the ways that count.



Superlatives fail in trying to describe just how good Goebel's achievement is here. Technically, the recording is flawless: not too close, not too distant. The perspective is about what you would have heard in Telemann's time, listening to seasoned pros play in a good room. Very dynamic, very detailed. Timbres are slightly thinned out, mostly due to digital technology at the time, unfortunately. MAK was somewhat warmer sounding in person, but this does not detract in any way from the overall immaculately beautiful quality of these recordings.



The playing is as you'd expect. Not just perfect, but perfect PLUS. Soulful when it should be, fiery when it should be. Goebel and his colleagues work this music for everything in it. This was clearly a labor of love for all concerned, and when you couple that love with the kind of virtuosity in all dimensions that MAK brought to everything they touched it's inarguable that Telemann himself (who knew good playing when he heard it--he worked with the greatest musicians in Europe for many years) would have been utterly floored by this playing.



The virtuosity, the precision and fire and WIT of the playing is simply unmatched in this, or most other music. MAK's and Goebel's work here is a model of how to play this music. This was Goebel and MAK at the very peak of their collective artistic power ... any professional musician who is honest with themselves cannot be other than humbled by what these guys have wrought here. The hot blood flows in every note here, hot blood controlled with enormous discipline and care for even the tiniest details. These guys *get* Telemann and his art from soup to nuts.



Finally, a word about the music itself. This is Telemann also at the peak of his powers. While his second set of Paris Quartets, some of his other concertos and Suites (the Dharmstadt Suites come to mind) and a few of his vocal/choral pieces come close to the genius of the Tafelmusik, this collection of orchestral and chamber pieces reigns supreme in his art, and everyone else's, as a thorough representation of instrumental music genres of the time.



Telemann puts everything he has on the table here, and the result is nothing short of miraculous. Yes, Telemann, at his best, was a miracle of music on the order of Bach and Mozart and any other big name you care to think of. Humorless Bach acolytes will disagree, but the Telemann of the Tafelmusik proves he deserved his status as greatest composer in Europe.



Telemann's art is the art of pure, sensual beauty. Pleasure for pleasure's sake. When the relentless profundity of Bach is finally too much, Telemann invites you to put your feet up, close your eyes, and let the music dissolve the tension of being human. Invites you to delight in the sheer sensual pleasure of sound, flowing out with all the art and wit of which Telemann was capable. In his own way, Telemann could be as profound as Bach, but because the two men had such different temperaments, it's probably useless, in a sense, to compare them. And we don't have to. We can enjoy both. Telemann and Bach did. They both admired each other, and collected and performed each other's music. We can do no better than follow their example.



There is so much to point out, but I'll confine myself to just a three pieces...the concerto for flute and violin is packed with beauties..Telemann's ability to synthesize his folksy bent, with the most sophisticated French and Italian styles, to make something unique, is on florid display in this concerto. There is not one moment in the entire thing that is routine. The same could be said of every piece in the Tafelmusik.



the Solo Sonata for flute is a little miracle all by itself, with telemann's most subtle and tender mastery of the French style in clear evidence. It's a masterpiece of the kind.



And the Suite for two oboes is a tour-de-force of technical mastery and sonic pleasure. Telemann was always kind to the oboes, giving them all kinds of tasty music over a long career. The play between the solo oboes, violin, cello, and the rest of the orchestra is exceedingly witty and beautiful.



In much of this music you can hear the sound of the future being born, too. Whether he knew it or not (and he probably knew it), Mozart owed more to Telemann than most of us realize.



This is recording that belongs in every serious classical library. It is one of the greatest achievements in modern classical music recording, and we're very lucky to have it."

An abundance of treasures

Artiste | Minneapolis, MN USA | 06/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have been re-listening to these terrific CDs and appreciate them more than upon first hearing them. As with other Telemann programs by the wonderful MAK, this one---and it's a big one: 4 CDs---serves to destroy any notion that Telemann was a boring, long-winded, repetitive artist. The variety and imaginative combination of instruments make for pure delight indeed. No group has done more to further the much-maligned reputation of this great, gifted baroque composer. If you haven't moved beyond Bach and Handel in your baroque meanderings, this set of Telemann works is a wonderful place to start."