Telemann: La solitude à deux. Duos and Fantasias Without Bass

Featuring

Matteo Gemolo
Patrizio Germone
Georg Philipp Telemann

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Album & Artwork

The album's cover design is a collaboration with Atelier(s) Alfonso Femia and projects structural elements from their major architectural projects, such as the Marseille Docks, transforming the building's facade into art.

Instruments

The album features period instruments, including a copy of a one-keyed flute from Johann Wilhelm Oberlender (ca. 1730) and a reproduction of a violin by Girolamo and Antonio Amati (ca. 1629).

Interpretation

The performers chose a baroque flute and violin combination to restore the richness of timbres, dynamics, and counterpoint in Telemann's works, believing it offers greater transparency and dynamic range than two instruments of the same family.

Composition History

Telemann's Six Sonates sans basse, published in Hamburg in 1727, was his first instrumental music publication after a six-year break and was so successful it was reprinted in Amsterdam, Paris, and London.

Cultural Impact

Telemann's Sonates sans basse served as a model for Johann Joachim Quantz's later Sei Duetti a due flauti traversi and significantly influenced the flute playing of Friedrich Ludwig Dülon, a prominent flute virtuoso.

Compositional Technique

The Fantasia genre, rooted in late-Renaissance improvisation, allowed Telemann to freely express a wide range of affects, impromptu melodies, and virtuosic passages without strict rules or formal structures.

Compositional Technique

Telemann's Sonates sans basse, despite lacking a written bass line, still achieve harmonic and polyphonic depth, which performers can bring out through phrasing and dynamics.