The seemingly endless supply of Telemann’s orchestral music shows no sign of palling in this latest release from Collegium Musicum 90, which mixes two colourful overture-suites with works for that mellow forerunner of the clarinet, the chalumeau, and the Concerto for viola which is famous mainly for being, well, a concerto for viola. The last three works are somewhat conventional, it must be admitted, but all show how readily the adaptable Telemann was able to find distinctive and attractive qualities in individual instruments, however unusual; the concerto for two chalumeaux, especially, has a calming summer-night feel to it. All are expertly played by their respective soloists.
Undoubtedly of more interest, though, are the two suites, both of which feature a sequence of movements depicting the peoples of different European nations. Telemann’s allusions are sometimes a little obscure – I can’t for the life of me think what makes one movement Swedish and another Swiss – but the results are certainly fun; try “Les turcs”, or the brief but extraordinary “Les moscovites”, with its three-note bell ostinato not unlike Bizet’s L’Arlesienne. The performances are clean, neatly characterized and brightly recorded, from an orchestra that is really beginning to settle into a character of its own these days.
I’ve said before that one can’t listen to Telemann without warming to the man in the way one does to Haydn, but on the evidence of these pieces you would have to deduce that not only was he an affable companion but also unfailingly witty and probably an entertaining mimic as well. How his musicians must have loved him! If I get to heaven, he can come to my first dinner party.'