The German record company CPO deserve praise for their enterprising forays into Telemann’s vocal music (6/94, 7/94, 9/94 and 1/95). The quantity of surviving pieces is daunting, so all the more credit is due to those who are exploring this territory with requisite selective judgement and, by and large, compelling performance flair.
A couple of years after Telemann’s appointment as Hamburg’s music director in 1721, the Hanseatic city’s admiralty celebrated its centenary. Telemann was called upon to provide both Tafelmusik and postprandial musical entertainment. A contemporary account suggests that it went down well with the assembled burgers, salts and sea-dogs: “During the dinner a very pleasant piece of music by Mr Telemann was performed and, separately, an outstanding serenade to extremely beautiful verses by the well-liked Mr Professor Richey. The festivities continued until morning.” The music performed on these two discs constitutes Telemann’s first Admiralty Music; later on he was required to provide music on a more modest scale for further admiralty junkets.
Readers with an affection for Telemann will quickly recognize an old friend in the orchestral suite Hamburger Ebb und Fluth. The piece has been recorded many times over the past 35 years or so and is one of the most engaging examples from his pen of a form at which he excelled. The Bremen Baroque Orchestra give a lively and elegantly shaped performance of the work, introducing to its French overture a degree of gravitas appropriate to the occasion.
Following the orchestral suite comes the Admiralitatsmusik serenade itself. This is scored for soprano, two tenors and three bass solo vocalists, choir and instruments, and has its own introductory French overture whose opening gestures call to mind the overture to Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks written a quarter of a century later. Richey’s poem – he was a teacher at the Johanneum school where Telemann also taught ex officio – is a paean to Hamburg, its institutions, its government and, not least, its prosperity. Each of the soloists assumes a role. Hamburg (Harmonia) is assigned to the soprano, judicial wisdom (Themis) to a countertenor, prosperity (Mercurius) to a tenor, the Elbe (Albis), North Sea (Neptunus) and republican liberty (Mars) to three basses. Recitatives and arias for these dramatis personae make up the greater part of Richey’s text, lightly seasoned with occasional choruses for nymphs, tritons and the like.
While it is more than likely that the audience in whose honour the serenade was written responded more readily to the topical and topographical allusions in Richey’s text than to Telemann’s music, quite the reverse applies today. Richey’s platitudinous, at times flatulent sentiments are not likely to fire the imagination of late twentieth-century landlubbers. Yet Telemann’s contribution, though uneven, is colourfully depictive and, as always, full of alluring charm. The solo team is a strong one – there are no real disappointments here, but the Alsfeld Vocal Ensemble do not always match them in tonal precision. The string playing is clean but would have better served the music if it had been more rhythmically incisive.
In summary, this is a fascinating issue. The Admiralitatsmusik, itself new to the catalogue, throws fresh light on the multifarious activities of this most prolific of composers. While by no means a forgotten masterpiece the score is sufficiently blessed with musical delights to warrant warm commendation. Clear sound from a live recording made in Bremen in 1995, and helpful notes with full texts and translations.'