Telemann: Gambenkonzerte

Don't suppose for a moment, dear music-lover, that you've heard all there is to hear from Georg Philipp Telemann! He'll pull the rug out from under you with the next CD you listen to. Not only was he probably the most prolific composer of his century -- less than a tenth of his total surviving oeuvre has been recorded so far -- but also, as Hille Perl expresses in the notes to this CD "no other composer ... enriched the musical life with such a variety of styles, techniques, and experiments." It's a standing joke in baroque ensembles that Telemann could compose music faster than we can play it.

The music played here by gamba diva Hille Perl and the twelve musicians of the Freiburger Barockorchester is anything but facile or trivial. It's all Telemann at his best: witty, musically generous, dramatic, even magniloquent, and brilliantly idiomatic for the viola da gamba, that instrument so prominent in baroque music and so soon to become defunct in the romantic orchestra. The two "concerti" for gamba and basso continuo are concertos only in musical structure, chamber concertos that allow the gamba to resound. The third concerto, for gamba and two violins, is likewise a chamber work, but all three concerti are rambunctious, exuberant display pieces - "barn burners" - for the soloists. If your auditory image of the viola da gamba is entirely based on the grave and moody French repertoire of Sainte-Colombe and Marais, the soundtrack music of the film "Tous Les Matins du Monde", you'll be astounded at the vigor and virtuosity demanded of the player by this music. It's obvious that violinist/conductor Petra Müllejans hears Telemann in those terms, of vigor and virtuosity, and elicits them from her ensemble. This is one of the most robust interpretations of Telemann you'll ever hear, a quality enhanced by "aggressive" miking. It wouldn't sound so potent in a vast concert hall; you'd need front seats in an acoustically live salon to experience such intensity.

Hille Perl is a "force of nature", a person so entirely enraptured by music, from her earliest childhood, that it pours out of her like sexuality from Great Garbo or Marilyn Monroe. There's nothing academic or over-cultured about her style; she drives her gamba like a race car to its maximum dynamic capacity. Her audience appeal is huge. If you doubt it, look for her on YouTube; some of her clips have been seen by thousands of fans. And if you still crave the melancholy darkness of 'Tous les Matins', she's recorded that also, on a CD titled "Sainte Colombe - Retrouvé & Changé"