Artists: Andrew Burn, Andreas Westermann
Recording Year: 2023
Release Date: 1.5.2026
This recording begins with a simple question: what might Georg Philipp Telemann have written for a truly virtuoso bassoonist? Although Telemann frequently employed one or more bassoons in his vocal and instrumental works, the surviving solo repertoire offers little that reflects the level of technical ambition found in his writing for flute, violin, or viola da gamba. Yet contemporary sources make clear that highly skilled professional bassoonists were active throughout the early eighteenth century. This album assembles a program drawn from works explicitly involving the bassoon alongside selected adaptations from Telemann’s music for other instruments, proposing a plausible concert platform for such a player.
The approach taken here is informed by eighteenth-century performance practices that assumed a high degree of instrumental flexibility and elaboration. Telemann’s Sonate methodiche, as well as treatises by Hotteterre and Quantz, demonstrate the extent to which ornamentation, preluding, and cadential expansion were expected to be supplied by the performer. The liberties heard on this recording are grounded in these models. Rather than presenting the music as fixed text, the project seeks to restore the space for invention that was integral to Telemann’s musical world.
