Georg Philipp Telemann

German composer

• Born: March 14, 1681
• Birthplace: Magdeburg, Brandenburg (now in Germany)
• Died: June 25, 1767
• Place of death: Hamburg (now in Germany)

In addition to creating a vast body of beautiful music, Telemann championed the development of simpler, more readily accessible forms of composition, expanded the control of composers over their works, and paved the way for the transition from the Baroque to the classical style.

Early Life

Georg Philipp Telemann (gay-AWRK FEE-lihp TAY-luh-mahn) was the younger of two sons born to Heinrich Telemann, a minister at the Church of the Holy Ghost at Magdeburg. Both of Telemann’s grandfathers had been clergymen, and nearly all of his known ancestors had been university educated. It was therefore natural that Telemann would be expected to follow in their footsteps. He was sent to local schools to study Latin, rhetoric, and dialectic (logical reasoning) but immediately demonstrated a great talent for music, too. Without any formal instruction, Telemann taught himself to play the violin, flute, zither, and keyboard instruments, as well as the rudiments of composition, by the age of ten. He was soon writing operatic arias, motets, short instrumental pieces, and, by the time he was twelve, his first opera.

Telemann’s interest in music greatly alarmed his mother, who wanted him to become a minister. She prohibited him from engaging in any further musical activity, took away his instruments, and sent him away to school at the town of Zellerstadt. There, she hoped, the superintendent would guide the young man back to the true path. Ironically, however, the superintendent was an expert in theoretical music studies; instead of discouraging Telemann, he taught his pupil the relationships between music and mathematics and helped him hone his expertise in composition.

After completing his elementary schooling, Telemann continued his education at Hildesheim, where he was once again blessed with a mentor who encouraged his musical interests. For the next four years, Telemann wrote incidental songs for school plays (performed in Latin) and joined his fellow students in performances of German cantatas at a local church. He also traveled to Hannover and Brunswick, where he attended performances of French instrumental music and Italian opera. Fired with enthusiasm, he began writing compositions modeled on these popular styles.

In autumn, 1701, Telemann was matriculated at the University of Leipzig. Since he had displayed no interest in theology, his mother decided that he should study law. Telemann dutifully left all of his music and instruments at home in Magdeburg and even attempted to conceal his musical talent from the other students. He could not stop composing, however, and one day his roommate discovered a cantata Telemann had written and arranged to have it performed at the Thomaskirche, a famous Leipzig church. The mayor of Leipzig, who heard the performance, was so impressed that he commissioned Telemann to write a new cantata for the church every other week. From that point on, Telemann’s future as a composer was firmly set.

Life’s Work

From the very beginning of his career, Telemann was a pioneer of new musical styles. Throughout the seventeenth century, the dominant Baroque style had become increasingly complex, employing layers of counterpoint and polyphony in densely magnificent musical structures. By the early 1700’s, however, younger composers were seeking new, simpler forms of musical expression that could be understood and enjoyed by a wider public than the highly educated and cultured upper classes. Composers such as Telemann, George Frideric Handel, and Gottfried Stoelzel were in the vanguard of this movement.

Telemann threw himself into his new profession with furious energy. In 1702, he organized a student collegium musicum (music society), which began giving regular public concerts. Since many of the music students earned a little extra money singing in local opera houses, Telemann’s leadership of the collegium thus led him into a position as Kapellmeister (music director) of the new Leipzig Opera, where he composed numerous operas and employed students as both singers and instrumentalists. Two years later, in 1704, he added even more to his responsibilities by winning the position of organist and music director at the Neukirche, the university church. There he led his collegium musicum in concerts of sacred music, much of which he himself composed.

Inevitably, perhaps, older and more traditional composers resisted what they perceived in the new music as a decline of standards. Leipzig’s music director, Johann Kuhnau, was in charge of music production for all of the city’s churches, and he resented the instant popularity of the young newcomer. He complained to the city fathers that Telemann’s new commission infringed on his rights and characterized Telemann as nothing but an “opera musician” who was stealing all the students away from the city churches to the Neukirche. Telemann’s reputation had grown so much and so quickly, however, that Kuhnau’s complaints were ignored.

So popular had Telemann become, in fact, that in 1705 he was appointed Kapellmeister to the court of the count of Promnitz at Sorau in Lower Lusatia (part of modern Poland). In eighteenth century Germany, an aspiring composer had two possible career paths: He could obtain a position as a choir or music director for a city in one or more of its local churches; or, if lucky, he might win employment as Kapellmeister or Konzertmeister (orchestra leader) at the court of a nobleman. With his appointment to the court of Promnitz, Telemann started his climb to the heights of the eighteenth century composer’s world.

Like many German noblemen of the time, the count had acquired a taste for French instrumental music. Telemann was therefore required to churn out French-style overtures as well as other instrumental and operatic music, but, at least at first, he looked upon such “assembly-line” composing as an opportunity to sharpen his command of music theory. Traveling with the count to Upper Silesia, Telemann also became acquainted with Polish folk music, many of whose themes he later incorporated into his own works.

Though he was happy in his position, Telemann resigned in 1707, apparently because of unsettled political conditions in eastern Germany, which was being invaded by King Charles XII of Sweden. When the battlefront reached the lands of the count, his court was dispersed. Telemann had few regrets, however, for not only had he recently become engaged to one of the ladies-in-waiting to the countess of Promnitz but also he had received an even better appointment. On Christmas Eve, 1708, he arrived in the city of Eisenach to take charge of the newly formed musical establishment of the duke of Saxe-Eisenach, one of the great noblemen of Germany.

As Konzertmeister of the duke’s orchestra, Telemann continued to produce a constant stream of overtures, concerti, and chamber music. When the duke completed the construction of a new palace chapel, Telemann added church cantatas, oratorios, and ceremonial music to his output, in addition to supervising the training of choristers. During this busy period, he was allowed to take a leave of absence for only a few months in 1709, in order to return to Sorau to collect his new bride (but not until he had solemnly promised not to accept any other position).

In January, 1711, however, Telemann’s life was shattered by the death of his wife following the birth of a daughter. It has been suggested by some historians that this experience drove him to leave Eisenach, while others assert that Telemann was simply tired of producing reams of music tailored to the tastes of his noble patrons. In any case, in February, 1712, he accepted an invitation to become music director for the city of Frankfurt, where he was more at liberty to compose as his inspiration led him. In addition, he had the opportunity to influence and develop the musical life of the city: Once again, he organized a collegium musicum, and he led it in weekly public concerts. He composed several cycles of cantatas and oratorios for the churches, orchestral and chamber works for the collegium, and special pieces for civic celebrations. He also remarried, in 1714, and somehow managed to find time to father ten more children (none of whom became a musician).

Though relatively content at Frankfurt, Telemann was disappointed by the lack of an outlet for his operatic talents. When the city of Hamburg offered him the position of city music director there in July, 1721, he quickly accepted, apparently because Hamburg had an opera house. For the rest of his life, Telemann provided the city with unprecedented quantities of church and civic music, trained and led choirs, organized yet another collegium musicum, and led its concerts. At the same time, as music director of the Hamburg Opera from 1722 until it closed in 1738, he wrote and directed more than twenty operas of his own, also producing those of other composers, including Handel. Not satisfied with these accomplishments, Telemann became his own publisher, personally engraving the printing press plates, writing his own advertising copy, and arranging for distribution in cities all over Europe.

In 1740, he decided to retire from independent composing to devote the rest of his life to writing books on musical theory, though he continued to meet his civic obligations as Hamburg’s music director. For fifteen years, he kept to this decision, but, in 1755, possibly influenced by his old friend Handel, he once again, at age seventy-four, began to write oratorios, and many of these were performed long after his death in 1767. In an age when popular music came and went almost as quickly as the latest hits of modern times, this was a remarkable testament to the genius of this most prolific of composers.

Significance

Georg Philipp Telemann was not a physically remarkable man, despite his prodigious energy and unusual longevity. Portraits of him reveal a stolid, serious, workmanlike demeanor; he could easily be taken for a banker. Until recently, this image reflected critical opinion of Telemann’s music, too: It was considered pleasant and craftsmanlike, but not at all in the same class as that of Johann Sebastian Bach. Telemann was regarded as a hack who had turned out masses of superficial music (more than three thousand pieces) on demand. Only in the last half-century have his achievements begun to be adequately appreciated.

Telemann was part—and often the leader—of a movement that brought great changes in German music. Until the beginning of the eighteenth century, a composer’s music was dictated by the position he held: Music directors were not allowed to write operas, and court composers had to satisfy the tastes of their patrons. Telemann, however, refused to be bound by such restrictions: He took his music out of the churches and the noble courts and into the newly constructed opera houses and concert halls. In his public concerts, he might combine a program of church music, instrumental works, and operatic excerpts, thus giving music lovers an opportunity to hear and enjoy many varieties of music. By aggressively promoting the publication of his music, he assured that it would be available to anyone who wanted it, and, by making many of his works as simple as possible, he encouraged musicians of all levels of ability to play it, whether professionally or simply at home for pleasure. Insisting that the composer had the right to do with his works whatever he saw fit, Telemann helped to establish a new tradition of the artist as an independent agent, rather than simply the servant or employee of someone else.

Through his tremendous energy and his interest in teaching others, Telemann influenced an entire generation of German composers. The collegia he established became the training ground of younger men such as Johann Friedrich Fasch and Gottfried Stoelzel, who modeled their compositions after his. The texts he wrote were used and praised many decades after his death. His music, however, was buried in obscurity at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Bach revival of the 1840’s fostered an image of Baroque composition sharply at odds with the simpler kind of music that Telemann wrote, and it was not until the twentieth century that scholars such as Max Schneider and Romain Rolland argued that Telemann and Bach were simply not comparable: Bach, they asserted, looked backward to a style that was already obsolete, while Telemann was a forerunner of the classical period. It is only recently, through the growing number and popularity of Telemann recordings, that his primary goal of making music for everyone is finally being met.

Bibliography

Abraham, Gerald. The Concise Oxford History of Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. An outstanding general history of music. Groups types of music topically, rather than by composer, with a broad chronological framework. Thus, references to Telemann are scattered about the text, according to the type of music being discussed (such as Italian opera, French overtures, and so on). Extensive bibliography.

Borroff, Edith. The Music of the Baroque. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1970. An excellent, if brief, introduction to Baroque music for students with minimal musical background. Musical examples are explained sufficiently to allow beginning students to learn a substantial amount of music theory. Includes excellent, entertaining, and well-arranged illustrations. An outstanding feature is the inclusion of brief discographies for each type and area of music discussed.

Bukofzer, Manfred F. Music in the Baroque Era, from Monteverdi to Bach. New York: W. W. Norton, 1947. A classic text on the Baroque era. Although highly readable, this is definitely an academic work for the serious student and requires substantial music background. Contains useful chapters for the nonspecialist on “Musical Thought of the Baroque Era” and “Sociology of Baroque Music,” which illuminate the social, political, and intellectual milieu in which Baroque composers worked. A massive bibliography, and lists of published editions of composers’ works are included.

Maczewsky, A. “Georg Philipp Telemann.” In Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Eric Blom. Vol. 8. London: Macmillan, 1954. Maczewsky’s article was the standard biography of Telemann at the beginning of the post-World War II revival of interest in the composer. Well written, solidly researched, but not superseded by Martin Ruhnke’s work.

Petzoldt, Richard. Georg Philipp Telemann. Translated by Horace Fitzpatrick. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. The only modern book-length biography of Telemann in English. Full of fascinating anecdotes as well as a thorough analysis of Telemann’s music. While a knowledge of music theory would be helpful, almost any reader can enjoy this enthusiastic work. Includes a comprehensive bibliography.

Rolland, Romain. A Musical Tour Through the Lands of the Past. Translated by Bernard Miall. London: Oxford University Press, 1922. As one of the greatest twentieth century music historians, Rolland was largely responsible for the reevaluation of Telemann. Rolland insisted that Telemann was an unappreciated genius whose energy, fertile imagination, and unselfish desire to give music to the whole world inspired his followers and helped bring about the classical era.

Ruhnke, Martin. “Georg Philipp Telemann.” In North European Baroque Masters. New York: W. W. Norton, 1985. A concise biography, one of six included in this volume, all by noted musical scholars. Contains an excellent, updated catalog of Telemann’s works, as well as a comprehensive bibliography.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Relationships Between the Life and Work of Georg Philipp Telemann.” The Consort, no. 24 (1967): 271-279. One of the few specialized studies of Telemann in English. Useful even for those without extensive musical background, since it focuses on the events of Telemann’s life and how they appear to have influenced his work. Ruhnke presents evidence to refute many older views of Telemann and analyzes and compares the three autobiographies Telemann wrote.