Georg Philipp Telemann

Georg Philipp Telemann was born in Magdeburg on 14 March 1681. His father, a pastor, died when he was four. The boy was passionate about music from an early age and taught himself, in secret, the flute, violin, zither and keyboard. At twelve he even composed a little opera. His mother, who wanted him to be a lawyer, confiscated his instruments and sent him to a distant school at Zellerfeld in the Harz. But Telemann kept composing, and his teachers ended up encouraging his talent.

In 1701 he went to study law at the University of Leipzig. On the way he stopped in Halle, where he met young Handel, who became a lifelong friend. In Leipzig his musical gifts were soon noticed: he founded a Collegium musicum, a student orchestra giving public concerts, directed the city’s opera and composed for St Thomas’s Church. He then gave up law for good in favour of music.

In 1705 he became Kapellmeister to Count Promnitz at Sorau in Silesia (now Żary in Poland). There he discovered Polish and Moravian folk music played in inns, whose “barbaric beauty” he admired and incorporated into his own music. He also studied the works of Lully and Campra and composed many French-style overtures. In 1708 he was appointed Konzertmeister at the court of Eisenach, where he met Johann Sebastian Bach.

In 1712 he became director of music for the free city of Frankfurt am Main, where he organised public concerts. In 1714 he was godfather to Bach’s second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel. In 1721 he obtained the most prestigious post of his career: director of music for the five main churches of Hamburg, the richest city in Germany. He stayed there until his death forty-six years later, also running the city’s opera and organising countless concerts.

In 1722 the Leipzig council elected him Cantor of St Thomas’s. Telemann used the offer to obtain better conditions in Hamburg and ultimately declined. After another candidate also refused, the council resigned itself to hiring… Johann Sebastian Bach, in 1723. At the time Telemann was considered the greatest composer in Germany, far more famous than Bach.

Telemann is one of the most prolific composers in history: more than three thousand works, including over a thousand sacred cantatas, forty-six Passions, some fifty operas and hundreds of overture-suites and concertos for all kinds of instruments. He published much of his music himself and invented the subscription: with Der getreue Music-Meister (1728) he issued new pieces every two weeks, like a musical magazine. The Tafelmusik (1733), table music for banquets, is among his most famous collections.

In 1737–38 he made a triumphant visit to Paris, where he had his Paris Quartets published and performed. In old age he became passionate about botany and grew rare flowers, which Handel sent him from England. Past eighty he was still composing the oratorio Der Tag des Gerichts (1762). He died in Hamburg on 25 June 1767, aged eighty-six. His godson Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach succeeded him. Long dismissed as superficial, he is now recognised as a master of elegance and variety.