Program Notes
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Don Quixote Suite
Duration: ca. 17 minutes
If any composer gets credit for earning his keep,
Telemann can’t be ignored. A craftsman in the true
sense, he churned out music with tenacity, and lots of
it. The Telemann library tops 3,000 works, including
church cantatas, orchestral suites, masses, passions,
operas, and oodles of chamber pieces.
Like Bach, he was paid to crank out music, both
sacred and secular, for a paycheck. One of Telemann’s
talents was his ability to absorb international styles
– German, Italian, French, Polish – allowing him to
meet the demands of his benefactors. If he sounds
a bit dated today, in his time Telemann was cutting
edge and contemporary, moving away from Baroque
counterpoint, for instance, to the more progressive
galant style with its lighter rococo ornamentation. He
helped pave the way for what would be considered
new musical trends of the time.
However, for all his prodigious skills, Telemann is
not known for any single masterpiece; most all of
his music is pleasant and melodious without being
especially distinctive. His music is rarely heard on
orchestra programs, so it’s no surprise that TFO
is performing the Don Quixote Suite and Grillen-
Symphonie for the first time.
Like many composers of his day, Telemann was
intrigued by Cervantes’ influential novel, Don
Quixote de la Mancha, and devised a program suite
that depicts episodes in Don Quixote’s life. It opens
with an overture in the French style, rhythmic
and punctuated by a fugal section. The episodes
continue with the Awakening of Quixote, Attack on
the Windmills, Sighs of Love for the Princess Dulcinee,
Sancho Panza Mocked, Rosinante’s Galloping, and
Galloping of Sancho’s Donkey. The suite ends quietly
as Quixote falls asleep.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
Duration: ca. 10 minutes
When Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750, he was
little known outside his native Germany, and many
of his more than 1,225 surviving works fell into
obscurity. Unlike his contemporaries, Handel and
Telemann, who enjoyed continental fame, Bach
mastered his art in relative quiet and was considered
a purveyor of old-fashioned music.
Today, it seems inconceivable that Bach would
be ignored for nearly a century. By the mid-1800s,
evidence continued to surface that would form one
THE FLORIDA OR 46 CHESTRA | 2018-2019
of the greatest bodies of work by any artist. From the
breathtaking spirit of his masses, passions and sacred
works to the contrapuntal puzzles of his fantasies
and fugues, Bach achieved a level of consistency that
defies lumping his life’s work into early, middle and
late periods. A seriousness of purpose underlines
everything he composed – he lived for the “glory of
God and refreshment of the soul’’ – spanning the
grandiose creations for chorus and orchestra to the
simplest utterance for a single instrument.
An exception can be made with the collection of six
Brandenburg Concerti, which are neither serious nor
specifically inspired by a higher power. Contrary to
what some may believe, they were not dashed off
as a complete set for the Margrave of Brandenburg,
but composed over a decade, and Bach felt free to
borrow from them in writing later works, such as the
cantatas.
The Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major embodies
a richness of color, texture, and tempo that form a
harmonic tapestry only Bach could invent. The work
is a marvel of craftsmanship in the use of strings,
dazzling in their sinuous and slippery sonorities. The
original scoring for strings alone – no woodwinds
or brass – includes three violins, three violas,
three cellos, bass, and harpsichord. As you listen
to the energetic opening movement, note how the
ensemble plays simultaneous roles as both virtuosic
soloist, called concertino, and accompanist by the
group, called ripieno, tossing the ball back and forth.
Although in three movements, the adagio in the
middle is but a half-minute whisper using only two
chords, the second held by a fermata – a pause of
indefinite length. Suddenly, the third movement
bursts onto the scene and carries listeners off on a
delirious rhythmic venture that ends almost as soon
as it began.
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Grillen-Symphonie
Duration: ca. 8 minutes
Telemann composed his first opera when he was 12
and the marks of a musical proficiency and fluency
unmatched in his time. He could write for most any
occasion, on any deadline, for both professionals
and amateurs. He can be credited for the growth
of music appreciation societies in Germany and
the developing role of the musician as respected
member of the working class.
Telemann cut his paycheck by addressing the musical
needs of the church and court, but not everything he
created was contractual, much less serious-minded.
Much of his work can be lighthearted, including