All good things must come to an end. In early 18th century London, a new arrival from abroad played a significant role in completely transforming opera on English stages. That figure, George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), was born in central Germany, trained partly in Hamburg and partly in Italy. Around 1711 this 25 year old composer, performer, and impresario settled in London, bringing with him a wealth of experience and connections that was unequaled. He rode a wave of interest in Italian music, serious opera in particular, and began staging lavish productions with exotic foreign singers. In 1719 Handel founded a company, the Royal Academy of Music (not related to the modern conservatory by that name), tasked specifically with bringing forth Italian opera seria. That began an immensely fruitful relationship, drawing Europe’s finest singers to London, and bringing to stage a series of brilliant works from Handel’s pen: Radamisto, Ottone, Giulio Cesare, Allesandro, Scipione, and a half dozen more. But within a decade, the company had collapsed; the star voices took new engagements, costs were outstripping revenues, and rivalries crisscrossed between artistic, political, and financial realms.

Handel’s final opera for the Academy was Tolomeo, a fictionalized tale of revenge and high passion surrounding the reign of Egypt’s Ptolemy IX (ruled 116-107 BC). The project also brought to an end Handel’s collaboration with three leading personalities upon which his success had been built: sopranos Faustina Bordoni, Francesca Cuzzoni, and the castrato Francesco Bernardi (aka Senesino). Senesino delivered the role of Tolomeo, which – after a string of hidden identities, loyalty challenges, and attempted romantic bargains – culminates in the Act 3 aria “Stille, Amare.” Tolomeo has remained faithful to his true love, choosing death over disloyalty. In this signature aria, he is forced to drink poison and feel his vitality ebb slowly away. Handel uses a time-tested harmonic formula, the so-called lament bass, in its most plangent, chromatic version to suggest the hero’s flagging life force. Quivering trills in the strings add a touch of instability to the mood, further developed by recurring sigh figures. Handel wonderfully truncates the entire aria to finish before the da capo repeat of the A section. Spoiler alert: the poison was actually a sleeping potion, and Tolomeo will rise again to reclaim his wife and eventually his throne.

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) was probably as close as one could be to a “celebrity” composer in 18th-century Germany.  His creative output was truly staggering, with over 3,000 works to his name, spanning an incredible range from cantatas to oratorios, operas, concertos, chamber pieces, keyboard music, and more. Much of this musical legacy originated from the period after Telemann was installed in Hamburg in 1721 as Kantor at the Johanneum Lateinschule. He also served as musical director of the five (!) principal churches in the city. Years earlier he also worked in Leipzig – before J. S. Bach – and helped to start a music performance society called the Collegium Musicum. For all of these outlets, both sacred and secular, Telemann had abundant need and opportunity to present original works.

Scholars have exhaustively cataloged Telemann’s concertos on the basis of instrumentation. The Concerto in A Minor for Recorder and Viol, TWV 52:a1, was written sometime prior to 1732, at which point it appears in a manuscript that survives to this day. Its four-movement structure relates to the sonata da chiesa model (slow-fast-slow-fast), but it still qualifies as a concerto by virtue of the solo-ensemble interactions. The sound is eminently familiar and indistinguishable from any Italian concerto by Vivaldi. The opening “slow” movement, marked Grave, generally moves quite actively, and accordingly the following “fast” Allegro unfolds with almost feverish bravado, carried along on waves of sixteenth notes. Telemann writes the sweet Larghetto for the two soloists plus basso continuo so that we can fully absorb how contrasting timbres between treble wind and alto string make a harmonious conversation. The final movement thrills with a foot-stomping Allegro in 2/4 meter. Both soloists enjoy virtuosic episodes, though the ensemble continuously reins them back in with the force of its collective momentum. The fact that this engaging, brilliant concerto is essentially just “normal Telemann” must make us wonder what other treasures lay obscured in his vast oeuvre.

The Baroque era witnessed a series of contests over the best or “truest” expressive style in music. The Italians and the French were the most vocal combatants in this battle, which culminated in the so-called “War of the Comic Actors” (Guerre des Bouffons) in the 1750s. French composers prided themselves on nurturing a humane, natural expressive style that did not need the excessive displays cultivated in Italy. Prior to impacting the world of opera, this dichotomy emerged in competing approaches to solo or unaccompanied song. The Italians had the powerful madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo and the monodic songs of Giulio Caccini. The recognized master of French songs or “Airs” was Michel Lambert (1610-1696), who worked under Louis XIV at Versailles for many years. (Incidentally, the great opera composer Jean-Baptiste Lully was originally born in Italy and later became Lambert’s son-in-law in 1662.) Lambert was a gifted singer and would often accompany himself on theorbo, offering a clear French analog to Caccini in Italy. Though several generations younger than Caccini, Lambert similarly sparked interest in a distinctive, national operatic art – the so-called tragédie lyrique – whose works deal with classical myth and in which lyricism takes center stage.

Lambert's outstanding collection of vocal works, a volume of sixty Airs published in 1689, includes the four songs performed today. All epitomize the gracious and tender style that made Lambert's airs so beloved, then as now; they capture perfectly the song genre as cultivated in 17th century France. Two- and three-part vocal texture, close harmony, and chromaticism all hearken back to the madrigal tradition at its most refined, and most include the options for an instrumental ritornello between phrases of the text. There is also a great deal of flexibility in this repertoire, such that a dolorous “Le Repos” could be sung as a duet of two voices or solo voice with treble partner (recorder or violin, for instance). This repertoire became incredibly popular in Louis’ court and helped elevate Lambert to a position of great prestige.

In European courts during the 17th and 18th centuries, cooking competitions were held between neighboring palaces trying to outdo each other in splendor. And with the sumptuous food, of course, came great music. “To supply diversionary music” was often a specific item in a composer’s contractual arrangement, and Telemann was certainly not the first to publish such a collection when he brought out his Tafelmusik (Table-Music) in 1733. Telemann spent a great deal of energy publicizing it and ended up scoring a financial, as well as a musical, success.

Tafelmusikremains the bedrock of the era’s chamber repertoire. It is precisely this music that has helped to define what the Baroque sounds like, what kinds of pieces comprise a suite, and what stylistic features mark the transition to the emerging cosmopolitan, natural “galant style.” Each Tafelmusik suite includes the same order of six multi-movement structures: overture, quartet, concerto, trio, sonata, and conclusion.

The Ouverture-Suite in D major is in five movements. It has been passed down in the manuscript copy written by J. G. Vogler, Telemann’s principal violinist in the Leipzig Collegium. The festive opening is in a slow-fast-slow pattern of the traditional French Overture. Telemann did not invent or introduce this form to German cities, but he was a key figure in its widespread adoption by virtue of his numerous, superlative examples. The Ouverture breathes with spontaneity, frequent dialogs between winds and strings and clarity of formal elements. It is followed by a group of faster movements, three Airs and Allegro. Oboe and trumpet quite frequently play in unison, resulting in an admirable color, not uncommon for Baroque music. There is an obvious departure from dense polyphonic texture, with only occasional counterpoint. Telemann was not shy to extend the material through repetition and contrast for those who enjoyed taking their time to savor their meals.

Jason Stell, © 2025