Georg Philipp Telemann

12 Fantasias for solo violin

Luigi De Filippi

Label: Challenge Classics
Format: CD
Barcode: 0608917267921

Catalog number: CC 72679
Releasedate: 27-11-15

- Telemann’s Fantasias are the great Baroque masterpieces for solo violin along with Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas

- A seldom recorded work, especially since it is played on a period instrument, the Fantasias deserve to be better known by all Baroque music fans

- De Filippi is violinist in the Italian renowned piano trio Voces Intimae

- De Filippi is specialized in playing both period as wel as modern violins

Telemann’s solo violin Fantasias were published in 1735, some fifteen years after the appearance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin; we do not know if Bach’s masterpieces were known to Telemann, but he certainly didn’t share Bach’s preoccupation to demonstrate how a simple solo instrument could handle very extended forms, and how contrapuntal writing could convey the impression of polyphonic constructions. If anything, Telemann’s gems remind one of Bach’s cello suites: clever music, overflowing with melodic wealth and charm. Telemann also moved swiftly from one source of inspiration to another, pouring out with unhampered ease exquisite melodies, sketches of learned fugues, folk-like cantilenas, nursery rhymes tunes. Each Fantasia consists of three or four short movements, with a duration which goes from as little as four minutes to a maximum of 11 minutes: nothing to be compared with Bach’s divine verbosity. Fantasia no 12 contains a lovely parody of Giuseppe Tartini’s “Didone abbandonata “, published the year before in Italy: here Telemann echoes (and makes fun of) Tartini’s shrill dissonances, derived from the Istrian folk repertoire: one more demonstration that these great men were fully aware of all the latest developments that took place in the whole of Europe.

Fantasia No.1 in B-flat major, TWV 40:14