Telemann: 3 Overture Suites

The work group formed by Telemann’s overture suites is regarded as exemplary and even today offers a wealth of discoveries – and the three works presented here in CD recording premieres certainly answer this description. It is difficult to determine the chronological order of Telemann’s extant overture suites because the composer incorporated very different influences into them, not only from French music since the invention of the form by Jean-Baptiste Lully but also from the »Lullists« active in Germany such as Johann Sigismund Kusser, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, and Johann Fischer. And for Telemann’s pronounced tendency to mix existing formal, stylistic, and generic traditions, the overture suite formed an absolutely ideal foil. Here we can find diverse characters, formal combinations, and stylistic interconnections in great supply. The great imagination and spirit at work here are also shown in the plentiful stores of surprising ideas that shine like flashes of brainstorm lightning in various passages.