Hansjörg Schellenberger - Telemann: 12 neue Fantasien für Oboe solo CD

Georg Philipp Telemann has gone down in musical history as a highly productive composer, not only working systematically to produce more works than most of his contemporaries, but also taking on a variety of duties in high musical positions in places such as Leipzig, Frankfurt, and in the last 40 years of his life, in Hamburg. In the years 1732/33 and 1735, he wrote 4 collections of 12 Fantasies for flute, violin, harpsichord, and viola da gamba—all for solo instrument, without bass continuo or other accompanying instruments. Since Telemann played many instruments himself, and it was quite common in his time to play individual compositions on different instruments (which can be seen particularly clearly in French Baroque music, of which Telemann was particularly fond), it is easy to understand why flautist Leona Rötzsch made a transcription for flute for Bärenreiter-Verlag. Inspired by this transcription, which turns out to be generally too high for the oboe, I have made my own version of the Fantasies in their original keys. Similarly, with the best possible musical conscience and respect for the original works, I have tried to stay as close to the original text as possible, although many decisions, of course, had to be made as to which of the respective voices seemed more important at the relevant moment and should be emphasized, and which would then be omitted. This is, of course, a very subjective undertaking that can undoubtedly be viewed differently by every oboist. In any case, though, the fact remains that these works by Telemann are of exceptional compositional quality and pose a fairly high challenge to the performing musician, especially with regard to breathing technique.