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April 2001 Program Notes
The Baroque Flute
by Mary Burke
Unlike Bach and his sons, Telemann did not come from a particularly musical family; in fact, his widowed mother did her level best to steer him away from music. Despite her best efforts, however, by the time he reached college age young Georg had managed to become an accomplished and versatile musician who could run a collegium, perform on any of ten instruments, sing, and write pleasing and sophisticated music as easily as you or I can write a check.
Little wonder, then, that he was able to secure some of the most prestigious musical posts in Europe, including a tenure of 46 years in the important cultural center of Hamburg. In 1723, he composed music to celebrate the centenary of Hamburg's College of the Admiralty, including a vocal work and the orchestral suite known as Hamburger Ebb' und Fluth, or Wassermusik. After the obligatory French-style overture, the suite's remaining movements use dance forms to depict various aspects of the sea, with reference to Greek mythology as well as Hamburg's own maritime life: Thetis (a sea goddess) asleep; Thetis awakening; amorous Neptune; water nymphs at play; the joking Triton (a minor sea god); tempestuous Aeolus (god of the winds); pleasant Zephyr (the west wind); and two final movements depicting Hamburg's rising and falling tides (the Ebbe und Fluth of the title) and a jolly sailors' dance.
The concerto in B-flat major is actually more of an octet for flutes, oboes, violin, violas, and bass. Instead of the usual Italianate concerto structure, in which the solo and tutti passages alternate cleanly, the groups of strings and winds enjoy equal significance. Telemann's typically imaginative orchestrations and deft melodic touch combine to produce a work of great charm and grace even within this rather dense structure.
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach was Johann Sebastian's eldest and favorite son, who with his father's guidance developed into a skilled composer and performer, ultimately achieving a reputation as one of the great organ virtuosi of his day. Like his younger brother Carl Philipp Emanuel, Wilhelm tended to lean stylistically in the direction of the high Baroque, but with a generous helping of Empfindsamkeit (sensitivity), a significant trend in northern German music and literature at the time. Composition apparently did not come quite so easily to him, as he left a great many of his works unfinished; the Sinfonia in D minor may be one of them. Some scholars believe that this two-movement work actually represents the final movements of a symphony. Others, however, have concluded that it was intended as the prelude to a cantata for Frederick the Great's birthday; although its serious character does not assort well with the much brighter cantata, the flute parts may well have been a tribute to the monarch, a very talented flutist and composer. Whatever its history, the Sinfonia is certainly one of Bach's finest and most complex works.
Carl Philipp Emanuel, the most famous of the Bach sons (and Telemann's godson), also received his early musical training from his father. Having established himself as a composer, teacher, and keyboard player, Bach soon landed a prestigious position at the court of Frederick the Great in Berlin. The king had studied flute and composition seriously, and often performed in concerts at court; Bach's first published work was a set of flute sonatas dedicated to him, which the two undoubtedly performed together. The G major concerto apparently began life as an organ concerto, and was not arranged for flute until fairly late in Bach's tenure at Berlin, probably after 1755. The virtuoso writing for the flute and energetic orchestral backdrop must have kept both Frederick and the band on their toes. The slow movement, however, steps back from this symphonic brilliance into the empfindsam style, expressive and emotional, punctuated by sighing motifs.
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