steven zohn · 2010-04-20 · steven zohn telemann the vivaldian vivaldi’s influence on johann...

Steven Zohn

TELEMANN THE VIVALDIAN

Vivaldi’s influence on Johann Sebastian Bach has long been a source ofscholarly fascination. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century,commentators have acknowledged Bach’s early contact with the Venetiancomposer’s music as a formative experience; Vivaldi “taught him to thinkmusically”, as Johann Nikolaus Forkel famously put it in 1802.1 By contrast,there has been a notable lack of consensus regarding the Vivaldian credentialsof Germany’s leading composer during the early eighteenth century, GeorgPhilipp Telemann. Early in the twentieth century, Walther Krüger placedTelemann squarely among the followers of Corelli, a distortion perpetuated aslate as the 1960s by Siegfried Kross, who claimed that “Telemann followed theVivaldian solo concerto only to a limited extent”.2 There were, however, somedissenting voices. Marc Pincherle noted that “such a follower of Corelli asTelemann nevertheless welcomed the innovations that Vivaldi brought into thestructure as well as the substance of the concerto”. Arthur Hutchings consideredthat Telemann, “so far from fitting into a niche labelled ‘Corellian’, representsthe whole history of the concerto and other forms of French and Italian concertmusic as reflected in German composers from Muffat until after Quantz”. AndPippa Drummond found that “the Corellian manner was but one of a numberof styles which Telemann could adopt at will”.3

But it was Peter Ahnsehl, writing in the early 1980s, who first suggested thatTelemann regarded Vivaldi as much more than one influence among many.Ahnsehl boldly asserted that “the majority of Telemann’s concertos areinconceivable without the adoption and assimilation of Vivaldi’s

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Steven Zohn, Boyer Coll. of Music and Dance, Temple Univ., Philadelphia PA 19122-6079, USA.e-mail: [email protected] NIKOLAUS FORKEL, On Johann Sebastian Bach’s Life, Genius, and Works, translated in The New Bach

Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, eds Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel,revised and enlarged by Christoph Wolff, New York, W.W. Norton, 1998, p. 442. For a considerationof what Forkel may have meant by this phrase, see CHRISTOPH WOLFF, Vivaldi’s Compositional Art andthe Process of ‘Musical Thinking’, in Nuovi studi vivaldiani, eds Antonio Fanna and Giovanni Morelli(“Quaderni vivaldiani”, 4), 2 vols, Florence, Olschki, 1988, I, pp. 1-17; reprinted in Bach: Essays on HisLife and Music, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1991, pp. 72-83.

2 WALTHER KRÜGER, Das concerto grosso in Deutschland, Reinbeck, Jürgens, 1932, p. 93; SIEGFRIEDKROSS, Das Instrumentalkonzert bei Georg Philipp Telemann, Tutzing, Hans Schneider, 1969, p. 38.

3 MARC PINCHERLE, Vivaldi: Genius of the Baroque, trans. Christopher Hatch, New York, W.W.Norton, 1957, p. 246; ARTHUR HUTCHINGS, The Baroque Concerto, revised edn, New York, CharlesScribner’s Sons, 1979, p. 237; PIPPA DRUMMOND, The German Concerto: Five Eighteenth-Century Studies,Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1980, p. 216.

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achievements”.4 This, too, was something of a distortion, for as WolfgangHirschmann subsequently demonstrated, Telemann’s earliest concertos, writtenbetween 1708 and 1713, reflect influences predating his encounter with Vivaldi’smusic. Hirschmann concluded that “for Telemann, the concerto’s ‘genericessence’ was in many respects completely different than for Vivaldi”; that themultiplicity of styles and genres upon which the German composer drew –Italian, German, French, Polish, stile antico, polychoral, sinfonia, intrada,concerto grosso, da capo aria, sonata, rondeau, accompanied recitative – “wasinconsistent” with Vivaldi’s conception of virtuosity and tutti-solo contrast.“This is why”, Hirschmann claimed, “Telemann consistently composedmovements, oriented in principle toward Vivaldi’s model, that show greatermotivic and harmonic differentiation, are more finely constructed with a richertutti-solo relationship, and on the whole are more ‘integrated’ and stylized”.5

One might take issue with aspects of Hirschmann’s comparison, but it is true thatTelemann’s eclectic approach continued to color his concertos even after hisassimilation of Vivaldian formal syntax during the 1710s. A work such as thefamous viola concerto, in which all movements exhibit Vivaldian ritornello form,may serve as a case in point. Here, there are four movements, not three; theviola’s extensive quotation of ritornello material in the fast movements isatypical of Vivaldi; and the finale is an unusual fusion of ritornello and binaryforms.

How much of a Vivaldian was Telemann, then? In attempting to answer thisquestion, I will not be concerned here with determining which Vivaldi concertoshe knew, and when he knew them.6 Nor will I attempt to tabulate the many

4 PETER AHNSEHL, Bemerkungen zur Vivaldi-Rezeption bei Georg Philipp Telemann, in Die BedeutungGeorg Philipp Telemanns für die Entwicklung der europäischen Musikkultur im 18. Jahrhundert, Bericht überdie Internationale Wissenschaftliche Konferenz anläßlich der Georg-Philipp-Telemann-Ehrung derDDR, Magdeburg 12. bis 18. März 1981, eds Günter Fleischhauer, Wolf Hobohm, and WaltherSiegmund-Schultze, 3 vols, Magdeburg, Zentrum für Telemann-Pflege und -Forschung, 1983, II, p. 113.

5 WOLFGANG HIRSCHMANN, Studien zum Konzertschaffen von Georg Philipp Telemann, 2 vols,Kassel, Bärenreiter, 1986, I, pp. 245-46. See also Hirschmann’s discussion (pp. 31-47) of the violinconcertos TWV 51:e3, F2, G8, and a2, which he finds to be particularly Vivaldian.

6 It is worth bearing in mind, however, that Bach’s apparent source for Vivaldi’s Op. 3concertos, Prince Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar, was closely associated with Telemann. Six ofthe prince’s concertos were posthumously published by Telemann as the Six concerts à violonconcertant (Frankfurt, 1718), and Telemann dedicated his Six sonates à violon seul (Frankfurt, 1715) toJohann Ernst. In later years, Telemann seems to have performed Vivaldi’s concerto Op. 7 no. 2,which is included in a list of “concertos that may be performed” between the three acts of his 1725comic intermezzi, Pimpinone oder Die ungleiche Heirat, TVWV 21:15. The manuscript copy of theintermezzi that includes this list is dated by Joachim Jaenecke to c. 1725, but Mary AdelaidePeckham suggests that the copyist may have prepared his score from the 1728 edition of Pimpinonefor the intermezzi’s 1730 revival. See Georg Philipp Telemann: Autographe und Abschriften, ed. JoachimJaenecke, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz: Kataloge der Musikabteilung,series 1, vol. 7, Munich, Henle, 1993, p. 280; and MARY A. PECKHAM, The Operas of Georg PhilippTelemann, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1972, pp. 123-124. For a transcription of the list,see Telemann, Pimpinone oder Die ungleiche Heirat: Ein lustiges Zwischenspiel, ed. Thomas W. Werner,Das Erbe deutscher Musik, vol. 6, Mainz, B. Schott’s Söhne, 1936, pp. 101-102.

dozens of Vivaldi-inspired movements by Telemann. Rather, I wish to focus ona few cases that I believe help demonstrate the depth of Vivaldi’s influence onTelemann’s musical imagination.

Rebecca Kan has coined the term “concerto adagio form” to refer to acondensed version of the ritornello structure associated with concerto allegros.7

One manifestation of this form is the slow movement in which a central soloepisode is framed by brief ritornellos, a type common in Vivaldi’s Op. 3 and,perhaps not coincidentally, in the concertos of J. S. Bach. Bach’s movementsfavor symmetrical ritornello frames, arioso style in a long central episode, andaccompanying ostinatos. As indicated in Table 1, the concerto adagio withritornello frame is also a movement type cultivated by Telemann with somefrequency.8 His examples appear in both concertos and sonatas, the lattersuggesting a particular fascination with the type during the late 1720s and 1730s(note the publication dates in the “comments” column). To judge from works inthe table left unpublished by Telemann, such movements began to appear in hismusic around 1715. A preference for two or three soloists in the central episodeis evident from the small number of solo sonatas and concertos, though theGruppenkonzerte TWV 53:D5 and 54:D2 feature only a violin soloist in theirmiddle movements.

Only one work, the double concerto for recorder and flute, TWV 52:e1,includes two ritornello-frame movements. But its opening Largo is not in theexpected arioso style; instead, the soloists’ restless figuration and the strings’slow-moving harmonic support lend the movement an unsettled, prelude-likefeeling. This is also the only example known to me of a ritornello-framemovement occurring at the beginning of a concerto or sonata. Moreconventional is the concerto’s second Largo, excerpted in Example 1. Here theunusually brief ritornello frame is provided by just the strings, which delicatelyaccompany the ensuing ‘vocal’ duet for recorder and flute with pizzicatochords. Also worth singling out is the central Adagio of the Concerto for violin,trumpet, and cello, TWV 53:D5, where an accompanied recitative passage forthe violin soloist precedes a brief unison ritornello that introduces the aria-likemain section with what will become an accompanying ostinato figure. Thus, asin several others of his concertos and sonatas, Telemann conceives themovement as an instrumental recitative-aria pair. Perhaps a desire for dramaticverisimilitude explains why the ‘aria’ ends with just a brief recollection of theopening ritornello.

The concerto adagio movements in Telemann’s sonatas are in some waysmore interesting than those in his concertos. That the allusion is in fact to theconcerto – and perhaps ultimately to the aria – is clear enough, not leastbecause half of the movements in question abut one or more in concerto allegro

7 REBECCA KAN, Vivaldi, Bach and Their Concerto Slow Movements, in Irish Musical Studies 8: BachStudies from Dublin, eds Anne Leahy and Yo Tomita, Dublin, Four Courts, 2004, pp. 65-91.

8 See the brief discussion in PIPPA DRUMMOND, The German Concerto, cit., p. 210.

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form. One therefore has a stronger sense of these works as Sonaten aufConcertenart, to use a term invented by Telemann’s Hamburg colleague JohannAdolf Scheibe.9 In part to compensate for the absence of an accompanyingstring body, Telemann typically sets off the framing ritornello from the centralsection through tonal disjunction, textural contrast, and, in the Trio for oboe,violin and continuo, TWV 42:g5, by tempo change. Note in Example 2 that theritornello ends on the dominant of G minor, but that the central episode is in Bflat; note as well that the ritornello is to be played slightly faster than theepisode.

Michael Talbot and Bella Brover-Lubovsky have called attention to thefrequency in Vivaldi’s music of temporary modal shifts to the parallel minor.Such gestures often take the form of major-minor echoes of material or,especially in concerto and aria ritornellos, of temporary minor-mode enclavespreceding a principal or terminal cadence. In many cases, tension is generatednot only harmonically, but also through a reduction in dynamic level and achange in texture, often involving the use of a bassetto.10

Telemann may have first employed this gesture in a C major violin concertointroducing his 1724 pastoral opera Der neumodische Liebhaber Damon, TVWV 21:8.11

But by far his most interesting use of the minor-mode enclave occurs in theopening Allegro of the Concerto for three violins, TWV 53:F1. Brover-Lubovskyhas already pointed to this work as an example of an Italian – and particularlyVivaldian – device transferred north of the Alps. Now, the first-movementritornello, given in Example 3, does not sound especially Vivaldian; its initialsegment reminds one more of the opening phrase of Bach’s Fifth BrandenburgConcerto. Yet the ritornello does exhibit a classic tripartite organization in whichthe final segment is interrupted by a turn to the parallel minor, effected by thethree soloists above a bassetto accompaniment. As Table 2 shows, this briefinterlude (labeled with an “I” in the “ritornello material” column) returns not ina subsequent ritornello, as one might expect, but during the third solo episode.Even more strikingly, it seems to inform the tonal plan of the entire movement,for as a quick glance at the table reveals, most of this F-major movementexplores minor tonalities. In fact, aside from the opening and concludingritornellos, only a relative handful of measures is in the major mode; even thefirst solo episode turns to G minor after a few measures. To my knowledge, noother concerto movement by Telemann features this kind of tonal ‘composingout.’ Brover-Lubovsky points to several major-mode concerto movements byVivaldi in which an entire solo episode in the tonic minor precedes a closing

9 JOHANN ADOLF SCHEIBE, Critischer Musikus, Leipzig, Breitkopf, 1745; repr. Hildesheim and NewYork, Georg Olms, 1970, pp. 675-678.

10 MICHAEL TALBOT, Modal Shifts in the Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, “Chigiana”, 40, 1985, p. 33;BELLA BROVER-LUBOVSKY, ‘Die schwarze Gredel,’ or the Parallel Minor Key in Vivaldi’s Instrumental Music,“Studi vivaldiani”, 3, 2003, pp. 108-109.

11 It is possible that the concerto was also performed at the opera’s 1719 Leipzig premiere (as DieSatyren in Arcadien).

ritornello containing a tonic minor phrase, and to other movements featuringmore extended sections in the tonic minor.12 Given that some of thesemovements occur in Vivaldi’s latest published works, it seems possible thatTelemann’s extreme ‘minorization’ of his movement (published in 1733) was aconscious response to this type of tonal planning.

The intensity arising from the odd modal trajectory of Telemann’s allegrocarries over to the concerto’s middle movement, another adagio with aritornello frame. As shown in Example 4, the ritornello features canonicimitation and suspension chains between the soloists, who are accompanied byan ostinato broken up between the ripieno violin and viola parts. As in so manyof Telemann’s ostinato-based slow movements, the repeated figure migrates toone of the solo parts as the ritornello concludes. The following episode allowsthe soloists to shine in turn, and much of the action happens with only bassettosupport. Predictably, the third movement is lighter than the first two. But itsfugal ritornello adds a kind of contrapuntal intensity that has so far been lackingin the piece.

Viewed as a whole, this concerto seems consciously designed as a meditationon the Vivaldian style – its somewhat retrospective musical language all themore striking in comparison to the high galant mode of the triple concerto forflute, violin, and cello, TWV 53:A2, that Telemann published alongside it in hisMusique de table. There are no encroachments of the French and Polish stylesupon the Italian, relatively few markers of the galant idiom, limited integrationof tutti and solo material, and an avoidance of the four-movement plan sofavored by Telemann. One might accuse the composer of pandering to theEuropean-wide taste for Vivaldi’s concertos, especially as the Musique de tablewas heavily marketed in Vivaldi-crazed Paris during the early 1730s. But Iprefer to see the concerto as more of a personal omaggio a Vivaldi, as anacknowledgement of Telemann’s considerable musical debt to the Venetiancomposer.

Let us conclude with what might be considered a humorous take on oneaspect of Vivaldian style, namely, the soloistic interruption of a ritornello late ina concerto allegro. In the second movement of the Concerto for flute, oboed’amore, and viola d’amore, TWV 53:E1, a mature work probably composedduring the 1730s, Telemann wittily allows the soloists to extend their third andfinal episode by continually interrupting what purports to be the concluding,tonic ritornello. Here he exploits the modular organization of his Vivaldianritornello, for each brief phrase is separated by soloistic interjections.13 The joke’s

12 BELLA BROVER-LUBOVSKY, ’Die schwarze Gredel’, cit., pp. 110 and 115.13 HANS ENGEL, The Concerto Grosso, trans. Robert Kolben, Cologne, A. Volk; New York, Leeds

Music, 1963, p. 42, also saw the humor in this formal operation: “Telemann resorts to the mostamusing method of of splitting up the opening tutti into seven fragments that return as later tutti –looking at it the other way around, the later tutti, when put together, are a repetition of the first tutti,except of course they were meanwhile interrupted by the soli between them”.

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punchline comes when the twenty-eight-measure ritornello (given in Example 5),now doubled in length owing to the soloists’ interruptions, at last manages toreach its concluding phrase – only to have its terminal cadence denied by thesoloists at the last second. Undeterred, the ritornello backs up a few measuresfor another, successful, run at the cadence. After the soloists get in their finalword, the tonic ritornello is at last heard in its uninterrupted entirety. In settingup a dramatic opposition between the ritornello, which struggles mightily toend the movement, and the soloists, who attempt to thwart it, Telemannburlesques a formal device inherited by him from Vivaldi and other Italiancomposers.

As this brief survey of selected movements has shown, Vivaldi’s concertostyle did not merely inspire Telemann to ‘think musically.’ Movement types orformal devices such as the concerto adagio with ritornello frame, minor-modeenclave, and interrupted ritornello also helped him to think dramatically bynourishing his gifts as a musical storyteller. And it is this aspect of Telemann’sVivaldi reception, as much as any other, that makes his music “inconceivable”(to quote Ahnsehl) without the Venetian composer’s influence.

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Table 1. Telemann’s Concerto Adagios with Ritornello Frame

TWV Scoring (with continuo) Comments

40:106/iii Duet for two unaccompanied flutes Sonates sans basse (1727)41:g7/iii Solo for flute or violin XII Solos (1734)42:D5/iii Trio for two flutes Musique de table (1733)42:D6/iii Trio for flute and obbligato harpsichord Six concerts (1734)42:d5/iii Trio for two flutes or violins Sonates en trio (1738-42)42:E6/ii Trio for violin and viola da gamba42:e3/ii Trio for flute and obbligato harpsichord Six concerts (1734)42:G6/ii Trio for viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord Essercizii musici (c. 1728)42:g5/iii Trio for oboe and violin Essercizii musici (c. 1728)42:A3/iii Trio for flute and obbligato harpsichord Six concerts (1734)43:A1/iii Quartet for flute, violin, and viola da gamba or cello Quadri (1730)51:D5/iii Concerto for oboe and strings51:G4/ii Concerto for violin and strings doubtful51:A2/iii Concerto for oboe d’amore and strings52:C1/iii Concerto for two chalumeaux and strings52:e1/i, iii Concerto for flute, recorder, and strings52:F1/iii Concerto for recorder, bassoon, and strings53:D5/ii Concerto for violin, trumpet, cello, and strings53:F1/ii Concerto for three violins and strings Musique de table (1733)54:D2/ii Concerto for three horns, violin, and strings54:Es1/iii Concerto for two horns, two violins, and strings Musique de table (1733)

Table 2. Structure of TWV 53:F1/i

Measures: 1-16 16-30 30-33 33-47 47-50 50-73Ritornello/Solo: R1 S1 R2 S2 R3 S3

Key: I —ii ii —iii —iii —VRitornello Material: V, F, I, E V V I

Measures: 73-81 81-95 95-100 100-118 118-132Ritornello/Solo: R4 S 4 R5 S5 R6

Key: V ––V/vi vi ––I IRitornello Material: V, F E´ V, F, E, E´

Ritornello material: V = Vordersatz, F = Fortspinnung, E = Epilog, I = (Solo) Interlude

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Example 1. Telemann, Concerto for recorder, flute, and strings, TWV 52:e1/iii.

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Example 2. Telemann, Trio for oboe, violin, and continuo, TWV 42:g5/iii.

Example 3. Telemann, Concerto for three violins and strings, 53:F1/ii. Reproduced from Georg Philipp Telemann, Musique de table, ed. Max Seiffert, Denkmälerdeutscher Tonkunst, vols 61-62, Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1927.

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Example 4. Telemann, Concerto for three violins and strings, 53:F1/iii.Reproduced from Georg Philipp Telemann, Musique de table, ed. Max Seiffert, Denkmälerdeutscher Tonkunst, vols 61-62, Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1927.

Example 5. Telemann, Concerto for flute, oboe d’amore, viola d’amore, and strings, TWV 53:E1/ii.

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