ProStudioMasters.com

Georg Philipp Telemann has gone down in musical history as a highly productive composer, not only working systematically to produce more 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, 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 emphasised, 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.