Telemann - 12 Fantasias for solo clarinet by Georg Philipp Telemann B-Flat Clarinet - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.1639059

PREFACE

Telemann’s Fantasies


Music for unaccompanied melodic instruments has always been a relative rarity. In the baroque period one naturally thinks of Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin, his suites for unaccompanied cello. Stringed instruments can produce simultaneous sounds and near-chords in the form of arpeggios, and Bach was able to compose true fugues for violin. But such an accomplishment is impossible with the wind instruments, which produces but one sound at a time.

It would have been surprising had Telemann, amongst his immense chamber music production, not taken up the challenge of writing for unaccompanied flute. His Twelve Fantasies for flute without bass were published no later than 1732, a few years before his Fantasies for solo violin. Possibly written for didactic purposes, as their key progression suggests, these Fantasies do not follow a strict form. The number of movements varies in the extreme; some are short da chiesa sonatas[1] while others consist of sections which flow into one another. This formal freedom is particularly apparent in the openly improvisational character of several of the introductory movements.

Though melody was the age’s chief vehicle for musical expression, Telemann was not content, in these pieces, to rely on melodic interest or rhythmic variety alone. But his Fantasies for flute illustrate, above all, one of the fundamental considerations of baroque æsthetics: beyond the technical possibilities of the instrument, what they offer the listener is illusion.

Telemann employs a trompe-l’oreille[2]— comparable to the trompe-l’œil[3] which flourished in the visual arts of the age — to create the impression that we are hearing not one instrument, but two. False polyphony is achieved by the rapid alternation of notes and motifs in the high and the low registers, and by sets of questions and answers which remind us of a conversation between distinct characters, or perhaps of an interior dialogue. The effect is typically baroque, since the listener is quite aware that what is being heard is the result of the composer’s ingenuity. The listener’s pleasure and sense of wonder derives precisely from the knowledge that he or she is being tricked.

I have put these pieces in playable keys, but quite often, selected passages are technically awkward. Slow and steady practice with metronome will help. I have avoided adding ornaments other than occasional trills and the plus sign (+) that Telemann uses to indicate that some type of ornament (trill, mordent, appoggiatura, turn, etc.) is appropriate.

There are several modern editions transcribed for bassoon and trombone. It is highly fortunate that transcription of this work for clarinet present no great difficulties; neither it contain offending compromises like for some wind instuments. For most part, these fantasies accomodate the range and character of the clarinet admirably, and afford a wealth of fine music well suited to the study of phrasing, articulations - or it can be performed as a part of the solo recital.



Radovan Stojanović





[1] Church sonatas.
[2] A phrase using wordplay in order to be difficult to understand; an aural illusion.
[3] An artistic term for the highly realstic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensonal surface