Oboe Sonata in g, from Tafelmusik

In European courts during the 17th and 18th centuries, cooking competitions were held between neighboring palaces trying to outdo each other in splendor. And with the sumptuous food, of course, came great music. “To supply diversionary music” was often a specific item in a composer’s contractual arrangement, and Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) was certainly not the first to publish such a collection when he brought out his Tafelmusik or “Table-Music” in 1733. He spent a great deal of energy publicizing it and ended up with a great financial, as well as musical, success. Tafelmusik remains the bedrock of the era’s chamber repertoire. It is precisely this music that has helped to define what the Baroque sounds like, what kinds of pieces comprise a suite, and what stylistic features mark the transition to the emerging cosmopolitan, natural “galant style.” We will hear the four movement oboe sonata in G minor from the third book of Tafelmusik. Telemann adopts the sonata da chiesa (church sonata) format, a traditional slow-fast-slow-fast arrangement often involving use of fugue techniques and more gravitas suitable for performance—as occasion demands—in sacred situations.

(c) Jason Stell