Review of Richard Boothby Telemann's Solo Fantasies at St George's in Bristol
Posted on: 2016-09-21
Our rating:
Twelve lost-but-found compositions by one of the Baroque period's finest composers, interpreted by a consummate viola da gamba player on an evening of historic music making. Heavenly.
It's not very often you get to hear music from the 18th century performed for the first time in the 21st, but that's exactly what Baroque music lovers - and indeed music aficionados in general - were treated to at St George's in Bristol on Tuesday 20 September 2016.
Viola da Gamba player Richard Boothby took the audience on a brisk and brilliant musical tour de force of twelve compositions by German composer Georg Philipp Telemann, a set of musical Fantasies that had astonishingly only been discovered in 2015.
Telemann had composed and published sets of a dozen pieces for solo violin, flute, harpsichord and viola da gamba which had been released in monthly formats, as was the practice of the time. No problem with the violin, flute and harpsichord pieces as those had always been around, but the viola da gamba transcriptions had been thought forever lost in the musical mists of time - until last year, that is, when the compositions were rediscovered, dusted off and prepared to be played for the very first time in over 250 years.
The twelve pieces - written in 1735 and for solo viola da gamba without any bass accompaniment (a pretty radical musical approach at the time) - were first performed and recorded in March 2016 and presented something of a cryptically fascinating tabula rasa for performers. Having not played them before, there were inevitable questions of tempi, pitch, articulation and the like, these 'new-old' pieces opening a glistening, enthralling treasure trove of ideas and possibilities for the instrument.
Richard Boothby explained a brief synopsis of each piece before he played them, often stressing that Telemann (a viol player himself) knew and understood the possibilities of the instrument, frequently deviating from the safer, more traditional keys associated with it to give the pieces more expanse, richness and scope.
The compositions were indeed a revelation, each piece - generally short and tightly constructed and comprised of three sections in general sonata form - given real musical heft and gravitas by Boothby, who evidently understood the material and played all twelve Fantasies with a passionate, skillful musical ebb and flow.
And you felt as though you were privvy to something musically something very special and important indeed; a kind of sonic opening of the Ark of the Convenent, unleashing of course not the entities and powers of ultimate evil but the genius works of a master Baroque composer whose musical flavours, dynamics and nuances were so deep, rich, textured and full of feisty compositional spirit, melancholy and unparalleled beauty that you felt you were partaking in a genuine musical event.
Twelve lost-but-found compositions by one of the Baroque period's finest composers, interpreted by a consummate viola da gamba player on an evening of historic music making. Heavenly.
5/5
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