By Ralph P.Locke

You want Baroque energy and Early Classic poise? Here’s a first-rate recording of a one-act, one-singer opera by Telemann along with some of his imaginative orchestral works.

TELEMANN: Ino & Late Works

Christina Landshamer, soprano.

Akademie fur Alte Musik, Berlin, cond. Bernhard Forck.

Pentatone PTC 5187072—71 minutes.

Georg Philipp Telemann was one of the most skillful, varied, imaginative, and prolific composers of the Baroque and, I’m tempted to say, Early Classic eras. He lived for 86 years (1681-1767), and thus ended up composing at a time when C. P. E. Bach, Haydn, and others were moving music into very different stylistic directions than those represented by people born around the same time as Telemann, such as Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi. I’ve never encountered a dull work by Telemann, and more often the music proves to be consistently attractive and inventive. Concertgoers in the northeastern states will have the chance to experience the glories of this composer’s music between November 20 and December 7, 2024, when the Boston Early Music Festival, as part of its widely praised “chamber opera series,” performs Telemann’s opera Don Quichotte auf der Hochzeit des Camacho (based on an episode in Cervantes’s novel Don Quixote) in Boston, New York City, and Troy, NY. A video will also be available for streaming between December 15 and 29.

Telemann’s alertness to different possible styles and influences is well known to those who have, for example, enjoyed his many movements in this or that suite-like work that are based on elements of Polish, Hungarian, or Czech folk music. (Some of the movements name the region in question. Telemann once wrote in a short autobiography about how deeply he was inspired by Polish folk music.)

This openness to new impulses shows up in the three purely instrumental works on this new CD: an Overture in D, a Sinfonia melodica, and a Divertimento. The Divertimento begins with a concerto movement for flute and then goes on to (non-concerto) movements with intriguingly programmatic titles (which I translate from the French): “Waking Up” (with prominent birdcalls), ”Table Conversation,” “Call to the Hunt,” “[Taking a Break for a] Meal,” and “Return Home.” All three works have frequent solo lines for various wind instruments, bringing surprise after surprise. Yet the winds are also sometimes used in a manner more typical of the Early Classical style (such as when a pair of horns reinforce the harmony, almost as if they were trying to reinforce or replace the basso continuo).

The highlight here is a first-rate recording of his amazing 36-minute secular cantata (or, in effect, a one-person mini-opera), entitled Ino. I have listened to portions of previous recordings featuring Gundula Janowitz (whose singing is less secure than I would have expected), Adele Stolte (a bit dull), and Barbara Schlick (bright but thin, almost girlish). None of them conquers the vocal challenges of this amazing work nor conveys the character’s shifting emotions as satisfyingly as Christina Landshamer does here. The only previous recording I have heard do the work full justice is sung by Roberta Alexander (with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting; it is now on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWm-Cq_8jxg; start at 20:25).

Ino is persuasive partly because the recitatives in between the arias are almost entirely accompanied by the orchestra, not by harpsichord, and this allows for great variety of mood and depth of expression. Put another way, the work sounds more like a French opera of the era (translated into German) than like an Italian one, since the latter would have had “secco” recitative between the arias.

Even though there is only one singer, the plot involves many characters with whom the listener may be familiar, such as Semele, Jupiter (with whom Semele once had an affair), and Jupiter’s wife Juno (here called Saturnia). Briefly, Ino (daughter of Cadmus and Hermione — title figures in an important Lully opera) has raised Semele’s son (the young Bacchus) after a jealous Juno did away with Semele. Juno avenges herself by leading Semele’s husband Athamas to kill his and Semele’s son Learcho. Ino and the other son, Melicertes, flee into the ocean, where the ocean god Neptune welcomes them and transforms them into sea deities.

The work would be an effective one in any concert featuring a fine female singer (who can sing German well), and where the translation was presented in the program book or projected as supertitles. Perhaps an alert lyricist could even create an effective English “singing translation,” as such things are called. The accompaniment is perfectly within the abilities of college-age students. Music schools and smaller or community orchestras, please notice!

Soprano Christina Landshamer. Photo: Marco Borggreve

All the works on this CD are from the last years of Telemann’s life, when he was in his 80s. All are immensely engaging and, indeed, would have, at least in certain respects, seemed quite up-to-date at the time — or at least an intriguing blend of the old (two of the pieces are structured as dance suites, an archetypal Baroque genre) and the new. Maybe there’s some hope or inspiration here for those of us who are now in our 70s!

The period-instrument orchestra plays attractively throughout, shaping phrases with greater elegance than does the orchestra on Harnoncourt’s recording of Ino. The recorded sound is nicely balanced. All in all, a wonderful tribute to a composer who nowadays doesn’t quite get the respect (and frequent performances) that he deserves.

Ralph P. Locke is emeritus professor of musicology at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. Six of his articles have won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music. His most recent two books are Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections and Music and the Exotic from the Renaissance to Mozart (both Cambridge University Press). Both are now available in paperback; the second, also as an e-book. Ralph Locke also contributes to American Record Guide and to the online arts-magazines New York Arts, Opera Today, and The Boston Musical Intelligencer. His articles have appeared in major scholarly journals, in Oxford Music Online (Grove Dictionary), and in the program books of major opera houses, e.g., Santa Fe (New Mexico), Wexford (Ireland), Glyndebourne, Covent Garden, and the Bavarian State Opera (Munich)