Luogo e data di registrazione		Hervormde Kerk, Bennebroek (The Netherland) - 6/8 Ottobre 1963
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer		Wolf Erichson
	Engineer		Dieter Thomsen
	Prima Edizione LP		Telefunken "Das Alte Werk" | SAWT 9448-A | 1 LP - durata 51' 33" | (p) 1964 | ANA Telefunken | 6.35065 DX (TK 11565/1-2 | 2 LPs - durata 51' 33" - 52' 27" | (p) 1974 | ANA | Riedizione
	Edizione CD		Warner Classics | LC 6019 | 4509-92177-2 | 2 CDs - durata 71' 36" - 73' 01" | (c) 1993 | ADD
	Cover		Grevenbroek: "Ansicht von Paris".
	Note		-

“A Quatuor, or a Sonata with three concerting instruments and a bass part, is actually the criterion of a genuine contrapuntist; but also an opportunity at which many a composer, who is not properly grounded in his science, can badly fall. The use of it has never been very general; consequently it cannot be so very well known to everybody either. ... Six particular Quatuors for various instruments, mostly flute, hautboy, and violin, which Herr Telemann composed already quite a time ago, but which have not been engraved in copper, can, in this kind of music, provide excellently beautiful models.“ When Johann Joachim Quantz published this verdict in his Flute Method in 1752, Telemann, so highly praised as exemplary, was still at the height of his European fame and of his creative power. There was hardly any type of musical composition of that period that he did not master with a superabundance of works, hardly any whose traditional character he did not considerably transform as the result of searching and experimenting in the course of a long creative life spent between the baroque and classical eras. The “Quadro“ or “Quatuor“, about whose history very little is known as yet, lent itself admirably as a young category to such experimenting; in the many ramifications of its development it became one of the most important precursors of the classical String Quartet. Almost at the very beginning of this development - in Germany at least - stand Telemann’s “Quatuors en Suites“ which, like most of this master’s quartets, were printed in Paris - concrete evidence that these works in particular were felt to be novel and unique in France. (When Telemann made his triumphal journey to Paris in 1737-38, in addition to works of church music it was his quartets above all else that were performed in public and private concerts). The “Quatuors en Suites“ clearly show the intermediate position of this category between the late baroque and early classical styles. The formal scheme of the works, “en Suites“, unusual for that time and almost certainly aimed at the French public, displays manifold modifications when compared with the suite tradition. The tonal unity of the latter is now varied; the traditional Overture is frequently replaced by a ‘concertante‘ movement; dance movements appear with designations of expression instead of with their old form designations and tend towards the “characteristic piece“ full of sensibility, only retaining the form of the baroque dance piece; traditional polyphony, song-like sections that enjoy moving in thirds over modern, broken-chord basses and a ‘concertante' varying of the writing with changes of tone colours and thematic contrasts constantly alternate with one another. This colourful, even paradoxical assortment of phenomena are welded into an artistic unity by those musical qualities that raise Telemann’s best works far above the level of merely skillful, mechanical facility in writing: clarity and simplicity of form, an inexhaustible abundance of concentrated, pictorial and highly expressive ideas and a peculiar blend of refinement and directness that imparts to Telemann’s chamber music in particular a highly attractive quality. The Quartet in D Major begins with a gay Allegro that lies somewhere between an Allemande and a concerto movement, which is followed by an elegiac Sarabande. The third movement returns in its mood and formal scheme to that of the Prélude; it is then followed by a delicate, ‘galant‘ Minuet, a characteristic piece that again has an elegiac character and finally a carefree Gigue whose triad motifs suggest a gay hunting atmosphere with which the work is brought to a turbulent close. The B Minor Quartet is both in its conception and its lay-out on a larger scale. Again there is a quick ‘concertante‘ Prélude instead of the traditional Overture, which is repeated after the insertion of a ‘galant‘ 3/8 Minuet (Flatteusement). The next movement (Coulant) is already quite pre-classical, both in its thematic material and in its mood, and is only remotely reminiscent of baroque dance types. This is followed by a bucolic, popular-styled Gigue, a witty ‘concertante‘ Gavotte and a dignified Sarabande. The work closes with a Minuet which, in its ‘concertante‘ variational shaping and its extensive dimensions, is far more a pre-classical, symphonic “Tempo di Minuetto“ (and thus a genuine, weighty closing movement, not a light final dance) rather than a courtly baroque Minuet. The E Minor Quartet, probably the most important of the three works, begins with a traditional French Overture whose formal details are, however, considerably and characteristically modified compared with the conventional model (in the slow section through a stylized violin cadenza, in the Allegro by means of free, non-fugato part-writing). It is followed by an energetic Gavotte with a gloriously melodious middle section, a Courante-like movement and two contrasting “characteristic pieces“, the first in E Major, varying the tonal unity of the suite, the second linked with one of Telemann’s specialities - the Polonaise style. The Finale is still more clearly contrasted with the traditional model than in the B Minor Quartet; it is a Chaconne, broadly laid out and varied in ‘concertante‘ style, in melancholy Sarabande character and leading up to a magnificent climax, and thus breaks not only with the suite tradition, but in its wealth of contrasted expression also with the traditional unity of emotion of a baroque suite movement. In spite of its Chaconne form, the way to the classical finale from this amazing movement is no longer far. Ludwig Finscher