Luogo e data di registrazione		Bennebroek (The Netherland) - 29 Maggio / 1 Giugno 1967
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer		Wolf Erichson
	Prima Edizione LP		Telefunken "Das Alte Werk" | SAWT 9523-A | 1 LP - durata 52' 27" | (p) 1968 | 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		Robert Tourniüres "The Chamber Music Trio".
	Note		-

Among the "several printed works" to which people in Paris had already taken a liking before Telemann's arrival were certainly the six Quadri (c. 1730), which the Paris publisher Le Clerc had later brought out in 1736 as Six Quatuors. As the pattern of a new practical marriage between chamber music and concerto they must have caused a considerable stir in Paris. In their combination of the solidity and refinement of chamber music with the brilliance of the concerto they appealed directly to the musical taste of the Paris salons, which inclined towards the subtle as well as the illustrative; and as the epitome of fashionable Italian instrumental forms (concerti, chamber- and church-sonatas) they exactly fitted in with the predilection for everything Italian which had been a sign of good form in Paris since the twenties. Into this well-prepared scene Telemann - with in his hand the Privilège du Roi to assure his success - in 1738 threw his Nouveaux Quatuors, which combined the charm of the new marriage with a courteous bow to his hosts and their national musical ‘goût’; for not only is the designation of the movements French, but their sequence and forms also embrace the traditions of French chamber music, in that loose fusion of German, French and Italian elements which, for the mature Telemann, had more and more clearly become the central tenet of his instrumental music. Small wonder, then, that the four named soloists extolled by the composer succumbed just as much to the clearly ‘calculated’ effect of this music as did the general public, whose sympathy is reflected even in the astonishing subscription list for the first edition. Small wonder too since the ‘Paris Quartets‘, beyond all these calculated charms and beyond the partiality of their historical period, are also important chamber music: music with an aim, admittedly, and as such: a model of 18th-century social art, but also a kind of music whose wealth of inspiration, elegance and musical ‘wit’ is matched by little from the first half of this century. The characteristic fusion of ‘national styles’ of music in a markedly individual idiom and the extraordinary wealth of invention of the “Paris Quartets‘ are clearly shown in the A minor work. The first movement is a completely Italian concerto allegro for flute and accompanying "orchestra"; the second a dance movement without a concertante solo, uniting the elements of Minuet and Polonaise to form a ‘flattering’ character piece full of tender sensuality of sound. It is followed by a French Gigue, a quasi-Passepied whidt again is laid out more in grouped solo parts, and a very fast ‘character piece‘ scurrying along with witty chromatic surprises. The Finale, as is common in the Paris Quartets, is e particularly impressive movement, an expansive Gavotte whose episodes relax the movement into fewer voices, give on the expression a surprisingly serious tone through harmonic intensification und melodic sighs, and thus stress the tendency of all these pieces - from dance movements to ‘character pieces‘, still only in stylised dance forms - towards sensitive and elegant expressive miniatures. The ‘reunion des goûts' is revealed in the third quartet in a different way from that of the second, and it is the only one of the series to have seven movements, not six. The Prélude, in a loosely 'limbering-up’ series of fugal and concerted sections, hints at French inflections and makes use chiefly of flute and violin as solo instruments in the concerto style. The second movement begins as a very lively Bourrée, but in its minor middle section, where the concerto element is much broader and also more exactingly planned, it becomes surprisingly serious. A wholly French Rondeau, with a captivating, graceful dance-tune and full ensemble sonority, constitutes the third movement. The main part of the following movement is a quasi-Gigue, but with a wittily irregular structure and little echoes, especially from the flute, which evoke hunting associations: the E minor central section, on other hand, unites the Gigue rhythm with chains of suspensions, which evoke a characteristically veiled, muted mood. Very similarly, the next movement too is a modified ‘character piece’ and draws on Telemann’s favourite Polonaise manner, while the little piece marked "Gai" does full justice to its title with its turbulent motion and strikingly impressive melody, rhythmic finesse and virtuosic loosening of the previously compact movement in the middle section. The Finale is once again practically the weightiest movement of the quartet: it is almost a French overture, with a ceremonially solemn slow introduction and a quick fugato, both of which are repeated and thus substantially expanded in size, while the expression is intensified and the thematic material varied - but all this is bound up into the traditional binary structure of a suite movement. The fifth quartet again takes a different course. The Prélude thus starts of as a four-part fugue, moves to a free concerted passage for the instrumental voices, turns for a few bars into a flute concerto, and finally mixes fugato and flute ‘solo’ until, with a vigorous orchestral cadence, the movement is rounded all in the best Italian ‘goût’. Next comes a comparably simple little dance movement in 3/8 time; but it, in turn, is followed by another of those elaborated 'character' pieces which are still only vaguely reminiscent of traditional dance types, and, as the fourth movement, by an even more emphatically 'characteristic' piece, whose bucolic tone it, in the A minor middle section, distinctly tinged with melancholy. The fifth movement is once more a Rondeau, bubbling over with beauties of colour, rhythm and melody, even although the gracefully popular refrain of the flute is strangely muted in the general texture. The Finale once again combines what in these quartets lie closest to Telemann's heart: French and Italian (and not least, German) inflections, dance-movement forms and types, compact sonority and soloistic individuality, concertante playing and chamber-music style. Ludwig Finscher (translated by Lionel Salter)