Telemann wrote so much and so well for the flute with the understanding of one who knew the instrument from the inside. ‘How my heart beats,’ he wrote, ‘when I see the walls and corners of the room covered with musical instruments… Excellent instrumentalists have made me want to improve my performance on my instruments. I would have done so if an inner fire had spurred me beyond the keyboard, the violin and the flute, to learn the oboe, the chalumeau, the viola da gamba, or indeed the double bass and the bass trombone.’

In line with their earlier work on Vivaldi for Brilliant Classics (BC95078), Hanspeter Oggier and the Ensemble Fratres have now chosen to address the delectable feast of Telemann’s wonderfully joyous music. Meticulous in his work, alert and inventive, Telemann was a great colourist whose coherence and open mindedness enabled him to address the widest audience. The particular appeal of this collection is that the flute parts are taken by the pan‐flute, which lend a rustic, sometimes insouciant colour to pairs of suites and concertos.

In Telemann the prevalence of curiosity over perfectionism suggests the desire to produce works that were straightforward and accessible to all. There is no hint of superficiality in this approach, however: he sensitively assimilated both Italian and French musical languages as well as certain traditional Polish stylistic elements. These and other ingredients he accepted as simple, pliable mother tongues, without trying to adapt them to his native German idiom.

This is evident in the Suite in A minor TWV 55:a2, which is actually highly instructive as a source of inspiration for Bach’s Suite in B minor BWV 1067. Likewise the short Concerto in D TWV 51:D2 and the Concerto in G TWV 51:G2 offer telling examples of Telemann’s liberal, intelligent use of a generous palette of harmonic, rhetorical, melodic and rhythmical colours. Everything is there to hand, yet there is nothing in excess. Even when the composer indulges in a touch of caricature, as in the Suite ‘La Bizarre’ in G major TWV 55:G2, nothing is excessive, and nothing is wanting. This is synthesis reconciled with reverie: a touch of melodic harshness, immediately tempered by elegance, even in the concertato dialogues, where much is surprising and everything harmonious.