Georg Philipp Telemann (24 March [14 March in the Julian calendar] 1681 – 25 June 1767) was a German composer of the Baroque era. He was a very prolific self-taught composer who composed works in various genres, including concertos, orchestral suites, and operas. Telemann was the most famous and highly regarded composer in the Western world during the late Baroque era. He lived to the ripe old age of 86. Some of his more famous works include the Trumpet Concerto in D major, the Suite for Recorder and Orchestra in A minor, and the Hamburger Ebb and Flow Suite in C major.
During his childhood in Magdeburg, his family tried to discourage him from involving himself with music because that was then considered neither a really honorable trade nor a lucrative one. In spite of this, he taught himself to play the violin, recorder and piano as a child. At age ten he composed his first pieces of music and started to substitute for the cantor teaching music to the the upper classes of his school. Telemann composed his first opera, Sigismundus, at age twelve, after which his mother confiscated his musical instruments and sent him to a school in another town, Zellerfeld, in a vain attempt to stop him from "wasting his time" on music. "Unfortunately" young Telemann was encouraged in his musical endeavours there by the local church superintendent. While still attending the high schools in Zellerfeld and Hildesheim, he also taught himself (mostly unaided) to play many other instruments, including the organ, the bass, the oboe, and the trombone.
Following his mother's wishes, Telemann began to study law at Leipzig University in 1701, meeting a sixteen-year-old keen musician called George Frederic Handel and becoming friends with him when he stopped on the way in Halle. In Leipzig the lure of music became too much and immediately he began to compose cantatas for St. Thomas's church and founded an amateur orchstra, the Collegium Musicum, which also became the main orchestra of Leipzig's opera house. In 1705 he left Leipzig to head the orchestra of a count in Sorau, in 1708 he became head of the ducal orchestra in Eisenach. Here he met Johann Sebastian Bach and became friends with him too, as well as the godfather to Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel. Seeking a new challenge, Telemann applied for and received the position of director of church music of the Free City of Frankfurt (1712-1721).
In 1721 he accepted a similar position in the Free City of Hamburg, and there he stayed until the end of his life, apart from a sabbatical in Paris (1737-1738), not just as director of church music, but also as director of the opera house and freelance musical entrepreneur. Telemann is credited with a number of "firsts", for instance the first solo concert for viola, the first musical journal (Der getreue Musikmeister) and the first use of Polish and Moravian folk-musical elements in concert-level music. His "Table Music" was sent out to subscribers all over Europe, and Telemann also wrote poetry and theoretical works in several languages. After his death, the position of director of Hamburg's church music was given to his godson, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
Works by Telemann:
- Germanicus (1704), libretto by Christine Dorothea Lachs.
- Miriways
- Emma Und Eginhard
Telemann's life and works provide examples of:
- Child Prodigy: A straight example. He taught himself to play the violin, recorder and piano as a child and composed his first pieces of music at age ten.
- Long Runner: Telemann wrote his first pieces of music at age 10 and the last one, a Markuspassionnote in 1767. That's about 75 years of active work as a composer.
- Ripped from the Headlines: A number of Telemann's works reflected current events, for instance his 1721 ouverture La Bourse ("The Stock-Exchange") has the final movement L'Espérance du Mississippi ("The Hope of the Mississippi") in humorous reference to the financial crash in France in 1720, while the 1756 oratorio Donner-Ode ("Thunder(ous) Ode") indirectly reflects the impact of the catastrophic earthquake of Lisbon (1 November, 1755).
