Music for a Mixed Taste : Style, Genre, and Meaning in Telemann's Instrumental Works

Georg Philipp Telemann gave us one of the richest legacies of instrumental music from the eighteenth century. Though considered a definitive contribution to the genre during his lifetime, his concertos, sonatas, and suites were then virtually ignored for nearly two centuries following his death. Yet these works are now among the most popular in the baroque repertory. In Music for a Mixed Taste , Steven Zohn considers Telemann's music from stylistic, generic, and cultural perspectives. He investigates the composer's cosmopolitan mixed taste—a blending of the French, Italian, English, and Polish national styles-and his imaginative expansion of this concept to embrace mixtures of the old (late baroque) and new ( galant ) styles. Telemann had an equally remarkable penchant for generic amalgamation, exemplified by his pioneering role in developing hybrid types such as the sonata in concerto style (Sonate auf Concertenart) and overture-suite with solo instrument (Concert en ouverture). Zohn examines the extramusical meanings of Telemann's characteristic overture-suites, which bear descriptive texts associating them with literature, medicine, politics, religion, and the natural world, and which acted as vehicles for the composer's keen sense of musical humor. Zohn then explores Telemann's unprecedented self-publishing enterprise at Hamburg, and sheds light on the previously unrecognized borrowing by J.S. Bach from a Telemann concerto. Music for a Mixed Taste further reveals how Telemann's style polonaise generates musical and social meanings through the timeless oppositions of Orient-Occident, urban-rural, and serious-comic. Georg Philipp Telemann gave us one of the richest legacies of instrumental music from the eighteenth century. Though considered a definitive contribution to the genre during his lifetime, his concertos, sonatas, and suites were then virtually ignored for nearly two centuries following his death. Yet these works are now among the most popular in the baroque repertory. In Music for a Mixed Taste, Steven Zohn considers Telemann's music from stylistic, generic, and cultural perspectives. He investigates the composer's cosmopolitan "mixed taste"--a blending of the French, Italian, English, and Polish national styles-and his imaginative expansion of this concept to embrace mixtures of the old (late baroque) and new (galant) styles. Telemann had an equally remarkable penchant for generic amalgamation, exemplified by his pioneering role in developing hybrid types such as the sonata in concerto style ("Sonate auf Concertenart") and overture-suite with solo instrument ("Concert en ouverture"). Zohn examines the extramusical meanings of Telemann's "characteristic" overture-suites, which bear descriptive texts associating them with literature, medicine, politics, religion, and the natural world, and which acted as vehicles for the composer's keen sense of musical humor. Zohn then explores Telemann's unprecedented self-publishing enterprise at Hamburg, and sheds light on the previously unrecognized borrowing by J.S. Bach from a Telemann concerto. Music for a Mixed Taste further reveals how Telemann's style polonaise generates musical and social meanings through the timeless oppositions of Orient-Occident, urban-rural, and serious-comic. In Music for a Mixed Taste, Steven Zohn considers Telemann's music from stylistic, generic, and cultural perspectives. He investigates the composer's cosmopolitan "mixed taste" and his imaginative expansion of this concept to embrace mixtures of the old (late baroque) and new (galant) styles. Telemann had an equally remarkable penchant for generic amalgamation, exemplified by his pioneering role in developing hybrid types such as the sonata in concerto style ("Sonate auf Concertenart") and overture-suite with solo instrument ("Concert en ouverture"). Zohn examines the extramusical meanings of Telemann's "characteristic" overture-suites, which bear descriptive texts associating them with literature, medicine, politics, religion, and the natural world, and which acted as vehicles for the composer's keen sense of musical humor. Zohn then explores Telemann's unprecedented self-publishing enterprise at Hamburg, and sheds light on the previously unrecognized borrowing by J.S. Bach from a Telemann concerto. Music for a Mixed Taste further reveals how Telemann's style polonaise generates musical and social meanings through the timeless oppositions of Orient-Occident, urban-rural, and serious-comic. --From publisher's description The overture-suites. Acquiring a mixed taste : Telemann as "grand partisan de la musique Française" ; Telemann's mimetic art : the characteristic overture-suites The concertos. "Niemals recht von Herzen gegangen"? : Telemann's concertos ; Bach's debt repaid with interest : a case study of transformative imitation The sonatas. "Something for everyone's taste" : Telemann's sonatas to 1725 ; Telemann and the Sonate auf Concertenart The Hamburg publications. Telemann in the marketplace : the composer as self-publisher ; Telemann für Kenner und Liebhaber : the music of the Hamburg publications ; Telemann's Polish style and the "true barbaric beauty" of the musical other. Abbreviations. List of Musical Examples. List of Tables. List of Figures. Prologue: Styles and Sources. Telemann and the German Mixed Taste. Genius in the Closet. Part I: The Overture-Suites. 1. Acquiring a Mixed Taste: Telemann as "grand partisan de la musique Francaise". Telemann as Lullist. Tradition versus Innovation. The Concert en ouverture and Concerto en suite. The Overture-Suite in Retrospect. 2. Telemann's Mimetic Art: The Characteristic Overture-Suites. Characteristic Titles/Staging the Overture-Suite. The Civic Water Music/Images of Court and Country. Telemann's Wit: Burl