Telemann autobiography

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Georg Philipp Telemann (14 March 1681 – 25 June 1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist.

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Georg Philipp Telemann

Georg Philipp Telemann was the Leipzig city council’s preferred candidate for the post of cantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, which became vacant in 1722. When he withdrew his application, they had to make do with a “lesser” candidate: Johann Sebastian Bach. Telemann made a career for himself as Hamburg’s municipal music director – and through his music all over Europe.

Georg Philipp Telemann, born in Magdeburg in 1681, was self-taught: “In all this, mere nature has been my teacher, without the slightest instruction.” Even as a child, he played several instruments “without realising that there were notes in the world”, later mastering the piano, organ, violin, recorder and flute, oboe, chalumeau (the forerunner of the clarinet), viola da gamba, double bass and trombone. He received the foundation for his comprehensive humanistic education as a pupil at the Gymnasium in Hildesheim. He then went to Leipzig to study law at the request of his mother. He had a setting of a psalm in his luggage, which his room-mate discovered and sent to the mayor of Leipzig.

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Biography

Telemann was one of the foremost German composers of the first half of the eighteenth century and an important figure in the transition between the late Baroque and early Classical idioms. Constantly moving with the times, his works embraced a wide variety of vocal and instrumental genres, marrying Italian, French and Polish styles into one that was essentially German. Raised in a devout Lutheran family, Telemann received singing and keyboard lessons but was largely self-taught musically. In 1701 he entered Leipzig University to study law but music proved the stronger attraction. He undertook to compose fortnightly for Leipzig’s two principal churches, established a student ‘Collegium Musicum’ for public concert-giving, and worked as musical director for the Opernhaus auf dem Brühl and as organist/choirmaster at the Neukirche. Telemann’s 1705 appointment as Kapellmeister for Count Erdmann II of Promnitz at Sorau opened his ears to works by French composers such as Lully and Campra, and, when the court moved to Pless, to Polish and South Moravian folk music. He enter