Concerto in E Minor

Description

Piccolo, Flute, Piano — When I was invited to perform a Vivaldi piccolo concerto in Italy a few years ago, my host, Luisa Sello, wrote that Carol Wincenc was going to be on the same concert, and was there any piece that we could play together? I looked and asked around, and my colleague Joanna Bassett recommended the Telemann Concerto in E Minor for Traverso and Recorder. I didn’t know the piece, but as I listened to a recording of it, I immediately loved it and could easily envision how beautifully it could work, with a few “adjustments,” for flute and piccolo. I got to work, and the current publication is the result. I have performed it many times, and enjoy it even more every time. It fits a unique place in our repertoire, and works equally well with piano as with the string orchestra setting.According to Steven D. Zohn, pre-eminent Telemann scholar, and author of Music for a Mixed Taste: Style, Genre, and Meaning in Telemann’s Instrumental Works, much is unknown about the concerto itself; it likely dates from the 1720s, soon after Telemann moved to Hamburg. Only an eighteenth-century copyist’s set of parts is extant, that of Johann Samuel Endler, who was engaged at the Darmstadt court as a singer and violinist, later becoming Vice-Kapellmeister and Kapellmeister, and who had a large collection of Telemann’s works.As in my Vivaldi concertos edition (Presser 414-41190), I have added virtually all of the articulations and dynamics that appear here, and have inserted quite a bit of ornamentation. Unlike the Vivaldi edition, I have not included any indication of the original Telemann in those passages, nor have I included any pedagogical markings, such as fingerings.Finally, I would like to acknowledge, with gratitude, Joanna Bassett, Daniel Dorff, Benton Gordon, Evan Pengra-Sult, Sandra Saathoff, Valerie Shields, Carol Wincenc, and Steven Zohn, for the various roles they played in the making of this publication.— Zart Dombourian-EbyJune 2018 Composed by Telemann as a double concerto for recorder and transverse flute, Zart Dombourian-Eby’s new edition is prepared for piccolo, flute, and piano — remaining compatible with available orchestral editions, and respectfully faithful to Telemann’s detailed nuances. Cast in the slow-fast, slow-fast four-movement mold typical of Baroque concert works, the Concerto in E minor is at once among the most beautiful and exhilarating works of Telemann’s formidable output.