Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
100 Menuets TWV 34:1-100 (Hambourg, 1728-1730)

Andrea Coen, clavecin

De seize à quarante mesures au plus, les 100 Menuets que Telemann publia en deux livres (1728, 1730), ne sont pas contrairement à ce que l’on croit des danses à destination domestique. Telemann y a composé ce qui pourrait être son clavier bien tempéré, les concevant comme un cycle tonal, donnant à chacun une couleur, un ton, une tournure qui ne s’abstraient pourtant jamais du rythme de la danse. Les entendre égrenés un peu raides par Andrea Coen n’aidera pourtant pas à les savourer. Affaire de jeu, mais aussi d’instruments. S’il y avait une variété à amener dans cette entreprise, c’était bien celle des instruments. Non que le beau clavecin de Guilio Fratini d’après Mietke démérite, mais enfin dans ce cycle où la danse cache à peine un propos savant, pouvoir entendre plusieurs clavecins et pas seulement un instrument de facture allemande, aurait amené des couleurs supplémentaires. Dommage, mais du moins ici on peut envisager cet opus singulier qui n’a jusqu’alors que peu tenté les claviéristes. (Discophilia - Artalinna.com) (Jean-Charles Hoffelé)

“The most exciting thing on this journey of a hundred stages was to find in each individual minuet a unique and unrepeatable sense of originality: a hundred miniatures comprising a kaleidoscope as rich and coherent as was ever heard.” – Andrea Coen Coen views the 100 Menuets as a continuation of his earlier recording on Brilliant Classics of Telemann’s Kleine Kammermusik, intended by the composer for any of various melodic instruments and figured bass accompaniment, or for the harpsichord alone. In accordance with performance practice of the time, Coen realized unwritten harmonies on the basis of the very detailed figured bass line Telemann provides, and he takes the exact same approach on this recording of Telemann’s two sets of 49 + 1 miniatures, which take up right where the Kleine Kammermusik ends – with a minuet. Telemann’s 100 Menuets are well-crafted miniatures of 16 to 40 measures; those of the second set of 50 (from 1730) are generally briefer than those of the first (from 1728). In both collections, the keys are arranged alphabetically so that each group of seven menuets (eight in the last) is confined to one or two tonal centres, a system Telemann may have devised in order to encourage novice players to master one small group of tonalities at a time. With few exceptions, the dances are unvarying in their two-reprise structure and four-measure phrasing. Two dances have a kind of da capo structure (II/38 and 48: AABA), while several offer relief from the oppressively regular phraseology by mixing in uneven or asymmetrical phrases (I/5, with five-measure phrases; I/10, I/44, and II/41, with six-measure phrases). Others strongly invoke the French style through the short–long–long–short ‘Favier’ rhythm or numerous tierces coule´es, ports de voix and other agre´ments (I/12, I/22, I/31, II/20). Occasionally, Telemann high-mindedly writes a strict canon (II/50) or invertible counterpoint (I/5–6, 24–25, 50): the treble and bass voices of Menuets I/5 and 24 are exchanged in I/6 and 25; the same switch occurs between the two halves of Menuet I/50.