Telemann: The Recorder Sonatas

Erik Bosgraaf is an established Brilliant Classics artist whose recordings span the centuries. His previous release was of Pierre Boulez, a recording of Dialogue de l’ombre double (BC94842) that won warm critical opinions such as this from Gramophone: ‘Balance between recorders and electronics is ideally judged, giving this music an immediacy yet also intimacy beyond that of any other recorded option.’

In his latest recording, he brings these same qualities (minus the electronics) to the music of Telemann, who as a player of the instrument lavished particularly rich treasures upon it, even considering a total output of over 3000 separate works. Bosgraaf has made a personal selection of sonatas from various chamber music collections which Telemann made throughout his career such as the Musique de table, Essercizii musicali and Der getreue Music-meister, especially during the latter stages of his career when he was still producing music with a phenomenal industry not least due to the need to recoup his wife’s enormous gambling debts.

The result is something of a love-letter to the recorder, celebrating its qualities of agility and songfulness, full of syncopated quick movements, Italianate arias and taking in both arcane technical devices such as canons as well as simple folk tunes from Poland. Bosgraaf plays a wide selection of recorders to match the breadth of Telemann’s invention. The harpsichord used is a Mietke model by Bruce Kennedy. This release should join an acclaimed version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (BC94637) as one of the most popular items in the ever-growing discography of this exciting young recorder virtuoso.

In preparation of the Telemann year 2017 (250th anniversary) Erik Bosgraaf and Francesco Corti present a new recording of the complete recorder sonatas!
Telemann himself was a professional recorder player. These sonatas contain some of his most personal music, his usual brilliance, wit and virtuosity alternate with passages of deep emotion and melancholy.
Erik Bosgraaf is one of the most remarkable recorder players of today. Equally at home in early as well as contemporary music he extends the limits of his instrument, achieving an extreme range of expression and unheard-of effects.
Liner notes in English and German.