Fantasies for Violin Solo

"Rachel Podger has made my favourite period instrument recording of those great Bach works for solo violin, and this is a lovely companion piece: Bach's friend Telemann showing his expertise and skill both as player and composer in his 12 Fantasias, admittedly relatively humble alongside Bach's awesome vehicles for violinists, but then Telemann would never have wanted them to be compared. His charm, melodic and harmonic gifts and ingenuity are very satisfying in their own right, and in performances like these everyone's a winner. Not just for violinists, by the way: anyone who enjoys baroque music performed with panache should give this a listen."
(BBC Music)

Rachel Podger was educated in Germany and in England at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she studied with David Takeno and Michaela Comberti. During her time in London Rachel co-founded two ensembles specialising in the music of the Baroque, Florilegium and The Palladian Ensemble, both of which have achieved international success as touring and recording artists.

Johann Mattheson in 'Der Vollkommene Capellmeister' (Hamburg 1739) says about a fantasia: "Even though they (the fantasias) all give the impression of being played ad-lib, most of them are nonetheless written down properly, however, they are so very little kept in place and order that no one could hardly find a better general term to designate them than the one describing a good idea."

Good ideas they are indeed, and plenty of them! They often occur in rapid succession, chasing each other across the page in vibrant fast movements, pausing here and there to give room for the next inspiration, or unfolding gradually and reflectively in poignant slow movements. Unconnected ideas stand next to each other, unaware of each other's presence: motifs, rhythms, sequences of intervals and melodic lines change direction and character at a whim. Broken chords alternate with agitated scales and passagework, grave and solemn passages appear next to dance-like ones. The musical story throughout the movements is always clear as you become aware of Telemann's ingenious way of giving free reign to his imagination within a cohesive underlying musical structure.
Contrapuntal elements and two-part fugal writing are present in the first six fantasias, a style of writing which was regarded as distinctly old-fashioned during the middle part of the 18th century (the fugues are not nearly as thoroughly 'worked 'as Bach's). The more fashionable 'galant' style predominates in the second Six, with techniques that convey a delicate sensibility in movement titles such as Dolce, Piacevolmente or Soave, the kind described by Mattheson as the 'Sing-Art'. There are also binary pieces with a particularly strong rondo or concerto feel, and a number of last movements are straightforward rustic dances with the irresistible physical traits to get you hopping about! Telemann's frequent use of Polish folk-dance tunes and rhythms in his instrumental music go back to his time of employment in Upper Silesia, and as he recalls in one of his autobiographies, 'One would scarcely believe what wonderful ideas the pipers or fiddlers have when they improvised while the dancers pause for breath. An observer could gather enough ideas from them in eight days to last a lifetime'.

Solo music sounds best when a sense of the musical structure underlies a feeling of improvisation. Although always an ideal, it is sometimes hard to achieve this as a player, especially if one is tempted to focus too much on specific technical challenges. Here there are no insurmountable difficulties or pyrotechnics to overcome as the pieces are written sympathetically for the violin. Telemann himself was a good violinist. Early on in his career he held the post as Konzertmeister at Eisenach. In his first autobiography of 1718 he says: "a page with witchcraft in its lines, full of tricky passage-work, is a burden to perform. He who composes for the many, does better than he who writes for the few." So we are left to enjoy these 'notated improvisations' and to be enamoured by their ingenuity.
- Rachel Podger