Sonatas, Suites & Small Pieces from "Der getreue Music-Meister" (Hamburg 1728)

Der getreue Music-Meister was Telemann's own Hamburg publishing venture of 1728: 25 fortnightly instalments of sonatas, suites, duets, solos, fugues and songs for a wide spread of instruments, aimed at professionals and keen amateurs alike. Telemann engraved the plates himself, and it is described as the first German music edition published in instalments. The music is chamber-scale Baroque — tuneful, graceful and rhythmically buoyant, with the conversational give-and-take typical of Telemann.

By 1728 Telemann was Hamburg's director of church music and one of Germany's most published composers; this record is a much later revival of that repertoire rather than a document of his own era. The players are oboist Heinz Holliger, bassoonist Klaus Thunemann and harpsichordist Christiane Jaccottet, all established Baroque specialists. Denon, the classical label of Japan's Nippon Columbia, recorded them in the early 1980s, and this pressing is Japanese, from 1982.

Little has been written about this particular release — I found no substantial review of it — so buyers tend to judge it on the playing and on Denon's generally clean, quiet Japanese pressings.