Ouverture in G minor, TWV 55:g4
For 3 oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo
Ouverture
Rondeau
Les Irresoluts
Les Capricieuses
Loure
Gasconnade
Menuets I & II
Program Notes by Martin Pearlman
This undated Ouverture (or Suite) calls for three oboes, rather than the usual two. Along with the bassoon, the oboes create a quartet of reed instruments which Telemann pits against the four-part string group in the fashion of an Italian concerto grosso. The character piece Les Irresoluts is marked "à discrétion," that is, with a certain freedom. It creates its irresolute feeling by repeatedly putting an eighth rest on downbeats where we expect each figure to resolve. The Gasconnade suggests the extravagant boasting that, according to legend, was said to be common among the people of Gascony. The suite ends with an elegant pair of minuets in which the melody line and the bass line of the first menuet switch places to become the bass and melody respectively of the second menuet.
Boston Baroque Performances
Ouverture in G minor, TWV 55:g4
February 17, 1978
Paine Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Martin Pearlman, conductor
Included on LP recording, 1978.
Out of print.