Product Review

In addition to volumes and volumes of church and chamber music, the astonishingly prolific Georg Philipp Telemann wrote a great many concertos--the most engaging of which are those for two or more solo instruments, often in interesting combinations. It must be said that many of these concertos are a bit lightweight, but they are lively and diverting--and Christopher Hogwood and the baroque-instrument specialists of the Academy of Ancient Music give them accomplished, persuasive performances. Among the tasty confections here are a vigorous concerto for three trumpets; a double concerto for recorder and transverse flute--in the 18th-century context, the old-fashioned and the newfangled side by side; and the "Concerto polonois" for string orchestra without soloists, based on rustic dance music Telemann heard in Poland as a young man. Then there's the gorgeous concerto for flute, oboe d'amore, and viola d'amore (the last two being lower-pitched versions of the oboe and viola): in the hands of Stephen Preston, Clare Shanks, and Monica Huggett, respectively, Telemann's music for these aptly named instruments brings to mind waking up on a bright sunny morning with your true love in your arms. --Matthew Westphal