Simon Standage, Collegium Musicum 90 - Telemann: Concerto in D, La Bouffonne Suite, Grillen-Symphonie, Alster-Ouverture (1994)

Tracklist:

Concerto in D Major, for Three Horns, Violin and Orchestra (Georg Philipp Telemann)
1. I. Allegro 04:07
2. II. Grave 03:27
3. III. Presto 02:45
La Bouffonne Suite (Georg Philipp Telemann)
4. I. Ouverture 07:09
5. II. Loure 02:16
6. III. Rigaudon I & II 03:11
7. IV. Menuett I & II 03:36
8. V. Entrée 02:30
9. VI. Pastourelle 03:04
Grillen Symphonie (Georg Philipp Telemann)
10. I. Etwas lebhaft 03:44
11. II. Tändelnd 02:37
12. III. Presto 03:05
Alster Ouverture (Georg Philipp Telemann)
13. I. Ouverture 05:15
14. II. Die canonierende Pallas 03:01
15. III. Das Älster-Echo 01:55
16. IV. Die Hamburgischen Glockenspiele 02:36
17. V. Der Schwanen Gesang 02:53
18. VI. Der Älster Schäffer Dorff Music 02:02
19. VII. Die concertierenden Frösche und Krähen 03:02
20. VIII. Der ruhende Pan 03:51
21. IX. Der Schäffer und Nymphen eilfertiger Abzug 03:29

Performers:
Anthony Halstead
Christian Rutherford
Raul Diaz (horns)
Simon Standage (violin)
Collegium Musicum 90

This release shows Telemann at his most irrepressibly good-humoured and imaginative.
There's a concerto for three rattling horns and a solo violin (a splendid sound, with the horns recorded at what seems like the ideal distance), and an elegant suite for strings which sounds like Handel, Bach and a few French composers all thrown in together. More striking, though, is the most substantial piece on the disc, the Alster Echo Overture-Suite, a nine-movement work for strings, oboes and horns full of tricks and surprises occasioned by a host of representative titles. Thus 'Hamburg Carillons' brings us horns imitating bells, 'Concerto of Frogs and Crows' has some mischievously scrunchy wrong notes, and in 'Alster Echo' there's a complex network of echoes between oboes and horns. But the showstealer is the Grillen-Symphonie ('Cricket Symphony').
This is a work for the gloriously silly scoring of piccolo, alto chalumeau, oboe, violins, viola, and two double basses, a somewhat Stravinskian combination that you're unlikely to encounter every day. But it's not just the instrumentation that's irresistibly odd. There's a slow movement with curious, melancholy woodwind interventions a little reminiscent of Harold inItaly, and a finale which is quite a hoot.