(This article first appeared in Musick, the Journal of the Vancouver Society for Early Music. It is reprinted here with the permission of Jose Yerstappen, the publisher, and the author, Bruce Haynes, whose work has appeared in these pages previously. Ed.)

The Kleine Cammer-Music or Petite Musique de Chambre is a set of six quasi-French suites, or "partitas, " as Telemann himself called them. It is particularly interesting because of the lengthy dedication written by the composer,[1] and because of the careers and stature of the four musicians to whom the collection is dedicated.

The Kleine Cammer-Music first appeared in 1716, and seems to have been immediately as popular in Telemann's day as it is in our own; it has been published at least four times. The success of the first edition evidently prompted a new one which was printed in Hamburg in 1728 (omitting the dedication). It appeared again in print in 1949 and has been enthusiastically adopted by recorder players ever since (and rightly so, as these pieces sound excellent on any treble instrument). Finally, a facsimile edition was published by Musica Musica in 1983.[2]

The instrumentation given in Bärenreiter's 1949 edition is misleading: to say they are for "Violin and other Melody Instruments" is not entirely accurate. Telemann's original title reads:

for Violin, Traverso, Harpsichord, but especially for the OBOE

The collection is dedicated to four famous oboe virtuosi who were friends of the composer, and of whom we shall speak in a moment. But first, let us consider the probable origin of its title.

Dresden forms an important backdrop for the Kleine Cammer-Music. The seat of the brilliant Saxon Court of the Polish kings, Dresden's was the most illustrious of the many first-rate musical establishments in northern Germany in the first quarter of the eighteenth century.[3] Its orchestra was the model of Europe, and under August 11 its list of distinguished players and composers included many luminaries still famous today: among them Abel, Buffardin, Lotti, Pisendel, Porpora, Senesino, Veracini, Volumier and Weiss.

It was at this court that an ambitious young oboist named Quantz obtained his first post in a new ensemble formed officially in 1717 and named the Kleine Cammer-Musique, to distinguish it from the full orchestra (or Grosse Cammer-Musique).[4] The Kleine Cammer-Musique was made up of players of various kinds of instruments, suggesting that Telemann's work might also be performed en symphonie with a combination of different instruments, a common French practice of the time.[5] As it turned out for Quantz, the seniority of other oboists at the Court meant that he could never advance very far on that instrument, and he was thus led to turn his attention to the traverso.[6] The ascendant oboist at Dresden at that time (and Quantz's senior) was the highly respected Johann Christian Richter, a student of a famous oboist at the court named François LeRiche.[7] It was to Richter and LeRiche (together with two other LeRiche students: the Berlin virtuoso Peter Glösch, and Michael Bohm at Darmstadt) that Telemann dedicated his own Kleine Cammer-Music.

Telemann's dedication is written in that flowery language which sounds so embarrassingly servile to 20th-century ears and which we associate with nobility and rich patrons. On the contrary in this case, it was addressed to equals: fellow-musicians whom the composer obviously liked and admired. One can almost see Telemann, as at ease with words as with notes, raising a glass to his four friends and colleagues and proposing a toast with the gracious words of his dedication:

Messieurs,

I venture to dedicate the present Kleine Cammer-Music to you in the confidence that it will be benevolently regarded, since I have had the honour of being acquainted with numerous examples of your goodness and courtesy, which can never be praised highly enough. Whether, however, this work will meet with your approbation remains yet to be seen. Were this to be so, since your virtu is admired by half the world, it would be no small matter.

After describing his efforts to suit these pieces especially to the oboe, he concludes with the following:

I wish to repeat my hope that you will be well-disposed to these pages, and will accept them as a token of my respect and love, and that in the future you will continue to honour me with your highly prized affection, as hitherto. I abide life long, Messieurs, vôtre treshumble & obsïssant Serviteur,

Georg Philipp Telemann

Who were these four musicians, who could inspire so respectful a dedication from the famous Capellmeister Telemann, and for whom composers like Hasse, Vivaldi, Graupner, Fasch, Zelenka, Heinichen and even J.S. Bach were writing their oboe solos?

François LeRiche (also LaRiche), who may be considered the principal dedicatee of the Kleine Caninier-Music, was French. Like many of his countrymen, he helped in his time to disseminate and instruct the rest of Europe in the use of the new French style of playing and its newly invented wind instruments (the Hautbois, as both Bach and Telemann normally called the instrument, was no more than sixty years old in 1716). Unlike his fellow oboists, LeRiche was nineteen years older than Telemann, and was already nearing the end of his career at the time of the dedication.

Born in Tournay (now in Belgium) in 1662, he had an appointment at London in James II's band by the age of twenty- three, and later accompanied William IV on a state visit to Holland." Pierre Jaillard (better known in England as Peter Bressan) was another of the oboists on the Dutch visit;[9] Bressan and LeRiche evidently arrived in England about the same time,[10] and remained lifelong friends, as we shall see.

LeRiche eventually settled in Dresden. Telemann heard him perform (possibly together with Peter (Glösch) in operas in Berlin in 1702 and 1704,[11] and probably made his acquaintance at that time. Although he was a titled oboist at Court (a post in which he was highly valued), LeRiche also acted as an agent for the king in the purchase of foreign goods, including jewelry and horses. This must explain his remarkably high salary (3,200 Thaler per annum; other oboists were paid 250- 600 Thaler, and even the most distinguished court musicians, including the music director, Heinichen, and the first violinists Volumier and Veracini, never received more than 1,200 Thaler.[12])

He was for many years a good friend of Quantz, whom he helped with a letter of credit during the flautist's stay in England.[13] He is last listed in the Court records of 1733, when he would have been seventy-one years old, and probably on pension for some time before.[14] It has recently been discovered that Peter Bressan, while on a trip to Paris in 1731, unexpectedly died in LeRiche's home at Tournay. We may assume, then, that LeRiche had returned home by that time, after his retirement from his profession as an active player.[15] The fine portrait of an oboist which now hangs in the Berlin instrument collection may well be of this venerable player.

Johann Christian Richter was born in 1689 at Dresden, studied the oboe under LeRiche, and was appointed to the Capelle there at the age of twenty.[16] He is easily confused with two other Dresden musicians, the organist and composer Johann Christoph Richter (1700-85) and the composer and conductor Franz Xaver Richter (1709-89). Telemann's dedication is to "Francisco" Richter, which was perhaps a nickname.[17] Richter went to Paris for further training when he was twenty-five, and by 1716 (when the Kleine Caninier-Music appeared) he was generally regarded as a master of the oboe.[18] His health was not good, however, and in 1744, in a fit of melancholy, he took his own life.

Johann Michael Böhm, born ca. 1685, also received his training in Dresden, presumably with LeRiche. He later worked in Leipzig and probably became acquainted with Telemann there.[19] In 1711 he was invited, together with the violinist Pisendel (who preferred to stay in Dresden), to join the court musical establishment at Darmstadt, where he became concertmaster.[20] Telemann arrived in nearby Frankfurt in 1712, and often asked Böhm and other members of the Darmstadt orchestra to play with him there.[21] In 1720, Böhm married Susanne Elizabeth Textor, the sister of Telemann Is own second wife Maria Katherina Textor (whom he had married in 1714).[22] Böhm moved to Ludwigsburg (Stuttgart) in 1729, where he was pensioned in 1753, the year Jornelli arrived at that court. He had enjoyed a good reputation there as a player of traverso and recorder as well as oboe.[23]

Peter Glösch was appointed to the Royal Prussian Court Capelle at Berlin in 1706. His proximity to Dresden, the musical connections between the courts, and several clues to associations with the other three oboists suggest that he, too, was a pupil of LeRiche's. Glösch was the most important wind musician at the Berlin Court when in 1713 Frederick the Great's infamous father, Friedrich Wilhelm I (the "Soldier-King") ascended the throne and immediately disbanded the entire Capelle as "useless ballast."[24] Glösch stayed on in Berlin, sustaining himself privately by teaching and performing. He is mentioned in several later sources, always with the highest praise for his virtuosity on the oboe.[25] (The piece by "Glösch" quoted in Quantz's Solfeggi [ca. 1728-42] must be by him.[26]) His son, Carl Wilhelm (1732-1809), became a well-known flautist, keyboard player and composer. The elder Glösch must have died in 1754 or just before.[27]

There is strong evidence that three of these oboists were together at Frankfurt in May 1716, to assist in Telemann's performances of several festive cantatas in honour of the birth of a son to the Emperor.[28] This would of course explain the origin and inspiration of these beautiful little pieces, published in September of the same year.

The Kleine Cammer-Music was written relatively early in Telemann's extraordinarily long career (he was thirty-five at the time, but wrote music for another fifty-one years!). These pieces are thus among the earliest dated music to be written specifically for the technical requirements of the oboe, and therefore give some idea of what was expected of the instrument at that time.[29] On this subject, Telemann (who was himself an oboist[30]) goes into some detail in his dedication:

To this end, I have limited the Ambitum [range] as narrowly as possibly... [and] avoided large interval skips and covered or awkward notes; but have always sought, on the contrary, to bring out the brilliance and distinctness of this delicate instrument. In addition, I have kept the Arien short, partly to spare the strength of the player, and partly not to tire the ear of the listener. As for the Harmonie, it must be acknowledged that it contains little or nothing chromatic...

The music is much more varied and delightful than these observations would lead us to believe. The movements are indeed short and the range limited, but, curiously enough, many of the opening themes are constructed of large intervals.[31] Covered and awkward fingerings are also present;[32] many of the passages involve left-hand problems such as combinations with Bb and Ab. One of the most problematic aspects of playing an oboe without an octavekey is upward slurs of intervals larger than a third:[33] Telemann often writes these.[34] And contrary to his final remark, chromaticism abounds in these pieces.[35]

Still, none of these examples puts an unreasonable demand on the average oboist's technique.[36] The pieces do indeed manage to capture the sprightly, brilliant yet delicate character of the oboe, as Telemann had set out to do. This in no way precludes their performance on other instruments, however. As already suggested, they can be played by several instruments together, alternating movements or occasionally playing in unison. As always, the violin can be counted on to play anything written for the oboe.[37] As for flutes, the title recommends the traverso; the predominance of flat tonalities would better suit the recorder, however, except for the second partita in G.[38] As the composer suggests, it would be interesting to hear what can be made of these pieces on the harpsichord.

One can only assume that the four virtuosi to whom the Kleine Canimer-Music was dedicated (and who, it should be noted, were not exclusively oboist[39]) received them with as much graciousness as they were offered, and "allowed themselves to be heard playing" them (as Telemann put it) in concerts. It is hoped that the recent publication of these inventive little pieces in a facsimile edition will help to continue that tradition.

ENDNOTES

1. Please see the facsimile translated in the text.

2. The present article is a revision of my foreword to that edition.

3. See O. Landmann, "Dresden, " New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980), 5, pp. 617-22; C. Mennicke, Hasse und die Briider Graun als Symphoniker (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1906), p. 270.

4. See J.J. Quantz, "Lebenslauff," in F.W. Marpurg, Historisch-kritische Beiträge zur Ausnahme der Musik (Berlin: G.A. Lange, 1754-60), 1:208. The smaller ensemble was also called the "Capella Polacca." An oboe concerto by Giovanni Alberto Ristori (1692-1753), the director of the ensemble, is preserved in manuscript at Dresden. An etching (dated 1719) reproduced in H. Schnoor's Dresden, vierhundertjahre deutscher Musikkultur: zum Jubiläum der Staatskappelle und zur Geschichte der Dresdener Oper, edited by E. Bunkowsky (Dresden: Dresdener Verlagsgesellschaft, 1948), p. 117, may be a depiction of the ensemble playing "Tafelmusik".

5. For example, Couperin's Concerts Royeaux, first performed in 1714, were written, as was the Kleine Cammer-Music, principally in two parts, but were intended for harpsichord, violin, traverso, oboe, gamba and bassoon.

6. Quantz, op. cit., p. 209.

7. M. Fürstenau, Zur Geshichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden, 2 vols. in I (Dresden: R. Kuntze, 1861-62), 2:135; and Quantz, op. cit., p. 207.

8. D. Lasocki, "Notes on François La Riche," unpublished.

9. S. Jeans, "Bressan in 1690," Galpin Society Journal 11 (1958): 91-92.

10. See note 8. See also D. Lasocki, "Professional Recorder Playing in England During the Baroque Era," (1979) which is an unpublished version (commissioned by Frans Brilggen and Seon Records) of "Professional Recorder Players in England, 1540-1740," 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1983).

11. G.P. Telemann, "Selbstbiographie," inj. Mattheson, Grrundlage einer Ehrenpforte (Hamburg, 1740), p. 359.

12. Fürstenau, op. cit., 2:50, 66.

13. Quantz, op. cit., p. 239.

14. This is coincidentally the same year in which the Kleine Cammer-Musique ensemble ceased its activities.

15. M. Byrne, " Pierre Jaillard , " Galpin Sociey Journal 36 (1983): 15.

16. W. Kahl, ed., ... Selbstbiographien deutscher Musiker des XVIII. jahrhunderts... (Cologne: Stauffen-Verlag, 1948), p. 259; R. Etner, Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen -Lexicon, 2nd ed. (1959), 8, p. 220; Füstenau op. cit., 2:66.

17. Although the name "Francisco" would suggest that Franz Xaver was Telemann's intended dedicatee, it seems unlikely, since Franz Xaver was born in 1709 and since Johann Christian Richter was a well-known oboist at Dresden and closely connected with LeRiche.

18. E.L. Gerber, Neues historisch-biographisches Lexicon der Tonkünstler (1812), 3, p. 283.

19. E. Noack, Musikgeschichte Darmstadts vom Mittelalter bis zur Goethezeit (Mainz: B. Schott's S61me, ca. 1967), p. 180.

20. Ibid., pp. 176-77, 180.

21. It is a reasonable assumption that a large percentage of the oboe and recorder music from this period preserved at Darmstadt's Hessische Landes-und Hochschulbibliothek (by Telemann, Graupner and Fasch, among others) was written for Böhm. A "Concerto" by Böhm for oboe d'amore, viola d'amore and bassoon survives in two versions at Dresden and Berlin. See B. Haynes, Musicfor Oboe, 1650-1800: a Bibliography (Berkeley: Fallen Leaf Press, 1985).

22. Noack, op. cit., p. 180.

23. J. Sittard, Zur Geschichte der Musik und Theaters am Würternburgischen Hofe (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1890-91), pp. 8, 58.

24. G. Sachs, Musik und Oper am Kurbrandenburgischen Hof (Berlin: J. Bard, 1910), pp. 68, 184.

25. E.G. Baron, Historisch-theoretisch -und praktische Untersuchungen des Instruments der Lauten, mit Fleisz au)gesetzt und alles rechtschaffenen Liebbabern zum Fergniigen heraus gegben (Nuremberg: J.F. Rildiger, 1727), p. 85.

26. See the introduction to the Amadeus edition of the So4feggi, p. iii. The inclusion of a work by Glösch in this collection is another indication of his connection to Dresden.

27. H. Becker, "Glösch, Peter," Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (1956), 5, cols. 298-99.

28. Richter was in Venice from April to December of that year, participating in a state visit with other musicians of the Dresden court (including Zelenka, Heinchen and Pisendel). See M. Talbot, Albinoni: Leben und Werk (Aldiswil, Switzerland: Edition Kunzelmann, 1980) p. 47.

29. For a list of the earliest music written for obbligato oboe, see the "Index of 17th-century Oboe Solos" in Haynes, Music for Oboe, op. cit.

30. R. Petzold, Georg Philipp Telemann, trans. by H. Fitzpatrick (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 13; and Telemann, op. cit., p. 357.

31. For examples, see II/l, 11/3, 11/5, V/1, V/2 and VI/l.

32. See 111/6, IV/4, VI/Affetuoso and VI/2.

33. When it was invented at the end of the eighteenth century, the octave key was at first called a "slur-key." See B. Haynes, "Oboe Fingering Charts, 1695-1816," Galpin Society Journal 31 (1978): 79.

34. For examples, see 11/6, 111/5, IV/6, V/1 and VI/4.

35. See Il/2, III/Adagio, IV/Grave, V/2 and VI/Affetuoso.

36. Although some of them would give an amateur trouble, Telemann states clearly that the Kleine Cammer-Music may be "practiced" by beginners.

37. With a somewhat different result. The G-string, often neglected in general, will obviously not be used in these pieces.

38. The year 1716 is a very early date for traverso solos. It was in the decade 1710-20 that the instrument went through a mutation from its original French three-piece form and low "French pitch" (a = 392) to a model in four parts and at "German Cammerton" (a = 410). Bach wasjust beginning to discover the traverso at this time, having used the recorder exclusively in earlier works. See B. Haynes "Johann Sebastian Bach's Pitch Standards: the Woodwind Perspective, " Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, in press.

39. Talbot cited LeRiche as his expert not only for the oboe, but for "Bass courtault, " "Fago, " "Bassoon " and "Serpent German." See A. Baines, "James Talbot's Manuscript," Galpin Society Journal 1 (1948): 9-49. Böhm, as mentioned above, was a noted player of traverso and recorder.

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