Hi!

After a long holidays period I am back at home, ready to start a new study year. The previous one has been important and I made good advancements, including being able to play the Telemann's "Concerto a Tre" with actual Horn and Cello in a little domestic Concert with professional friends. (though very kind and forgiving).

This year I have to study at least one of the 12 "Fantasias" by Telemann. I doubt for choosing the better for my present level. I wonder if those more experienced here could help in my choice:

- What is the usual order to study them? (which should be studied first, then second, etc.?
- Which one would you recommend for may case (beginning medium grade, 7 years of practice, not so much quick learning)?

In case it might make any difference, I have the Bärenreiter urtext edition (BA 2971).

Thank you!

Dear Jose Luis,

These are wonderful mini-examples of the Baroque music.
As a matter of fact, Quantz considered them to be great pieces that were not difficult. Of course, the challenges that were presented in the period with the Traverso are somewhat of a different experience than on our modern padded Boehm flutes.

The question of which one first depends upon your desire.
If I were going to learn them as an ensemble of pieces, I'd work on them all. Which is what I was doing in review about 15 months ago. This of course means that one doesn't expect to get the individual pieces up to perfection in quick order BUT it does take advantage of the variety of the pieces relative to your enthusiasm and also the various aspects of development that you can gain from doing so. So, if you choose this path, work from slow to faster and from a workout frame of mind, go for development on the tough spots.

If you work on one at a time, it would be another way to go and generally I'd teach younger players in this manner because of their limited workout and their limited understanding of what and how to express the composer's intent.

For a mature person who can work with more wisdom, I'd then recommend learning them all at once but also focusing on a different one a bit more each day in some sort of methodical order covering all of them. In this way you can develop all of the issues of your playing more evenly.

The real difficulty is in discovering this intent and expressing it properly. In this respect, I can say that in these short and concise pieces, Telemann shows his mastery of composition in expressing so much music in so little of a space in time.

Relative to having the Urtext edition, this is good that the expressive editing is removed so that you are able to work from a fresh palette without being influenced by another's interpretation. In this respect, I'd try to keep away from all of the recordings that are out of these pieces before you understand them well because they may influence your development of your understanding towards a more passive learning experience.-which I consider to be a mistake on some level.
~bilbo
N.E. Ohio

Thank you Bilbo for your wise suggestions. They are always much enlightening to me, I really appreciate them a lot.

So far I had not considered the Fantasias to be a closely related group of pieces, but this is practically my first contact with them and surely I was wrong. I will now look (and listen) to them with a different attitude.

Unfortunately I am too limited in my time for studying the twelve pieces together; not that I would not love to do so, but I also have to work on other new pieces for this school year and I have to share the time available as best as possible.

Apart from the Tägliche Übungen by M.A Reichert, a practice on scales I badly need, I will be working on Piazzola's "The History of Tango" (only "Cafe 1930" for the moment), one or two pieces from Mozart's Zauber Flöte, a beautiful version for two flutes and a few more. I also agreed with my teacher that we will start "reading" the Bach partita, though she made it clear that it is not for my present level. Nevertheless.

For the moment I have decided to propose beginning with the Fantasia 6 (or the fantasia 5) to start with.

What do you think?

Well, sure. beginning to study them is the important part.

I think that from a "flutistic" standpoint, #6 may be more melodious and possibly easier to grasp the specific issues for your starting piece.

Some reading on these pieces is available here:
http://www.rachelbrownflute.com/read.htm

~bilbo
N.E. Ohio