First edition
This edition is based on a manuscript from the Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung. It comes from the estate of Telemann, who gave it to his grandson Georg Michael Telemann (1748-1831). G. Poelchau acquired the manuscript in 1834 with a pack of music stored in a church tower in Riga. From Poelchau's estate († 1836) the sonata work came to the Royal Library in Berlin. The sonatas are dedicated to the brothers Rudolf, Hieronymus and Johannes Wilhelm Burmester of a Hamburg patrician family dated 1 March 1734, with the note that they follow the ‘12 methodical sonatas’, which were also dedicated to the first two brothers.
The close connection between the two large sonata works can be found in their valuable musical content, in the sequence of movements (slow, fast, slow, fast), and in the succession of keys (C-a-D-h-E-F-d-G-e-A-f sharp-g). The bass lines are often involved in the theme. Occasionally we are reminded of J.S. Bach's inventions. In the title, the violin is named as the solo instrument before the flute, as several sonatas are unmistakably written “violinistically” without this hindering their playability for flute. The present edition adheres strictly to the manuscript. Suggestions for dynamics are indicated as such by brackets, as are those for articulation (by dotted lines), which may differ for violinists from those intended for flute.
Experienced players should use the original figured bass for their own interpretation. The 12 sonatas made available to the public here for the first time are among the best compositions of this kind by Telemann, who dedicated them to 'connoisseurs and lovers' with the wish '...faire une bonne partie de Vos amusements'. The sonatas will fulfill this purpose today just as they did at that time.
