Telemann’s Setting of Brockes’ Passion Text

Some readers may recall that my first encounter with the Brockes Passion, a reworking of the traditional Passion oratorio text in German by the German poet Barthold Heinrich Brockes, took place at the end of November in 2019. The occasion was the release of the “house label” for the Academy of Ancient Music of a recording of George Frideric Handel’s HWV 48 setting of Brockes’ text. When Handel composed this setting is unknown; but the first documented performance took place in Hamburg in 1719. The album was thus released to use that year to celebrate the composition’s 300th birthday.

courtesy of PIAS

Handel was almost certainly not the first to set this text. Among the other composers of a Brockes Passion oratorio, the best known is probably Georg Philipp Telemann, whose TWV 5:1 oratorio was composed in 1716. harmonia mundi first released a recording of a performance with René Jacobs conducting the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin in March of 2009. That album is still available for import through an Amazon.com Web page. However, there will be a limited edition reissue, which will be released this coming Friday. Amazon has created a new Web page for it, and it is currently taking pre-orders.

The total number of movements in Telemann’s version is 117. However, almost all of them are relatively short, the only real exception being an aria sung by the “Daughter of Zion,” whose duration is more than seven and a quarter minutes. It is also worth noting that Jacob chose to omit several arias and one recitative. According to the accompanying booklet, he made these deletions “for reasons of dramatic coherence.” Given that the entire duration of this recording is two hours and twenty minutes, I suspect that few will complain about these omissions!

More interesting is the abundance of resources required for performance. The instrumentation calls for three transverse flutes, recorder, two oboes, bassoon, two violins, viola, violetta, cello, and continuo. There are ten separate choral parts, divided into SSSAATTBBB. In Jacobs’ performance the “characters” in the narrative are divided across six vocal soloists, two sopranos, Birgitte Christensen and Lydia Teuscher, one mezzo, Marie-Claude Chappuis, two tenors, Donát Havár and Daniel Behle, and one baritone, Johannes Weisser. It should go without saying that the accompanying booklet provides the complete text for the libretto in English as well as the original German.

Personally, I am of the opinion that Telemann deserves more attention than most are willing to give him. Having listened to the entire recording, I continue to be impressed by his capacities for invention. Whether or not I would sit still for the full breadth of those capacities for almost two and one-half hours is another matter. The album consists of two CDs, and I would be just as happy to deal with them one at a time!