Featured Album May 2025: Erik Bosgraaf "Telemann: Chamber Music with Recorder"

A new release from Erik Bosgraaf is always cause for celebration in the recorder world. Known as one of this generation's most prevalent recorder soloists (as well as being familiar to our customers as Artistic Director of the London International Festival of Early Music), this time Bosgraaf turns his attention back to Telemann for a delightful collection of chamber music by one of the recorder's iconic composers. Released this month on Brilliant Classics, read on to find out more about the album...

Telemann: Chamber Music with Recorder
Erik Bosgraaf
& Ensemble Cordevento

OUR FEATURED ALBUM FOR MAY 2025

Click here to order now!

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From the artist's press release:

Having made five previous albums of Telemann on Brilliant Classics, Erik Bosgraaf has demonstrated a special affinity with this landmark figure of the German Baroque. For his latest recording, the Dutch virtuoso has turned to sonatas, quartets and concertos which feature the recorder alongside the oboe, creating a unique survey of Telemann’s chamber output.

As Bosgraaf remarks in his own booklet essay for the album, Telemann played the recorder himself (as well as a host of other instruments) and understood from intimate practical experience both the technical limitations and possibilities of the instrument. According to Bosgraaf, Telemann is ‘the Baroque composer who wrote the most idiomatically for the instrument.’

Central to the album is a collection of six trio sonatas, four of them cast in minor keys, exploiting the melancholic timbre of the Baroque oboe. In the same contemplative vein is an A minor Concerto a 7 for pairs of recorders, oboes and violins plus basso continuo. The D minor Quartet TWV 43:d1 is drawn from Telemann’s effervescent collection of Tafelmusik. Lightening the mood is a sparkling G major Quartet, TWV 43:G6, alongside several other quartets from TWV:43, all featuring the lively interplay that makes Telemann so satisfying to play as well as listen to.

In making this album, Bosgraaf has been reliving his youth, and his introduction to Telemann’s music at the age of 10: his aim was to recover a high-spirited vitality to the music in performance, which complements the remarkable invention and imagination of his approach to Telemann on his previous albums.

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Why The Early Music Shop loves "Telemann: Chamber Music with Recorder":

Frequently credited as one of the recorder’s foremost innovators, Erik Bosgraaf’s illustrious recording career has seen him present works by composers from Van Eyck to Boulez, collaborating with numerous artists from a huge range of genres. On his latest disc, however, Bosgraaf is not so much the innovator but the virtuoso, with Telemann’s inspired chamber music taking centre stage.

The performances are as alluring as you would expect from a soloist of Bosgraaf’s calibre, but this doesn’t feel like a ‘showy’ recording; he cleverly lets Telemann do the talking in a programme comprising concertos, quartets and trio sonatas where the focus is firmly on ensemble. Beginning each disc with one of the larger-scale works within Telemann’s chamber catalogue, the concerti in seven parts TWV 44:42 and 44:41, Bosgraaf and his colleagues impress from the outset with a unity of sound across the pairs of recorders, oboes and violins in a striking musical relay. 

Other highlights from this comprehensive and engaging programme include the Concerto di Camera in G minor TWV 43:g3, a spirited interpretation of one of this listener’s personal favourite pieces by Telemann, and the Trio Sonata in F major TWV 42:F14, where the horn (performed by Renske Wijma) has an enjoyably rich and pastoral sound offering a contrasting tonal colour.

Spanning an impressive runtime at over 2.5 hours across two discs, there is much to enjoy across the whole programme. The performances Ensemble Cordevento are light, accurate and impeccably shaped; Bosgraaf being both performer and director gives the intention and phrasing a noticeable unity across the chosen repertoire. 

With a heartfelt sleeve note contained within the CD booklet, this recording is proof of Bosgraaf’s love for Telemann’s idiomatic writing for the recorder. Being his seventh release dedicated to the composer, his affinity for the subject is clear, as is his intense expertise in performing and interpreting the music.

For those seeking evidence of Telemann’s impact and influence on the music of the recorder, look no further. This disc may well prove to be the definitive recording of this repertoire.

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Telemann: Chamber Music with Recorder is available from The Early Music Shop online or in our Snape Maltings showroom.

Click here to order now!

Click below to watch Erik Bosgraaf and Ensemble Cordevento perform extracts of music from the programme: