Telemann’s “late” flute duets have been seriously neglected by recorder players, given the popularity of his well-known Opus 2 Sonatas ↣, and they are a little more demanding, but really worth the effort.
We would maintain that the 1752 duets are actually rather bolder and more original than the Opus 2 works, and they deserve to be better known. In this transcription for two alto recorders the pieces have been transposed up a minor third in the usual way, though we have also included a second transposi- tion, a tone higher, of the first duet: here the players have to make the choice between some rather awkward fingerings in the minor movement in the first version, and high F sharp in the second version.
Telemann’s 1752 print, the full title of which is SECOND LIVRE DE DUO / Pour deux Violons / Fluttes ou Hautbois Par Monsieur/ GEORGES PHILIPPE/ TELEMANN/ Directeur de la Musique a Hambourg… has survived in the Civico Museo Bibliografico
Musicale in Bologna. The editor of the Telemann Gesamtausgabe was apparently unaware of the existence of this print, and based his edition on a manuscript in the Landesbibliothek in Dresden.
The two sources differ noticeably in details of ar- ticulation and phrasing: in particular the manuscript includes many more staccato notes. In this edition we have generally followed the 1752 print where the two sources contradict one another: where they actually complement each other the information has ben combined in the edition.
(David Katz)
