Editions of Georg Philipp Telemann's Works

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Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)

Overview of repertory:

Telemann was an extremely prolific composer whose music ranges from large numbers of short instrumental pieces of relatively modest complexity to long cycles of church works and large oratorios.

Method of identification of works:

The titles found in original sources are generally used for identification.

Overview of sources used:

Our sources for Telemann are highly diverse and consist mainly of period prints and manuscripts, in most cases newly edited. There is no complete printed edition of Telemann's works.

We have worked in collaboration with the Telemann Zentrum in Magdeburg, Germany, and have attempted not to duplicate their encodings, which at this writing (1998) number more than 300.

Reference catalogue:

The cataloguing of Telemann's works has been in progress for more than 20 years.

Werner Menke's Thematisches Verzeichnis der Vokalwerke von Georg Philipp Telemann (2 vols., Frankfurt am Main: Klosterman, 1982-83) is in typescript, but a published index to its listings exists. Menke's sytem employs a gene-designator (numeric) and a work number.

Martin Ruhnke's Georg Philipp Telemann: Thematisch-Systematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke (2 vols. to date, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1982-92) retains the same system of double numeration (genre number, work number). Since fugues make up genre 30, the fifth fugue listed would be indentified as 30: 5.

Some of our encoding of Telemann predates the availability of Ruhnke's catalogue, but we plan to implement his numbers (TWV). We have also used Menke's when they have been available at the time of encoding.

Work titles/numbers:

In the absence of a standard reference catalogue, we have identified Telemann's works by the source we have used. We have followed the practices of RISM [xx: please cross-ref.] in identifying manuscript sources by the siglum of the library containing the source and early prints by the the comprehensive numeration system, which begins with the composer's initial.

Thus, F-Pn would indicate the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (derived as follows: F=France, P=Paris, n=Nationale). Where T=Telemann. T 394 = the Fortsetzung des Harmonischne Gottes-Dienstes oder geistliche Cantaten [Hamburg, 1731/32].

RISM library sigla can be found in the inside cover of any volume of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (20 vols., London: Macmillan, 1980).

RISM print numbers appear in several series of printed books including, in this case, Einzeldrucke vor 1800 (9 vols., Kasssel: Bärenreiter, 1971-81).

Movement titles/numbers:

Because of the voluminous nature of the repertory, there is much room for confusion in the identification of works.