GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN (1681-1767): Markus-Passion 1759.

Description: A previously unknown contemporary score of the St. Mark Passion falsely ascribed to the Magdeburg music director and composer Johann Heinrich Rolle recently came to light in the Library of the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. On the basis of the new identification of the copyist’s hand, a largely original version of Telemann’s St. Mark’s Passion of 1759 is now available today, and it is on this version that this recording draws. Freshly penned “poetical reflections” were added to the Evangelist’s text. The anonymous, theologically educated author of these reflective arias and accompagnati coordinated the sacred message of the text with a finely calculated affective dramaturgy. The various affective areas developed by Telemann are in each case modeled on the situations depicted in the recitatives. Here extremely harsh affective contrasts could exist side by side within a single aria. Moreover, in Telemann’s accompagnati his dramatic depictive artistry is even more apparent than in the arias. 2 CDs. German-English texts. Veronika Winter (soprano), Anne Bierwirth (alto), Georg Poplutz (tenor), Markus Flaig, Ekkehard Abele (basses), Rheinische Kantorei, Das Kleine Konzert; Hermann Max.