A spirit of participation marks the end of an important cycle
The Strad Issue: January 2026
Description: A spirit of participation marks the end of an important cycle
Musicians: Julia Huber, Martin Jopp (violins) Lucas Schurig-Breuss (viola) L’Orfeo Barockorchester/Carin van Heerden
Works: Telemann: Concertos for two violins: D major TWV52:D3, A major TWV52:A2, C major TWV52:C2, G minor TWV52:g1; Viola Concerto in G major TWV51:G9; Violin Concerto in G major TWV51:G6; Concerto à 4 in E minor TWV43:e5
Catalogue number: CPO5556992
This concluding disc in CPO’s set of Telemann’s concertante works for one, two, three or four solo violins focuses principally on his early Italianate concertos for two violins.
Julia Huber and Martin Jopp form a well-matched solo partnership and converse animatedly with each other, as well as with the tutti instruments, in this appropriately balanced recording. The dexterity of their spirited interplay in the G minor Concerto’s Allegro and the D major work’s finale is especially striking. They liberally add imaginative extempore ornamentation almost throughout, but their embellishments in, for example, the D major Concerto’s trio sonata-like Affettuoso and the A major Concerto’s Largo are too calculated for optimum emotive impact.
Some bleating vibrato is also unhelpful to the cause. Nevertheless, Huber makes her mark as soloist in the G major Violin Concerto, decorating its first three movements much more meaningfully and negotiating its final Presto’s challenging multiple-stopping and cadenza with uncommon élan.
Volume 9’s black sheep are the so-called ripieno Concerto à 4, its concertante elements neatly dispatched, and the familiar Viola Concerto, in which Lucas Schurig-Breuss embellishes freely and gives lively, energetic and clearly articulated accounts of the second and final movements. However, his well-conceived reading is marred somewhat by unevenness of tone.
ROBIN STOWELL
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