Arcangelo performs Telemann in Christopher Wren’s library

Arcangelo presents a video performance shot against the stunning backdrop of Sir Christopher Wren’s library at Trinity College, Cambridge. In its first studio production film, Arcangelo performs the sixth from Telemann’s 1725 ‘Quadri’, also known as the first set of his ‘Paris’ Quartets.

The Wren Library was completed in 1695, when Telemann was a teenager. It contains literary treasures such as handwritten notes and notebooks by Robert Oppenheimer and Isaac Newton, and A.A. Milne’s manuscript of Winnie the Pooh.

’Telemann wrote this music to be played by himself together with the highest-grade musicians in France at the time, like Blavet, Forqueray,’ says Arcangelo artistic director Jonathan Cohen. ’So he put all his invention and great compositional spirit into music which had to be exquisite in the French style, which is to say incredibly virtuosic but at the same time very refined. It finishes with this extraordinary passacaglia - the music growing into something that to me feels somehow apocalyptic, looking over the world as it passes.’

The players featured in the video are Jonathan Cohen, artistic director and harpsichord; Georgia Browne, flute; Sophie Gent, violin; Jonathan Manson, viola da gamba and Thomas Dunford, lute.

The full film is available to watch on Arcangelo’s YouTube channel here from 29 September 2023.

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