Fantasias for Solo Violin, TWV 40:14-25

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) was the most published composer in Europe in his lifetime and Bach’s friend — godfather to his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, and the man Leipzig wanted for the cantor’s job before it settled for Bach. He engraved much of his own music and sold it by subscription, which is why so much of it is written for players rather than for institutions.

The twelve fantasias for violin without bass, TWV 40:14–25, came out in Hamburg around 1735 and then vanished until the 1920s. Each is three or four short movements that run straight into one another — a slow opening, a fugue or a dance, a quick finale — and they are the only unaccompanied violin music of the period that stands beside Bach’s without apology. They are also a great deal more approachable: a whole fantasia is about the length of one Bach dance movement, the counterpoint is implied rather than written in four real parts, and the keys stay near the instrument’s open strings.

Each study here is a complete fantasia rather than a single movement, which is how they were written and how they are played.

About this edition. The text is Cellofun.eu’s, dedicated by its editor to the public domain — the same editor as the cello suites and the sonatas and partitas on this shelf — and it is their literal transcription, Telemann’s notes and slurs with nothing added. They typeset it for cellists, below the violin’s register; it is transposed back here, and what you read is at the pitch he wrote it.