By: Stephanie L

For violists like Xue Ding, the concertos of Georg Philipp Telemann and Carl Philipp Stamitz are foundational works that proudly announced the instrument’s potential as a solo voice. However, the modern performance tradition of these concertos has become strangely ossified. 

For the Stamitz, a limited number of popular 20th-century cadenzas are routinely recycled, and performers rarely venture beyond them, leaving the beautiful Andante moderato largely unadorned. 

For Telemann, there is a widespread lack of awareness of the composer’s own pedagogical tools, such as the Methodical Sonatas, which provide the key to his ornamentation style. Telemann wrote this collection precisely because he recognized that many musicians found improvisation challenging. Furthermore, even fewer performers pay attention to the critical distinction between the free, virtuosic Italian ornamentation style and the more structured, rhetorical German style. A new critical edition by a scholar-editor directly addresses these gaps, offering a meticulously researched performance guide that restores the creative dialogue between composer and performer through historically informed practice.

Xue Ding’s edition distinguishes itself through its profound commitment to historical authenticity. The editor’s embellishments are not the product of modern artistic impulse but are instead built upon a foundation of rigorous musicological research. The objective was to ensure that every added turn, trill, and variation is crafted from the precise stylistic language of each composer, resulting in a seamless and historically defensible musical narrative.

Decoding Telemann’s Language: The Methodical Sonatas

Xue’s approach to the Telemann G Major Concerto is grounded in the composer’s own pedagogical output. Xue’s primary source was Telemann’s Methodical Sonatas (Methodische Sonaten), undertaking a careful examination of their structural components. This analysis focused on:

• Rhythmic Patterns: Studying how Telemann transformed simple rhythms into more elaborate, energetic figures provided a template for adding variety to rhythmic patterns while maintaining the original style.
• Cadential Treatments: The sonatas serve as a masterclass in cadential ornamentation. Cadences should provide a sense of closure for the listener. Xue Ding applied these cadential patterns to her embellishments. In Telemann’s examples, an embellished cadence can sometimes surprisingly become a connecting bridge to the next section.
• Melodic Patterns and Rests: Xue carefully examined the melodic patterns Telemann used in the Methodical Sonatas. Unlike the Italian style, which often employs fast runs, the German style pays more attention to the harmonic structure; therefore, most of the notes used in the embellishments are drawn from the corresponding chord of that measure.

This methodology ensures the ornamentation for the slow movements is not generically Baroque but is distinctly and authentically Telemannian in character.

A Triangulation of Sources: The Stamitz Case Study

Xue’s approach to the Stamitz D Major Concerto employed a sophisticated triangulation of contemporary sources to capture the nuance of the early Classical style.

1. Johann Joachim Quantz’s Versuch (1752): Quantz, an influential 18th-century flutist and composer, was among the first to formally write about the rules and construction of cadenzas according to the musical taste of his time.
2. Daniel Gottlob Türk’s Klavierschule (1789): This treatise provided another important source from the period. Türk was clearly familiar with Quantz’s work and agreed with his viewpoints most of the time, offering a consistent philosophical framework.
3. Leopold Mozart’s Violinschule (1756): This source was instrumental in ensuring all embellishments are not only stylistically correct but also idiomatically practical for string players.

This three-source methodology creates a rich, contextualized understanding of Stamitz’s sound world, allowing the edition to reflect the elegant Galant style of the Classical period accurately.

An Invaluable Resource for the Modern Musician

This edition is designed as a dynamic, educational resource that serves multiple purposes:

• For Performers: It provides a liberating, historically defensible blueprint for ornamentation. By presenting the original, unembellished music on the bottom staff and a fully realized embellished version on the top, it offers performers inspiration for developing their own stylistically informed variations.
  
• For Educators: The edition is an invaluable pedagogical tool. It moves the topic of historical ornamentation from abstract theory to practical application, allowing teachers to use concrete examples to illustrate the principles found in the works of Telemann, Quantz, and Türk.
  
• For Scholars: It stands as a compelling case study in applied musicology, demonstrating how direct engagement with primary sources and a composer’s pedagogical works can definitively inform modern performance practice, effectively bridging the gap between academic research and the concert stage.
  

Ultimately, Xue’s edition is an invitation to a historically informed creative collaboration. It provides today’s violists with the scholarly tools and authentic vocabulary to engage with these cornerstone works not as static museum pieces, but as living, breathing documents, allowing them to speak with a voice that Telemann and Stamitz would instantly recognize as their own.