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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)

Composer of the Week: Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767): Episode 1

Episode 1

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), Episode 1

Donald Macleod focuses on some of Telemann's early music, including a church cantata.

Donald Macleod focuses on some of Telemann's early music, including a church cantata, a concerto for four violins and an orchestral suite drawing on commedia dell'arte figures.

During his long and remarkably prolific life, Georg Philipp Telemann was recognised as the leading German composer of the Baroque era, whose reputation in his time, was even greater than that of his compatriot, JS Bach. He wrote a wealth of innovative music for the church, court, opera house, concert hall and private home. Telemann was an astute business man too, in tune with the changing tastes of his time. He made music more widely available by putting on regular series of public concerts and publishing collections of his own works for anyone willing and able to buy. 

Telemann broke new ground with the dramatic nature of his church cantatas in a move to make them more palatable to the congregation. They were hugely successful and could be heard far and wide across Germany in years to come. As a court composer in Sorau and Eisenach, he began writing fashionable French overtures and a constant stream of instrumental music. 

In the first programme, Donald Macleod features some of this early music, including a church cantata set to a text by the foremost cantata poet of the time, a concerto for four violins and an orchestral suite which draws on the popular figures of the commedia dell'arte.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod on the life and work of Telemann, the baroque era's most prolific composer.

Donald Macleod reviews the life and work of Telemann, most prolific composer of the baroque era, whose reputation, in his time, was even greater than that of his compatriot, Bach

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Composer of the Week

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)

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