Telemann Suite in A Minor

I played this piece with my high school band my senior year of high school and now that I'm studying another baroque piece and after Kuijken's visit, I thought it would be interesting to revisit this. The piece begins with the soloist and the ensemble playing a slow theme in unison. It was a nice contrast to the Bach sonata in b minor because with that, there are clear soloist and accompaniment sections, but they are split up much more sporadically throughout the piece, whereas this happens in large chunks. Following the initial unison part, the soloist takes over and the orchestra has the accompaniment position. By now, the melody is no longer the long flowing motive we started out with, but has switched over to a fast-paced part, which is comprised mostly of sixteenth note scalar patterns. Most of the solo throughout its featured sections has this part. The soloist exits after awhile and the piece goes back to the orchestra/solo being in unison. It continues on with this quicker melody and then returns to another solo section, still containing mostly sixteenth note patterns. All of the solo material has seemed to tonicize different notes many times throughout its scale patterns, varying it a little every time and sometimes playing around in major keys. Finally, the soloist and orchestra return to unison and finish up the fast section before returning to the initial long, flowing melody we were first introduced to. Throughout the piece, beats 1 and 3 were emphasized and all others were played down, just like a good Baroque interpretation.