Published 1728/9; 8 minutes

As a trained lawyer, Telemann blazed a trail for the professional composer and gained wide recognition. A pioneer in publishing who issued 43 collections from pewter plates he himself engraved, Telemann had subscribers throughout Europe among both professional and amateur musicians. One of Telemann’s collections, Der Getreue Musik-Meister (The Trusty Music Teacher), is widely recognized as the first music periodical, running every two weeks for two years, 1728-9. Among its 70 newly published compositions is a five-movement programmatic suite for two violins extracting scenes from Jonathan Swift’s recent satirical novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726), which was then all the rage. 

After a lively Intrada, Lemuel Gulliver finds himself shipwrecked on an island populated by the Lilliputians. Swift’s little people, less than six inches tall are represented in Telemann’s little Chaconne, little more than six seconds short. Gulliver escapes with some Lilliputian animals under his arm. On his next voyage, Gulliver reaches North America and a remote Western peninsula where a farmer can be 72 ft. tall. Telemann’s Brobdingnanian Gigue is now slowed down to a near-static 24/1 tempo appropriate to the movement of these Western giants – and our two violinists are left to ‘translate’ antique note values to a contemporary tempo. Marooned off India later that year (1710), Gulliver is now rescued by the flying island of Laputa, whose fantastical inhabitants Telemann portrays by musical extremes. Abandoned by a mutinous crew, Gulliver, now on his fourth island, encounters dignified, talking horses, the Houyhnhnms, whom he befriends in preference to the Yahoos, his fellow human beings, for whom he now has no time.

Georg Philipp Telemann was held in high regard by the Bach family.  His godson, Carl Philipp Emanuel, took his second name from that of his godfather (who held him at his baptism).  Telemann contributed prolifically to just about every musical genre of the day.