Something is a little confusing about the title of Hamburg 1734, the Harmonia Mundi disc by ace harpsichordist Andreas Staier. Is this a collection of music heard, specifically, in the city of Hamburg, Germany, in 1734? Right off the bat one notices the Handel Chaconne in G major, HWV 435, and realizes that this could not be right; although Handel's music was popular throughout Europe in 1734, he only lived in Hamburg from 1702-1707, and Dietrich Buxtehude, also represented here, was dead by 1707. The purpose of the title is designed to honor the harpsichord in use, a lavish two-manual instrument that is a copy of one built by Hieronymous Albrecht Hass in Hamburg in 1734. This harpsichord has a big sound, somewhat similar to the Ruckers instrument Wanda Landowska once played, or the kinds of harpsichords favored by E. Power Biggs.
The big name in Hamburger music circa 1734 was Georg Philipp Telemann, and three of his orchestral suites, Overture burlesque in D minor Hamburger Ebb und fluth in C major, TWV 55:C3 and Alster Overture in F major, TWV 55/F11 provide the main course in the program. The balance of Hamburg 1734 is scattered with appetizers from Mattheson, Böhm, Weckmann, Scheidemann, and contemporary composer Brice Pauset. Among the shorter pieces, the Mattheson are the most interesting ones, being Staier's own improvisations on thoroughbasses printed as exercises in Mattheson's treatise Grosse General-Bass Schule. On the whole, the pieces depending the most on Staier's own creativity are the ones that stand out -- the Telemann suites are all arrangements made by Staier himself, and some include a part for a second harpsichord, played by assistant Christine Schornsheim, whose miniscule credit is only found in the fine print. It is fun to listen to Staier's harpsichord arrangements of bizarre and eccentric Telemann pieces such as "The Concert of Frogs and Crows" and "Rustic Music of the Alster Shepherds" from the Alster Overture, but ultimately it motivates the listener to want to hear the orchestral originals, rather than return to Staier's arrangements.
Staier's liner notes focus solidly on the instrument, and seem to herald its reconstruction as a return to the type of fat, romantically conceived harpsichord sound common to instruments before 1960, like Landowska's. Nevertheless, this tone is already familiar to those who like harpsichord music, and in a sense, the Hass instrument sounds comparatively "ordinary." Likewise, Staier decries the hard times Telemann's music knew in the age of "negative dialectics," however in recent days such injustice is being balanced by a welter of Telemann recordings. Hamburg 1734 is enjoyable in part, rather than as a whole; its program seems disconnected as there is no central thread to unify these pieces and, like the manner in which Pauset's Entrée für Andreas peters out at the end with no conclusion, this disc leaves the listener scratching one's head.