Georg Philipp Telemann's Fortsetzung des Harmonisches Gottesdienstes is a sprawling published collection of sacred cantatas, one cantata for every Sunday and feast day in the church calendar, 72 cantatas in all. This colossal project made its bow in 1731, and is actually a sequel to an equally huge collection that Telemann published in 1725, Harmonischer Gottesdienst. About the only small thing in Fortsetzung are the performance dimensions of the individual cantatas, scored for solo voice, an instrument or two, and continuo. This CPO disc features soprano
Ruth Ziesak in five of these ten-minute-average cantatas with the
Camerata Köln providing the instrumental support. Keyboardist Sabine Bauer performs a selection of four fugues from Telemann's Kleine Fugen on a small organ that serve as interludes between the cantatas.
Even with the interludes provided, the listener may still prefer to take this recording one cantata at a time. The best moments overall are the opening and closing cantatas on the disc: Die Glut des Zorns is fiery, almost a Sturm und Drang send-off to the proceedings; it really lifts you out of your seat. The concluding Ertrage nur das Joch der Mängel is a lively and tuneful work that is inspired by dance rhythms, rather unusual in a church cantata. In the middle of the disc, though, the progress seems to bog down, as the music begins to occupy a settled and somewhat complacent atmosphere. The fugues as interludes idea does not really work, and Bauer seems to get her fingers tangled up in a couple of spots in Telemann's tricky music. Recordings of the Fortsetzung are hardly thick on the ground,
Ziesak is splendid throughout, and the players in the solo parts from the
Camerata Köln are equally good. The relatively minor concerns expressed here should not serve as a deterrent for those who are interested in these significant and congenial sacred cantatas.