This fifth volume of Telemann’s concertos has a few big surprises in store: very original instrumentations, bold or even avant-garde. We start with the Concerto TWV 50:21 from the 1760s, which manifestly represents an aristocratic hunt, as evidenced by the two solo horns. More surprising and a lot rarer, the fantastical Grillen-symphonie TWV 50:1 from 1758 in which the solo instruments include… a clarinet. Or at least its predecessor, the pipe, but the sound is already the one from the clarinet. Furthermore, Telemann adds two solo double bass sections as well as, in an obvious desire of contrast since he makes them play together, piccolos! This is here the most magnificent Telemann, the one who makes you regret he composed only three thousand five hundred works and not many more. Because, despite this profusion, originality remains the keyword of the maestro. By way of comparison, the Concerto TWV 53:g1 which follows, in 1722, remains still sagely confined to the Baroque language of its time, with a few court affectations that are quite delicious. Follows a « Sonata » for trumpet and strings which, despite its title, is well and truly a concerto. And the album ends on a high note, with the hunt, as it began: the Violin Concerto TWV 51:F4 from the 1750s, and in which the violin is admittedly the virtuoso soloist, but the global writing yet again calls upon horns, as well as two flutes and two oboes for the pastoral aspect—and kettledrums and two trumpets to better throw the listener off, in a twirling Polacca. Those are seven movements of tremendous sound creativity, and in which the wind instruments constantly take on the role of soloists. © SM/Qobuz