CDs recorded by John Hadden -- Andrew Manze - Telemann 12 Fantaisies for Violin

See also recordinge of Romanesca

Gramophone
"This is kaleidoscopic music, temperamentally in the same vein as Biber's eight violin sonatas - even if those works have continuo - which Manze stunned us with last year (Harmonia Mundi, 2/95). If Biber is a rhetorician of unrivalled exhibitionism, Telemann is more sophisticated, less steeped in the vernacular (though carefully alluding to it) and ready to glance into his rich compendium of experience as the most cosmopolitan composer in 1735. Freed from a continuo battery, and therefore also a mutual rhythmic responsibility, we are left with musical potential of a rare kind; if we sense this with unaccompanied Bach we are also aware of his weaving a thread of harmonic and rhythmic invention which reveals a pre-ordained edifice not always so improvisatory in outlook; the performer is rarely left entirely to his own devices as he is with Telemann. We have learnt to take virtuosity for granted with Manze - his remarkable feats allow the most prejudiced to forget that he is playing a baroque fiddle. But without such an instrument he could barely create such a biting astringency in the more self-effacing and tortured moments (Fantaisie No. 6) or a cultivated assurance and definition in articulation to the recognizably regular sections, such as Fantaisie No. 10, where Telemann is working in established forms - particularly in the latter works in the set where dance forms predominate. For sheer lucidity, breadth of imagination and colour, I am drawn again and again to Manze; he most acutely captures the sense of a famous public figure ensconced in a private world against the backdrop of a musical world in a state of flux. To add spice to an already outstanding release, we have the short and delightful Gulliver Suite for two violins where Manze is joined by Caroline Balding - trust Telemann to be up-to-the-mark only a year or two after Gulliver's Travels was published!"

Fanfare
"In recent years, Andrew Manze has served up a number of highly spiced unfamiliar dishes, among them Biber's undisciplined flights of fancy. His success in this offbeat literature inevitably raises the same question that critics often ask after a prodigy's debut in Paganini's first violin concerto: "How would this musician fare in more serious repertory?" Telemann's Fantasias aren't Bach's solo sonatas, but Manze's illuminating re-creation should reveal enough of their musical subtlety to place his own analytical skills beyond question. Manze's subtle play of colors brings order to Telemann's swirling figuration. If the fantasias don't offer him many opportunities for eccentric musical encounters of the third kind, they do showcase this ability to pan for musical gold in what seem to be exhausted veins. His 1781 Joseph Gagliano sounds magnificent throughout: stentorian in brass-ensemble-like double stops, brilliant in sparkling technical passages, and plaintive in slow meditative passages. The fantasias have been favored with a great deal of attention in recent years, but Manze is the interpreter of choice in almost everything he attempts, and the addition of Telemann's Gulliver Suite to an already generous program would tip the scales even if Manze's fantasias couldn't do so by themselves. Caroline Balding and Manze play with a unanimity that often suggests a single instrument. Their articulation is as piquant as the voice leading. Highly recommended."

Classic CD
"Any new Andrew Manze disc is fast becoming an event."

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