Telemann - Tres Vite

Interpreting the Music

Teaching & Learning the Piece

Telemann: Très vite

• E minor
• Lively, leaping around the keyboard
• Learning 14 bars gives 28 in total, due to written-out repeats.
• No chords
• No ornaments
• Interesting material in both hands

This lively piece is quite hard work but fun to play once mastered. The repetition of whole passages makes this look a longer piece than it actually is. Bars 9-18, for example, are repeated in bars 19-28. Students with a lack of agility in the LH may do better elsewhere, as the LH part is characterised by constant leaping activity.

This lively piece is quite hard work but fun to play once mastered. The repetition of whole passages makes this look a longer piece than it actually is. Bars 9-18, for example, are repeated in bars 19-28. Students with a lack of agility in the LH may do better elsewhere, as the LH part is characterised by constant leaping activity.

The articulation needs to reflect this lively mood. Crotchets should mostly be lightly detached except where they are slurred together with quavers. Bear in mind that the given slurs, although helpful, are not Telemann’s own, and a well-considered but different version may be just as acceptable. To demonstrate this, try re-working the slurring in a couple of bars.

Although we have the full resources of the piano to use, stylistic awareness becomes ever more important going up the grades. Students will be interested to hear about the reasons for playing Baroque music without pedal and in a detached style: the harpsichord player, being unable to affect the loudness of each note, used articulation to shape the phrase. Note lengths can be adjusted along a spectrum from full legato (even overholding) to ultra staccato, but the reason to detach a note is mainly to give emphasis to the next one: a note preceded by a silence sounds more important. If you have a digital piano with harpsichord voice this can be demonstrated as you describe it.

Dynamics will be influenced by the Baroque harpsichord style of “step” dynamics, as the instrument was incapable of crescendo/diminuendo but may have had a mute or “buff” stop, or a second keyboard that sounded quieter. The given changes from f to p and back are editorial suggestions, so spend some time trying out other plans. Echo effects can add interest, but if overdone can sound fussy. Where would a contrast sound good? Is it better to continue this mood into the new phrase? There are no fixed answers and the process of reaching a personal set of dynamics is very beneficial to the student’s developing musicality, as well as providing another reason to play the notes attentively!

Enjoy the dialogue between the hands at bars 11-13 and 21-23, where the pattern is thrown back and forth like a ball and the LH gets a chance of equal attention with the RH.

The second RH note does not have to be finger 3 – it could be 4 – but the third one should be 2, to get the hand in position for the next two bars. The LH leap of a ninth from bar 10 to 11 (20-21) is not worth trying to span, even for a larger hand, as the next pattern uses a five-finger position and musically the A belongs with those notes rather than the previous low G.

Bars 14-15 RH uses the thumb to jump from B to E. It is both helpful and stylish to make a little break or breath there to give poise to the new phrase, and prevent any sense of needing to rush to grab the E in strict tempo.
An alternative LH fingering in bar 18 draws attention to the return of the “dialogue” pattern and avoids awkwardness which may result from turning over the thumb.