Coming up in Philly music: Telemann’s Parisian pleasures

Tempesta di Mare plays Baroque music on replicas of Baroque instruments, such as the wooden Baroque flute and the short-necked, lightly strung Baroque violin. Philadelphians find it hard to believe their city can produce winners, but it’s fair to say Tempesta di Mare has become one of the top period-instrument organizations in the United States.

Like all period-instrument groups playing today, Tempesta combines the sound of the historic instruments with a scholarly knowledge of period styles and performance practices. This season its main series features events that cover late Elizabethan music, a period-instrument Messiah, and orchestral music by Bach and Purcell. The Artist Recital series includes Tempesta musicians playing Baroque violin duets and vocal music from colonial New Orleans. The venues they’ll be using include the Kimmel Center and the Museum of the American Revolution.

Catching the Big Three

For its first concert of the season, coming up at three different locations October 19 through 21, Tempesta will draw on a group of small-scale pieces with a large influence — the quartets for flute, violin, cello, and harpsichord that Georg Philipp Telemann wrote during his visits to Paris. Telemann’s handling of the four instruments set a high standard for all the quartets that followed.

Telemann has become one of Tempesta di Mare’s specialties. He was considered a secondary figure for a long time, but he’s now ranked with Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi: the Big Three of the High Baroque period. At the end of one of Tempesta di Mare’s Telemann programs last season, I decided the best word to describe his music was likeable. That doesn’t mean his work is musically simplistic. It’s usually lively, varied, and inventive. But it’s primarily meant to be enjoyed. That focus on enjoyment made him a popular composer in his own age — and it’s keeping him alive in a time when musicians play his inventions from scores displayed on their tablets.

The Tempesta di Mare Baroque Orchestra will present Georg Philipp Telemann: Paris Quartets on October 19 at 8pm at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill (8855 Germantown Avenue, Chestnut Hill); on October 20 at 8pm at the American Philosophical Society (427 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia); and on October 21 at 3pm at Christ Church Christiana Hundred in Wilmington. Tickets ($25-$39; free for full-time students with ID) are available online and at the door.